Recent Research in Psychology J.R. Averill G. Catlin K.K. Chon Rules of Hope Springer-Verlag New York Berlin Heidelberg London Paris Tokyo Hong Kong James R. Averill George Catlin Department of Psychology Department of Psychology University of Massachusetts at Amherst University of Massachusetts at Amherst Tobin Hall Tobin Hall Amherst, MA 01003, USA Amherst, MA 01003, USA Kyum Koo Chon Sung Kyun Kwan University Seoul, Korea Averill, James R. Rules of hope / James R. Averill, George Catlin, Kyum Koo Chon. p. cm. - (Recent research in psychology) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN-13:978-0-387-97219-0(alk. paper) 1. Hope-Psychological aspects. 2. Hope. I. Catlin, George. II. Chon, Kyum Koo. III. Title. IV. Series. BF575.H56A95 1990 152.4-dc20 89-49228 Printed on acid-free paper. © 1990 Springer-Verlag New York Inc. All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc., in this publication, even if the former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as a sign that such names, as understood by the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks Act, may accordingly be used freely by anyone. Camera-ready copy provided by the authors. 987654321 ISBN-13:978-0-387-97219-0 e-ISBN-13:978-1-4613-9674-1 DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4613-9674-1 Preface Hope is a powerful ally. In a recent presidential campaign, one candidate implored voters to "Keep hope alive!", presumably by voting for him. Ironically, the theme "Springtime of Hope" had just contributed to two straight landslide victories for his opposition. In an entirely different field, health care providers are equally aware of the importance of hope. Hope is a sign of health, a fighting spirit, and faith that somehow good will triumph. In fact, hope is so much a part of our present cultural understanding of what it is to be a person, that when we think of someone "without hope," we imagine a person just barely on this side of the grave. Yet what exactly is hope? How is it different from ordinary wants and desires? Under what circumstances does hope arise, and when is it lost? Is hope an emotion like anger and love, or something altogether different? And if it is an emotion, does that imply it is a universal phenomenon, or might "hope" be experienced differently in different cultures? These are some of the questions this book sets out to answer. We draw our data from detailed inquiries into the experience of hope in two cultures (American and Korean) as well as an analysis of hope in metaphors and maxims. v Contents Preface ............................................................................................. v Introduction: Pandora's Legacy ................................................ 1 I. Study 1: The Anatomy of Hope ........................................ 9 II. Study 2: An Emotion of the Mind ................................ 37 III. Study 3: Metaphors and Maxims ..................................... S1 IV. Study 4: Cross-Cultural Variations ............................... 71 V. Conclusion: Emotion, Self and Society ......................... 91 Appendix ...................................................................... :. .............. 107 References .................................................................................... 121 Author Index ............................................................................... 129 Subject Index ............................................................................... 131 vii Introduction: Pandora's Legacy Over three decades ago, during the height of the cold war, Menninger (1959) posed the question: "Are we not duty bound to speak up as scientists, not about a new rocket or a new fuel or a new bomb or a new gas, but about this ancient but rediscovered truth, the validity of Hope in human development" (p. 491). Not in response to Menninger's exhortation, but reflecting the salutary effects of hope in a variety of challenging contexts, especially recovery from illness, references to hope are now frequent in medical and psychological writings (e.g., Breznitz, 1986; Frank, 1973; Friedman, Chodoff, Mason, & Hamburg, 1963; Gottschalk, 1974; Spence, Scarborough, & Ginsberg, 1978; Snyder, 1989). The references are, however, scattered, and systematic analyses have been few (cf. Fromm, 1968; Lynch, 1965; Stotland, 1969). What does it mean to say that a person has gained or lost hope, for example, when faced with a life threatening illness such as cancer? This question, it will be noted, does not call for a strict or scientific definition of hope. Rather, it concerns the way people think and 1 2 INTRODUCTION reason about hope in everyday life, and the consequences of such thinking for their well-being. Keeping in mind this emphasis on hope as ordinarily conceived, one goal of the research reported in this book can be stated as follows: to make explicit our implicit (everyday) conception of hope, and to explore the relation of hope to social systems, on the one hand, and to individual behavior, on the other. Another goal of the research was to use hope to explore issues relevant to theories of emotion. For the most part, our theories of emotion have been based on a rather narrow base. Fear, anger, and to a lesser extent, grief and love have been the primary emotions inves tigated. Yet, literally hundreds of emotions are recognized in ordinary language (Averill, 1975; Johnson-Laird & Oatley, 1989; Storm & Storm, 1987). What would our theories of emotion be like if, instead of fear and anger, we took an emotion such as hope as our paradigm case? A critic might object at the outset that hope is not an emotion, at least not a very prototypic emotion (i.e., a state that shares the salient features of the general category, "emotion"). This is an issue about which we will have much to say later, after the presentation of Studies 1 and 2 (in Chapters 1 and 2, respectively). For the moment, it suffices to acknowledge that most contemporary theories of emotion do not include hope within their domain. That, however, may say more about the nature of our theories than about the nature of hope. Current theories of emotion are a product of a particular social historical period; and our notions of what represents a basic or prototypic emotion are as much a reflection of our theoretical assumptions as they are of empirical discovery. There have been times past when hope was counted among the most fundamental emotions. Historical Perspectives on Hope The idea of hope has been a major thread running through much of the Western history; hence, hope has been the subject of many analyses of a broad philosophical or PANDORA'S LEGACY 3 cultural nature, beginning with the ancient Greeks. Pandora, it may be recalled, was the Greek equivalent of the biblical Eve. When Prometheus stole fire from heaven and gave it to humankind, Zeus ordered that a woman be fashioned who would bring misery to the race of men. She was presented to Epimetheus (the brother of Prometheus) who, ignoring a warning not to accept any gift from the gods, took her as his wife. Pandora brought with her a box containing every human ill. When Epimetheus opened the box, all the ills escaped, save one-hope. The tale of Pandora is ambiguous. Was hope another ill like the others that had escaped, or was it a benefactor left behind to aid humankind? The Greeks seemed ambivalent about hope; but in general they viewed it more as a bane rather than as a boon. According to Plato, for example, the mortal aspect of the soul or psyche is IIsubject to irresistible affections-first of all, pleasure, the greatest incitement to evil; then pain, which deters from good; also rashness and fear, two foolish counselors, anger hard to be appeased, and hope easily led astrayll (Timaeus, 69d). In a similar vein, the dramatist, Euripedes, referred to hope as a IIcurse upon humanityll (quoted by Menninger, 1959, p. 483). Our current conception of hope owes more to the Judeo-Christian tradition than to classical Greek thought. In fact, according to some authors (e.g., Myers, 1949), the Greek term, elpis, which is usually translated as IIhope,1I actually refers to a different kind of experience. But be that as it may, the Judeo-Christian tradition treats hope as a highly valued condition. Hope is, in fact, one of the three theological virtues recognized by Christianity, the others being faith and charity or love. (A virtue may be defined as a disposition to do what is best, according to one's potential. This includes the disposition to experience relevant emotional states-in this case, hope.) In view of the above, it is not surprising that through out much of the medieval period hope was regarded as a fundamental emotion. This can perhaps be best illustrated by reference to the 13th century theologian, Thomas Aquinas, whose analysis and classification of the emotions remains 4 INTRODUCTION influential even today (cf. Arnold, 1960). On the basis of criteria that need not concern us here, Aquinas (1967) distinguished eleven basic emotions; and of these eleven, four (joy, sadness, hope, and fear) were postulated as primary. Among later, more secularly oriented writers, mention might be made of two of the British Empiricists, Hume (1739/- 1888) and Hartley (1749/1966), both of whom classified hope among the fundamental emotions. Since their views were similar, only a brief summary of Hartleis classification scheme will be given here. According to Hartley, emotions are aggregates of simple ideas, united by association. What leads a state to be classified as emotional is its relationship to pleasure and pain. Pleasure, associated with the idea of its exciting object, is love. When love reaches a certain degree of intensity, so that action is encouraged, we have desire. If the desired object is in the future and only possible, we experience hope. If our hope is fulfilled, the result is joy. When the joy is past, there remains pleasing recollection. These five emotions (love, desire, hope, joy, and pleasing recollection) are, on the positive side, "general passions of human nature." There is a corresponding series of five negative emotions, derivatives of pain (hate, aversion, fear, grief, and displeasing recollection or resent ment). For a somewhat different orientation, we might mention the views of Kant, one of the pivotal figures in modem philosophy. Kant was concerned primarily with the analysis of reason; his comments on the emotions are there fore somewhat superficial, unsystematic, and even contra dictory, but nevertheless instructive. In his Anthropology (1800/1978), Kant compared the emotions to diseases of the mind, to the extent that they are contrary to deliberate, rational thought. Hope is no exception. "The mind embraces hope as an emotion without reservation because of the unexpected emergence of a prospect of im measurable good fortune; consequently, the emotion keeps rising until it reaches the point of suffocation" (p. 159). Elsewhere, however, Kant (1781/1966, p. 516) indicated that one of his three major critiques (namely, the Critique of Judgment) corresponds roughly to the question: For what may PANDORA'S LEGACY 5 I hope, if I do as I should? The implication seems to be that hope is like a disease if it leads one to act immorally or imprudently, but that it is good if it inspires one to lead a moral, rational life. Kant was a leading spokesman for the Enlightenment (eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries), during which time the explicitly religious rationale for hope was gradually replaced by a different kind of faith-in progress based on reason. For the more radical advocates of enlightenment, man became God; science became religion; and hope became secularized. But man proved to be feeble and unwilling god; and the promises of science rang hollow in the sweatshops spawned by the industrial revolution. Not surprisingly, then, the Enlightenment gave way to romanticism and even nihilism. Nietzsche may be taken as representative of the latter trend. Harking back to the Greek myth, Nietzsche (1878/1986) observes that, by including hope among the evils in Pandora's box, Zeus only wanted to prevent humans from taking their own lives when overwhelmed by misfortune. Hope, Nietzsche averred, "is the worst of all evils, for it protracts the torment of man. (p. 45)1 1I This brief historical survey, cursory as it is, suffices to illustrate three important points. First, hope has occupied a prominent place within the Western cultural tradition, which fact alone would make it a worthy topic of investigation. Second, hope has often been treated as a basic or funda mental emotion, and hence its analysis can tell us something about emotions in general. And, third, our conception of hope is to a certain extent culturally relative, varying from one historical period to another. Actually, Nietzsche was a reluctant nihilist at best His later 1 writings, expecially, had a messianic quality in which hope could fmd a place. Thus, his prophet Zarathustra could proclaim: BLet your love to life be love to your highest hope; and let your highest hope be the highest thought of life ... [namely] this, man is something that is to be surpassedB (Nietzsche, 1883-1884/n.d., p. 47). Clearly, Nietzsche was no more consistent in his attitudes toward hope than was Kant, although by extolling the passions over reason, he turned Kant on his head, so to speak.