Satisfaction with life and hope in youth

Abstract

Youth is a very important phase in the development process of human being. In this stage of life an individual is practically launched into the outside world. The success of youth in challenging world in academics and other spears of life depends upon innate abilities and psychological resources. Hope and life satisfaction plays a significant role for development of youth.Now, with availability of plentiful opportunities, the choices are becoming increasingly complex and confusing. The youths who are hopeful and satisfied with life can take up these challenges and can prepare for their better future. Snyder (2000) has conceptualized Hope as the sum of the capability to plan one's ways to attain your desired goals, regardless of barriers and motivation to use these pathways. Hopeful thoughts are centered on the belief that one can discover pathways to desired objectives and become motivated to make the most of those pathways. Hope includes a belief that one knows how to reach one's goals (Pathways) and a belief that one has the motivation to use those pathways to reach one's goals (Agency)' (Snyder, Rand, & Sigmon, 2002).Satisfaction with one's life implies contentment with or acceptance of one's life circumstances, or the fulfilment of one's wants and needs for one's life as a whole. The Satisfaction with Life Scale was created to assess a person's global judgment of life satisfaction (Diener et al., 1985). Life satisfaction may be defined as a conscious, cognitive, global judgment of one's own life. It is not an assessment based on externally imposed objective standards, but rather depends upon a comparison of one's life circumstances to one's own internal standards or criteria (Diener et al., 1985; Pavot et al., 1991; Pavot & Diener, 1993).In present study temporal dimension of life satisfaction is used. The temporal focus allows for a more comprehensive examination among past, present and future level of global life satisfaction. This could be useful in examining the life satisfaction across the life span of an individual or examine an individual who has undergone significant life changes, which might denote sharp contrast in levels of life satisfaction between different temporal frames (Pavot & Diener, 1993 ).Hopeful youths have a tendency to be happy and satisfied with life. People with high hopes are successful in their goal pursuits and, as a result, tend to experience more positive emotions. The relationship between hope and other factors is assessed and reported by various researchers (Lopez et al., 2003; Snyder et al., 2002; Argyle, 2001; Snyder et al., 1999; Marques, Lopez, & Mitchell, 2012). People with low hopes tend to have more difficulty in overcoming the barriers to goal attainment and, therefore, tend to experience more negative emotions (Lopez et al., 2003; Snyder et al., 2002). Hope plays a significant role in an individual's achievement of life. Hope improves athletic performance, aids psychological adjustment and increases perceived social support. Hopeful thinking can increase sense of mastery and self-efficacy (Argyle, 2001 ; Snyder et al., 1999). These factors seem to increase a sense of satisfaction with life.A longitudinal study examined the relation between hope, spirituality, religious practice and life satisfaction of students. The results from the cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis suggest that hope and spirituality, but not religious practice, were strongly linked to adolescents' life satisfaction. Hope significantly predicted life satisfaction at a single time point, 6-months and 1-year later, and spirituality scores added significant variance beyond hope scores. All the variables demonstrate moderate to high stability across 6-months and 1year time frame; no significant changes were found between the variables across the administration's (Marques, Lopez, & Mitchell, 2012).The purpose of present study is to understand the relationship between satisfaction with life and hope in the lives of youths. …