The Effect Of Hope On Self-control In College Students

Hope and self-control,as the components of 24 positive psychological traits advocated by Positive Psychology,are very important to promote the development of physical and mental health.Hope is a positive motivational state that based on an interactively derived sense of successful(1)pathways(planning to meet goals),and(2)agency(goal-directed energy).People usually have dispositional hope that applies across situations and time,but they also have state hope that reflects particular times and more proximal events.According to the Strength Model of Self-Control and the Hope Theory,hope,as a positive psychological capital,can provide sufficient self-control resources for individuals,further promoting the level of self-control.However,there are few studies on the relationship of hope and self-control.Furthermore,to explore the causal relationship between hope and self-control is conducive to providing new ideas and methods for individuals to improve self-control.Hence,in order to clarify the influence of hope on self-control in college students,with the methods of questionnaire survey and behavior experiment,and taking college students as subjects,three studies were designed to explore the influence of dispositional hope and state hope on self-control.In Study 1,610 college students were investigated with the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale,the Self-Control Scale,and the Positive Affect Scale to explore the relationship between dispositional hope and self-control.In Study 2,46 college students were selected as subjects to explore the influence of dispositional hope on self control with the delay discounting task.In Study 3,in order to investigate the effect of state hope on self-control,64 college students were selected to participate in the delay discounting task,and the situational imagination task which was used to activate the level of state hope.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)The results of Study 1 showed that dispositional hope can positively predict self-control;and general positive affect can positively predict self-control;and after controlling the influence of general positive affect on self-control,dispositional hope can still positively predict self-control.(2)The results of Study 2 showed that the dispositional hope has an effect on self-control in college students,that is the level of self-control in subjects who have higher dispositional hope was significantly higher than those who have lower dispositional hope.Specifically,the subjective value of the delay option in the low dispositional hope group was significantly lower than that in the high dispositional hope group.(3)The results of Study 3 showed that the effect of state hope on self-control in college students was not significant.That is,there was no significant difference between the high and low state hope group in the subjective value of the delay option.However,in terms of individuals themselves,it was suggested that the rising state hope can effectively improve the level of self-control.In other words,for the subjects who induce high state hope,the rising state hope can significantly predict the increasing subjective value of the delay option.