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Welcome to the homepage for Dr. Patty Van Cappellen’s research project entitled “What is Hope? Bridging the Gap Between Lived Experience, Practice, and Research”. In late 2023, Dr. Van Cappellen at Duke University was awarded grant funding from the John Templeton Foundation to investigate lived experiences of hope. She serves as Principal Investigator on this grant, a three-year project beginning in September 2024 to March 2027.

Hope: A Brief Introduction

Hope is crucial to fostering resilience, motivation, and positive life outcomes. In a time marked by increasing turbulence and uncertainty, there is a renewed sense of urgency to define what hope is, where it can be found, and how it can be embodied in everyday life. In addition, recognizing hope as a core religious competency can possibly shed light on its connections to faith, spirituality, and existential concerns. Yet, current psychological conceptualizations of hope are limited and incomplete, ranging from too narrow (goal-pursuit; Snyder, 1994) to too broad (a multidimensional approach with multiple confounding factors; Scioli et al., 2011). Therefore, we aim to renew understanding of hope by incorporating faith-based and lay perspectives into the study of this vital and practically significant construct.

Our Plan: Toward a renewed understanding of hope.

The following are the steps we plan to take in order to expand and refine our current understanding of hope:

1. Refine the literature review on hope and identify strengths and weaknesses in its current conceptualization.
2. Incorporate the ways hope is lived on the ground and transforms lives today via collecting and analyzing “stories of hope”.
   • This will be done via a series of qualitative studies in which we ask people to provide narratives about times in which they have experienced hope. To ensure a diverse and comprehensive set of perspectives, we will strategically recruit participants with religious, cultural, and socioeconomic diversity in mind.
3. Propose an expanded but scientifically precise definition of hope and set a research agenda.
   • While understanding everyday hope experiences is crucial to establishing a more comprehensive definition of hope, lay people may identify many interrelated concepts in their narratives or be subject to biased introspection. Therefore, an interdisciplinary team of experts will be assembled for a meeting with the aim of distinguishing hope from related constructs such as optimism, faith, and trust.
4. Create new channels of communication, foster collaborations, and create a renewed impetus for the study of hope.
   • This research will deeply engage with applied work and provide opportunities for collaboration among practitioners and scientists, which can lead to more effective interventions and treatments for individuals struggling with hopelessness. Further, we aim to give back and empower practitioners with more representative and precise knowledge on hope developed with their help, in order to better understand and support individuals seeking to develop hope in their lives.

Interested in learning more? Specific information about past, present, and future progress on this project, as well as current people involved can be found on the Research Updates page!

Note: This is a living website and will be updated as we continue to make progress on this project!