Hope and academic success in college.

A cognitive, motivational theory is introduced to the educational research community. Hope theory integrates the conceptualization of goals, along with the strategies to achieve those goals (pathways), and the motivation to pursue those goals (agency). In a 6-year longitudinal study, individual differences in hope, as measured by the Hope Scale (C. R. Snyder et al., 1991) scores of entering college freshmen, predicted better overall grade point averages even after controlling for variance related to entrance examination scores. High- relative to the low-hope students also were more likely to have graduated and not to have been dismissed over this 6-year period. Hopeful thinking in college academics is discussed, along with the contributions of hope theory for educational research and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hope: An individual motive for social commerce.

The authors suggest that people of all ages are goal oriented and that 2 related thought processes typically accompany this goal-related thinking. First, there are pathway thoughts, which tap the perceived capability to generate 1 or more workable routes to desired goals. Second, there are agentic thoughts, which reflect the perception that one can initiate and sustain movement toward a goal along the given pathways. Together, pathway and agentic goal-directed thinking define hope in the present model. After describing how hope develops, the self-report instruments for measuring hope in children and adults are reviewed. How hope is sustained in the context of larger groups is explored, and the importance of shared goals as the foundation of communal hope is described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development and validation of the State Hope Scale.

Defining hope as a cognitive set comprising agency (belief in one's capacity to initiate and sustain actions) and pathways(belief in one's capacity to generate routes)to reach goals, the Hope Scale was developed and validated previously as a dispositional self-report measure of hope ( C. R. Snyder et al, see record 1991-17270-001). The present 4 studies were designed to develop and validate a measure of state hope. The 6-item State Hope Scale is internally consistent and reflects the theorized agency and pathways components. The relationships of the State Hope Scale to other measures demonstrate concurrent and discriminant validity; moreover, the scale is responsive to events in the lives of people as evidenced by data gathered through both correlational and causal designs. The State Hope Scale offers a brief, internally consistent, and valid self-report measure of ongoing goal-directed thinking that may be useful to researchers and applied professionals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury in adults

PURPOSE: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) stands as a major public health problem and one of the most important challenges for neurological rehabilitation. This review discusses advances that have occurred in the past 10 years in rehabilitation after severe TBI in adults. METHOD: First, theoretical concepts, goals of rehabilitation and organization of resources are reviewed. Then specific questions that arise in the rehabilitation of severe TBI patients are considered. RESULTS: Three phases are distinguished in post-traumatic evolution. Acute rehabilitation takes place during coma and arousal states. Specific aims are to prevent orthopaedic and visceral complications, and to provide sensory stimulations with the hope of accelerating arousal. Secondly subacute (generally inpatient) rehabilitation is designed to facilitate and accelerate recovery of impairments, and to compensate for disabilities. Motility, cognition, behaviour, personality and affect should be simultaneously addressed in an holistic approach. Physical as well as psychological independence and self-awareness are the major goals to emphasize. A third, post-acute rehabilitation phase includes outpatient therapy for achieving physical, domestic and social independence, reduction of handicaps and re-entry into the community. CONCLUSIONS: Problems with returning home, obtaining financial independence, driving, returning to work, participating in social relationships and leisure activities, and the importance of psychosocial adjustment and self-acceptance, are outlined. Questions about economic aspects and rehabilitation in the future are addressed.     

Role of hope in academic and sport achievement

Hope is the sum of goal thoughts as tapped by pathways and agency. Pathways reflect the perceived capability to produce goal routes; agency reflects the perception that one can initiate action along these pathways. Using trait and state hope scales, studies explored hope in college student athletes. In Study 1, male and female athletes were higher in trait hope than nonathletes; moreover, hope significantly predicted semester grade averages beyond cumulative grade point average and overall self-worth. In Study 2, with female cross-country athletes, trait hope predicted athletic outcomes; further, weekly state hope tended to predict athletic outcomes beyond dispositional hope, training, and self-esteem, confidence, and mood. In Study 3, with female track athletes, dispositional hope significantly predicted athletic outcomes beyond variance related to athletic abilities and affectivity; moreover, athletes had higher hope than nonathletes.     

Self-handicapping, excuse making, and counterfactual thinking: Consequences for self-esteem and future motivation.

Researchers interested in counterfactual thinking have often found that upward counterfactual thoughts lead to increased motivation to improve in the future, although at the cost of increased negative affect. The present studies suggest that because upward counterfactual thoughts indicate reasons for a poor performance, they can also serve as excuses. In this case, upward counterfactual thoughts should result in more positive self-esteem and reduced future motivation. Five studies demonstrated these effects in the context of self-handicapping. First, upward counterfactual thinking was increased in the presence of a self-handicap. Second, upward counterfactual thoughts indicating the presence of a self-handicap protected self-esteem following failure. Finally, upward counterfactual thoughts that protect self-esteem reduced preparation for a subsequent performance as well as performance itself. These findings suggest that the consequences of upward counterfactuals for affect and motivation are moderated by the goals of the individual as well as the content of the thoughts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance-approach goals: Good for what, for whom, under what circumstances, and at what cost?

Some researchers have called for a reconceptualization of goal theory that acknowledges the positive effects or performance-approach goals. The authors of the present article review studies that indicate that performance-approach goals are associated with adaptive patterns of learning but note that, in other studies, these goals have been unrelated or negatively related to the same outcomes. There is a need to consider for whom and under what circumstances performance goals are good. There is some evidence that performance-approach goals are more facilitative for boys than for girls, for older students than for younger students, in competitive learning environments, and if mastery goals are also espoused. The authors describe the cost of performance-approach goals in terms of the use of avoidance strategies, cheating, and reluctance to cooperate with peers. They conclude that the suggested reconceptualization of goal theory is not warranted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vitalism in naive biological thinking.

Vitalism is the belief that internal bodily organs have agency and that they transmit or exchange a vital force or energy. Three experiments investigated the use of vitalistic explanations for biological phenomena by 5- and 10-year-old English-speaking children and adults, focusing on 2 components: the notion that bodily organs have intentions and the notion that some life force or energy is transmitted. The original Japanese finding of vitalistic thinking was replicated in Experiment 1 with English-speaking 5-year-olds. Experiment 2 indicated that the more active component of vitalism for these children is a belief in the transfer of energy during biological processes, and Experiment 3 suggested an additional, albeit lesser, role for organ intentionality. A belief in vital energy may serve a causal placeholder function within a naive theory of biology until a more precisely formulated mechanism is known. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Methodological advances and issues in rehabilitation psychology: Moving forward on the cutting edge.

Scientific research plays an important role in advancing the knowledge base of rehabilitation psychology. Research contributes to theory building and provides the foundation for empirically supported rehabilitation psychology practices, and model-based diversity-sensitive evidence-based interventions help persons with disabilities to become fully integrated into the society. Objective: In this article, the guest editors present their rationale for developing this special issue on methodological advances in rehabilitation psychology. Conclusions: They suggest that rehabilitation psychology research needs to be theory driven using rigorous research designs, strategies, and techniques and describe their selection of articles designed to highlight some exciting new developments in rehabilitation psychology research and to stimulate thinking and facilitate discussion about incorporating these new techniques in theory-driven research programs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of worrisome thinking in the suppression of cardiovascular response to phobic imagery

Speech-fearful subjects repeatedly imagined a phobic image while heart rate and subjective reports of fear were monitored. Subject groups differed according to the type of mental activity that preceded each image. One group thought about a relaxing situation (Relaxation) and one group engaged in worrisome thinking (General-Worry). Three other groups were pre-trained to worry during their pre-image mentation periods with an emphasis on: (a) the thoughts; (b) the images; or (c) the affect experienced during worry. Cardiovascular effects occurred only on the first image presentation. Thought-Worry produced significantly less heart rate response than did Relaxation; the other worry conditions fell nonsignificantly between these two groups. Within-group correlations between heart rate response to the image and the reported predominance of thought relative to imagery during the preceding mentation period showed that: (a) greater worrisome thinking in General-Worry was related to less cardiovascular response; and (b) greater relaxed thinking in Relaxation was associated with greater cardiovascular response. These results support the hypothesis that it is the worrisome thinking aspect of worry that may inhibit the emotional processing of phobic material and that Gray's mismatch theory of anxiety elicitation may account for these effects.     

Tracking the construction of episodic future thoughts.

The ability to mentally simulate possible futures (episodic future thinking) is of fundamental importance for various aspects of human cognition and behavior, but precisely how humans construct mental representations of future events is still essentially unknown. We suggest that episodic future thoughts consist of transitory patterns of activation over knowledge structures at different levels of specificity, with general knowledge about the personal future (i.e., personal semantic information and anticipated general events) providing a context or frame for retrieving, integrating, and interpreting episodic details. In line with this hypothesis, Study 1 showed that the construction of episodic future thoughts is frequently a protracted generative process in which general personal knowledge is accessed before episodic details. We then explored in more detail the nature of this general personal knowledge and tested the hypothesis that it is mainly organized in terms of personal goals. Study 2 showed that cuing participants with knowledge about personal goals increased the ease of future event production during a fluency task. Study 3 further demonstrated that cuing participants with their personal goals facilitated access to episodic details during the imagination of future events. Taken together, these findings indicate that general personal knowledge and, in particular, knowledge about personal goals plays an important role in the construction of episodic future thoughts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rehabilitation psychology: Exploring issues.

Rehabilitation Psychology has several goals. One of its primary functions is to disseminate information that promotes the effective use of knowledge. While really new and current developments in rehabilitation interventions having psychological components may be known to the reader long before discussion of them appears in Rehabilitation Psychology, few "new findings" are dealt with to everyone's complete satisfaction. Many opinions exist about the efficacy of most innovative strategies; these conflicting views often are diverse, if not controversial. Therefore, it is helpful to provide professionals a forum in which they can discuss a problem and offer different viewpoints and perspectives that promote its resolution. I hope to make the journal such a forum within which these varying viewpoints can be heard. As Editor, I view Rehabilitation Psychology as being the single most significant organ through which the field can acquire additional clarity and identity. I view the role of Editor as being similar to that of a gatekeeper. The role entails major responsibility for ensuring that clinicians and academicians have an opportunity to present their findings and their opinions about critical issues facing the field. It is a role I hope to fulfill with competence and sensitivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hope theory, measurements, and applications to school psychology.

The tenets of a cognitive, motivational model called hope theory (Snyder et al., 1991) are reviewed, along with the two accompanying instruments for measuring hope in children and adolescents. More than a decade of research on hope theory as it relates to students, teachers, and schools is summarized. Likewise, the applications of hope theory for school psychologists are reviewed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Programming for occupational outcomes following traumatic brain injury.

Examines the occupational outcomes reported from 3 traumatic brain injury (TBI) rehabilitation models: comprehensive neuropsychological rehabilitation, comprehensive neuropsychological rehabilitation and occupational trials, and supported work. It is argued that programming for occupational entry or reentry must include precise specification of barriers to rehabilitation outcome goals and systematic planning for skill generalization and maintenance. The Barriers Profile and the New Medico Barriers to Anticipated Rehabilitation Outcomes Scale are offered as tools to assist interdisciplinary treatment teams in identifying the number and magnitude of personal and environmental barriers to occupational resettlement; their use is illustrated with a case example. Procedures for enhancing generalization and maintenance of treatment goals are discussed. A comment by T. Kay follows. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The place and promise of theory in rehabilitation psychology research.

Objective: Although rehabilitation psychology is more focused on empirical evidence and clinical application than theory development, the authors argue for the primacy of theory and explain why theories are needed in and useful for rehabilitation psychology. Impediments to theory development are discussed, including the difficulties of applying psychological theories in multidisciplinary enterprises and the difficulties in developing a theory-driven research program. The authors offer suggestions by reviewing research settings, knowledge gained through controlled studies, grantsmanship, and then identify topical areas in which new theories are needed. Researcher-practitioners are reminded that rehabilitation psychology benefits from a judicious mix of scientific rigor and real-world vigor. Conclusions: The authors close by advocating for theory-driven research programs that embrace a methodological pluralism, which will, in turn, advance new theory, produce meaningful research programs that inform practice, and realize the goals of this special issue of Rehabilitation Psychology--advances in research and methodology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of recursive and nonrecursive thinking about persons.

Studied 2 levels of the spontaneous inference of thinking in others: (a) Level I, in which the child infers that another person has thoughts about the concrete world, such as objects and actions; and (b) Level II, in which the child infers that another person has thoughts about thinking. Approximately 20 children each at ages 10, 12, 14, and 16 were asked to talk about 3 different persons whom they knew well. A statistically significant increase in the use of Level I thinking occurred between the 10- and 12-yr-old groups, while such an increase in the use of Level II occurred between the 14- and 16-yr-olds. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some psychological effects associated with positive and negative thinking about stressful event outcomes: Was Pollyanna right?

173 undergraduates completed an event-outcome appraisal questionnaire designed to make salient positive and negative thoughts about the outcomes of recent stressful events. Ss' well-being was assessed both immediately after the salience manipulation and again 8 wks later. Results show that positive thinking increased the well-being that Ss reported immediately after their thoughts were assessed but was unrelated to the well-being they reported after the 8-wk delay. It is suggested that although thinking positively about past event outcomes may temporarily lead to perceptions of increased well-being while the thoughts are salient, it has no enduring influence. In contrast, negative thinking was associated with lower reported well-being not only when the thoughts were salient but after a delay as well. Psychological effects associated with both types of thinking were due mostly to self-relevant thoughts rather than to externally relevant ones. Negative thinking about prior stressor outcomes appeared to increase vulnerability to the impact of later ones on several aspects of well-being. It is concluded that the absence of negative thinking, rather than the presence of positive thinking, is beneficial. (47 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Writing as thinking.

Writing is analyzed as thinking that uses paper or other media to externalize and manipulate symbolic expressions. Mental operations of natural language can occur somewhat independently, and they communicate well with language that has been written, but for skilled writing these operations need elaborate installation in the mind. We explore four methods to see how expert writers externalize thoughts and interact with them: laboratory comparisons of novices and experts, interviews with accomplished writers (mostly of prose fiction), biographical analysis of Jane Austen's development as a writer, and consideration of Gustave Flaubert's notes and drafts. Writers can use paper to extend their thinking, and to create frameworks of cues that enable readers of a story to construct mental models that they may enter empathetically. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Counseling adults in transition: Linking practice with theory.

Reviews the book, Counseling adults in transition: Linking practice with theory by Nancy K. Schlossberg (1984). Rehabilitation psychologists can profit from this book because of its concise contents, its intensive examination of life's transitions, its gerontological perspectives, its insistent "linking" of otherwise linear thinking, and its pervasive implications for work with rehabilitation clients. This statement of the book's value for our field is given to start with, since its title might suggest that it is relevant only to rehabilitation counseling. Schlossberg ably discusses theories and practices of interest to rehabilitation psychologists and reviews research with pertinent heuristic possibilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Open versus closed kinetic chain exercise: issues in rehabilitation after anterior cruciate ligament reconstructive surgery

What has been called "closed kinetic chain" (CKC) exercise has become popular in the last 5 to 10 years for use after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstructive surgery. Closed kinetic chain exercises appear to have gained popularity over more traditionally used open kinetic chain (OKC) exercises because many clinicians believe that CKC exercises are safer and more functional. These clinicians also contend that CKC exercise is equally effective as OKC exercise in restoring quadriceps femoris muscle force production following ACL reconstructive surgery. The purpose of this clinical perspective is to examine the evidence concerning OKC and CKC training after ACL reconstructive surgery with regard to these issues and discuss how physical therapists can best apply this knowledge in clinical practice. Based on the review of data, it does not appear that clinicians should completely abandon more traditional OKC exercises and replace them with CKC exercises in postoperative ACL reconstruction rehabilitation programs. Both types of exercise apparently can be modified to minimize (1) the risk of applying excessive strain on the ACL graft and (2) the risk of excessive patellofemoral joint stress. Depending on the functional goals of the patient, both OKC and CKC exercises may be appropriate for simulating functional activities. When improvement in quadriceps femoris muscle function is an essential treatment goal, therapists may need to combine OKC exercises with CKC exercises to provide optimal training stimuli. Suggestions for further research are discussed. [Fitzgerald GK. Open versus closed kinetic chain exercise: issues in rehabilitation after anterior cruciate ligament reconstructive surgery.