and Frandsen (2001) state that hope is built and supported by many subsidiary attitudes, emotions, and perspectives. One of these is patience or an ability to tolerate delays; it is a willingness to let events unfold in their own time. Another subsidiary attitude/emotional state that builds and supports hope is courage which often breeds an attitude of confidence even when facing the unknown. A third is persistence, the determination to keep going no matter what happens. People are said to have hope when they say all will be well, and mean it no matter how desperate the circumstances may look.
Optimism is said to be related to the notion of hope in that in both cases, the terms comprise a focus on good outcomes rather than bad outcomes. Peterson (2000) discusses dispositional and situational optimism. Dispositional optimism is said to refer to generalized outcome expectancies that good things, rather than bad things, will happen; while situational optimism is said to refer to the expectations an individual generates for a particular situation concerning whether good, rather than bad, things will happen.
It can be noted here that hope is more akin to situational optimism in that it is often generated in response to some specific event. However, any person can experience hope whereas optimism, for the most part, arises from a given individualÆs personality or disposition (characteristic style of viewing life). One implication of this is that hope can be learned whereas optimism may not be a characteristic that can be learned or at least not learned without great effort and personal change.
Regarding differences between hope and optimism, Downing and Jura (1999) conducted a comprehensive review of the hope and optimism research concluding that:
Investigators agree that hope is an important coping skill for patients. Hope is stronger than optimism and influences one's physical well being. Suggestions and strategies tha...