A psychometric comparison of four measures of hope and optimism

This study was designed to compare and contrast the psychometric properties of four scales developed to measure hope and optimism, namely, the Revised Generalized Expectancy for Success Scale, the Life Orientation Test (LOT), the Hope Scale (HS), and the Hunter Opinions and Personal Expectations Scale. The definitions on which the mea-sures are based are compared along with their reported reliability and construct validity. Three hundred and forty-seven undergraduate students completed the scales along with measures of trait negative affect (TNA) and trait positive affect (TPA), task- and emo-tion-oriented coping and perceived stress. All scales had adequate internal consistency, and there was strong evidence of convergent validity. Regarding factor structure replicability, the LOT was marginally superior. The possibility of the scales’redundancy because of contamination by TNA or TPA depended on the criterion construct. It is argued that the LOT and HS are the scales of choice when assessing hope and/or optimism. The propensity to view life positively has long been associated with psy-chological and physical health, but it did not receive serious attention in the scientific literature until Frankl (1963), Menninger (1959), and Stotland (1969) introduced hope to the academic literature. However, there was little interest in such constructs then in the scientific community. In the mid-1970s, as a result of research related to stress, coping, and illness, interest in hope and related constructs increased (Snyder, Irving, & Anderson, 1991). Al-though the early focus of stress and health research was on identifying the de-terminants of poor coping, illness, and psychopathology (Breznitz, 1986), as exemplified by the development of the Hopelessness Scale (Beck, Weissman, Lester, & Trexler, 1974), it was soon recognized that positive The author would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments on an earlier version of this article