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Objective: To study the developmental trajectory of hope among late-adolescents, taking population heterogeneity and the impact of gender and family socioeconomic status (SES) into consideration., Methods: The study used the Snyder Hope Scale to perform four surveys of a sample of 381 Chinese late-adolescents, both male and female, with a mean age of 17.69 ± 1.12 years, over the course of one year, and employed a growth mixture model to perform data analysis., Results: Although the levels of hope among the respondents who had high and moderate levels of hope at the outset of the study remained relatively stable over the course of the year, those with low levels of hope exhibited a significant decrease over time., Conclusions: There is significant population heterogeneity in late-adolescents' developmental trajectory of hope. Additionally, gender and family SES have a significant effect on the developmental trajectory of hope, as significantly more female students than male students reported high levels of hope. Furthermore, participants with high family SES outnumbered those with low family SES in the high-hope group, whereas those with low SES outnumbered those with high SES in the low-hope group., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Objective: This study aimed to examine the relationship between depression and two dimensions of hope (pathways thinking and agency thinking) in college students and explore the dynamics of the causal relationship between these variables., Methods: A longitudinal study was conducted and included 381 college students. Hope and depression were measured using Snyder's State Hope Scale and the Center for Epidemiological Survey Depression Scale respectively, four times within a year (at 4-month intervals), and cross-lagged regression analysis was performed., Results: The bidirectional paths between pathways thinking and depression were highly significant. The paths from agency thinking to depression were non-significant, but the paths from depression to agency thinking were significant., Conclusion: There was a significant bidirectional relationship between pathways thinking and depression. In addition, depression levels predicted levels of agency thinking, but levels of agency thinking did not predict depression levels. Therefore, interventions for depression should include strategies that assist individuals in the use of pathways thinking to establish specific routes via which to achieve their goals. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., (Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

This longitudinal study investigated the role of psychological difficulties and self-efficacy in the relationship between family cumulative risk and hope among children from low-income families. The participants were 392 Chinese children from low-income families; the study extended for 2 years, and participants completed data that were collected with the following questionnaires: the Family Cumulative Risk Index, Children's Hope Scale, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire-Difficulties subscale, and General Self-efficacy Scale. The results demonstrated that psychological difficulties played a mediating role in the relationship between family cumulative risk and hope; specifically, family cumulative risk predicted hope of children via psychological difficulties. Self-efficacy moderated the relationship between psychological difficulties and hope. This moderation supported "a drop in the ocean effect"; the protective effect of high self-efficacy worked only when psychological difficulties were at low levels. When psychological difficulties were at high levels, the buffering effect of self-efficacy on family cumulative risk was gradually weakened and eventually lost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The original Snyder's Dispositional Hope Scale (DHS) was applied to 224 American college students and the Chinese version to 255 Chinese college students. Equivalence of the two DHS was tested, including configural invariance, metric invariance, and scalar invariance. The results demonstrated that the Snyder's DHS has measurement equivalence between Chinese and American college students; that is, the same psychological structure was measured in Chinese and American college samples. Therefore, cross‐cultural measurements of hope are valid. In addition, Chinese college students and American college students did not differ significantly on the Agency factor of the DHS whereas American students scored significantly higher than did Chinese college students on the Pathways factor. This dissimilarity may be explained by differences in the cultural backgrounds and education systems of the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This longitudinal study examined whether poverty-related family risk groups with varying family resource, parental, and relational risks differed in their children's internalizing problems, and whether children's hope mediated this relationship. A sample of 798 children from poor families (N = 798, M age = 11.76, SD = 2.56) was obtained from six township public schools in China. Four groups were identified: education and involvement risk group, high risk group, parenting risk group, and family resource risk group. All groups differed in terms of internalizing problems. Compared to the education and involvement risk group, children in the high risk and parenting risk groups demonstrated higher internalizing problems, which was explained by their lower level of hope. These findings highlight that children from poor families are affected by different risk combinations, and hope may be a possible mechanism linking specific risk combinations with children's internalizing problems. These findings have implications for targeted intervention strategies. • The four poverty-related family risk groups differed in their level of internalizing problems. • Specific constellations of poverty-related adversities differentially predicted children's internalizing problems. • Hope mediated the links between risk and internalizing problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]