Finding Hope in Hopeless Environments

Abstract

IntroductionThe majority (75%) of lifetime cases of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders start by age 24 (1,2). These disorders result from complex interactions of personal and ecological risk and protective factors, which have potential to alter children's developmental trajectories and course outcomes. Adolescence is a time when influences outside home expand, but when family resources and early childhood experiences are still important. The harmful or protective impact of these influences have potential to alter course trajectory by affecting adolescent education, health and risk taking behavior that influence future morbidity and mortality.Pessimistic predictions about future reflect a sense of hopelessness and/or learned helplessness and are associated with an increased risk for many of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders seen in adolescence and young adulthood. Previous studies have identified individual and environmental characteristics of youth with pessimistic predictions about future (3-5). Hopelessness is often associated with poverty, which results in accumulation of multiple risk factors. However, poverty does not always result in poor health and developmental outcomes, as financial capital is only one of valuable resources in human ecology and it is not only determinant of health (6). The AAP Policy Statement for Child Rights and Health Equity recognizes other forms of human capital (personal, social, environmental, educational) that contribute to a child's health and well-being (7).The identification of risk factors and their association with poor outcomes do not explain those youth who are resilient and have good outcomes despite their exposure to risk factors (8). Resiliency is the human capacity to face, overcome, and even be strengthened by adversities of life (9). It may be explained by impact of alternate forms of human capital, which mitigate effects of low financial capital. Resiliency in adolescence and young adulthood has been associated with youth, family and environmental characteristics such as intellectual resources, optimistic future orientation, presence of caring relationships with positive adult role models, and opportunities to succeed (10, 11).Hope is a form of personal capital that correlates with and predicts rates of many outcomes, including academic achievement, initiation of early sexual activity, and violence perpetration. Figure 1 shows a pictorial representation of correlates of hope found in previous studies (3-5,12-15). Snyder proposed a similar definition of hope, consisting of three components: goals, agency, and pathways. Agency refers to a person's self-appraisal of their capacity to change outcomes and to plan (pathways) for goal attainment and adjust those plans when faced with barriers (16).Goal achievement results in positive self-esteem and a feeling of competency, which affects degree of hope in future goal-directed behavior. If youth encounter barriers, such as those inherent in economic disadvantage, that result in repeated failures, self- esteem suffers and future possibilities may seem limited. Whether hope is measured with a scale or inferred through predictions of future, level of hope in a child or adolescent correlates with concurrent risk factors and behaviors and is predictive of future morbidity and mortality.This study uses elements of human capital investment as a framework to analyze individual and contextual contributions to adolescent hope, or those with an optimistic future orientation. The hypothesis is that multiple forms of human capital (social, environmental, educational, economic) promote hope regardless of economic disadvantage.MethodsData for this study are from National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Add Health is largest, most comprehensive longitudinal survey of adolescents in United States. …