Hope and well-being among South African adults : a correlational analysis among four age groups

Abstract

With the development of the field of positive psychology, there has been growing interest in research on positive mental health and the development of psychological models to understand well-being. Research has consistently shown that hope is an important predictor for the well-being of individuals across different age groups, yet there is limited knowledge on individuals’ sources of hope during different developmental periods. To address this gap, the main aim of the present study was to examine the associations between different sources of hope and the levels of hope and well-being amongst four age groups of South African adults. The specific objectives were (1) to compare the levels of dispositional hope, perceived hope and well-being across the four age groups; (2) to identify and compare the most important sources of hope and (3) to explore the relationships between specific sources of hope and the levels of dispositional hope, perceived hope and well-being. The present study was a secondary analysis of an existing South African data set, collected from the online Hope Barometer Survey in 2019 and processed using IBM SPSS statistics. The sample comprised a total of 465, with 132 participants in the emerging adulthood group, 137 in the early adulthood group, 141 in the middle adulthood group and 55 in the older adulthood group. The results revealed that the four age groups reported similar levels of dispositional hope, perceived hope and well-being. Positive interpersonal relationships and religious experiences were considered the most important sources of hope by all four age groups. Social-relational experiences had the largest influence on the levels of dispositional hope, perceived hope and well-being amongst the emerging adulthood group. However, for both the early and middle adulthood groups, personal mastery and hedonic experiences was the strongest predictor of all three variables. While these findings are limited in their generalisability, the present study contributes towards bridging the knowledge gap surrounding the experiences that strengthen people’s hope and enhance levels of well-being at different developmental stages.