Coping with health problems: the distinctive relationships of Hope sub-scales with constructive thinking and resource allocation

The present study addressed the role of hope in coping with health problems, and tested the distinctive predictions of its components: agency (goal motivation) and pathways (goal planning) with constructive thinking and resource allocation to coping. Two questionnaires, trait-hope and constructive thinking were completed by 107 students. Subsequently, they reported a stressful health problem, and recorded the thoughts that emerged during coping with that stressful event in the format of a diary. Finally, they completed the resource allocation questionnaire. Results from exploratory path analysis demonstrated that the relations between hope and constructive-thinking were primarily a function of students’ endorsement of agency, whereas the relationship between hope and resource-allocation were primarily a function of pathways. High-pathways students allocated more resources to coping activities and shifted more resources away from off-task and self-regulation processes. These findings provide both specificity and extension to Snyder’s two-fold conceptualization of hope, and have important implications for both theory and counseling.