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Open research questions in Optimism, Hope, and Well-being

44 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 1,343 Optimism, Hope, and Well-being papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • First, the generalizability of our find- ings may be limited by the sample’s homogeneity, as par- ticipants were recruited from a single public middle school in one region. There- fore, caution is warranted when generalizing these findings to countries with different educational structures or lower levels of systemic academic pressure.

    Trajectories of Hope During Middle School Transition: Predicting Internalizing and Externalizing Problems in Chinese Adolescents · 2026 · DOI

  • Hope, a cognitive-motivational construct reflecting perceived ability to set meaningful goals, identify pathways to achieve them, and maintain the motivation to pursue those pathways (Snyder, 2002), has been linked to academic and psychosocial functioning but remains underexplored in GT students.

    A Little Hope Goes a Long Way: Identifying Profiles of Hope Among Gifted and Talented Turkish Adolescents · 2026 · DOI

  • To improve the gap in the literature, where much of the research on the relationship between work stress and career commitment among preschool teachers has been based on correlation analysis and has not provided comprehensive testing of the mediation pathways, a psychological capital mediation model is brought to this paper.

    MEDIATING ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORK STRESS AND CAREER COMMITMENT AMONG PRESCHOOL TEACHERS · 2026 · DOI

  • These findings should be interpreted with caution. The cross-sectional design precludes causal inferences, and the observed relationships should be interpreted as associative. Online recruitment via social media may have introduced selection bias, potentially limiting the representativeness of the sample, particularly among older or less digitally engaged women. Self- report measures may also have skewed responses, as reflecting on cancer risk can trigger defensiveness or heightened awareness, and social desirability effects and common method bias cannot be ruled out (41). Additionally, although several relevant covariates were included, potential confounders such as healthcare access or systemic barriers were not accounted for and may have influenced the observed relationships. Future research should address these limitations by examining more diverse samples, employing longitudinal or experimental designs, and incorporating additional contextual variables to further clarify predictors of screening behavior. In particular, directly comparing psychological courage with conceptually related constructs (e.g., self-efficacy or emotion regulation) would help clarify its incremental contribution.

    Dare to take care of yourself: the relationship between psychological courage and the intention to undergo mammography screening · 2026 · DOI

  • Future studies should examine the psychometric properties of the Korean HAI across more diverse samples and contexts. Future research should consider refining these items and re-examining the overall factor structure of the Korean HAI following revision of these items. Consequently, were the generalizability of to other age groups, the results educational levels, and occupational or clinical populations remains to be established.

    Psychometric validation of the Korean Hope-Action Inventory among university students · 2026 · DOI

  • Psychological distress is a growing concern among university students, yet the role of Psychological Capital (PsyCap) components in mitigating distress remains unclear.

    Psychological Distress Among Malaysian University Students: The Protective Roles of Hope, Optimism, Resilience, and Self-Efficacy · 2025 · DOI

  • Hope is thought to play a key role in the wellbeing of older people and while the AHS has been validated in young/middle-aged adults, the factor structure remains to be tested in older adults.

    Adult Hope Scale: validation in older adults · 2025 · DOI

  • To fill this gap in the literature, a survey of 400 unemployed individuals explored the relationship between job-search behaviors and life satisfaction, including investigating self-efficacy, support, work volition, and dispositional optimism.

    Job-Search Behaviors During Involuntary Unemployment: A Social Cognitive Approach · 2022 · DOI

  • Abstract Previous research shows inconsistent evidence in regard to gender differences in optimism for experiencing a happy marriage or avoiding divorce depending on whether optimism is measured as comparative optimism (thinking you are better off than your peers) or as personal optimism (estimating your own chances).

    Will I Divorce or Have a Happy Marriage?: Gender Differences in Comparative Optimism and Estimation of Personal Chances Among U.S. College Students · 2011 · DOI

  • Despite evidence that sociocultural variables generally exert a significant influence on health outcomes, very little is known about the social and cultural contexts of adjustment to SCD.

    Optimism and Perceived Stress in Sickle-Cell Disease: The Role of an Afrocultural Social Ethos · 2010 · DOI

  • T he Health Belief Model (HBM; Rosenstock, 1966) is the most widely used psychological theory of health‐related behaviours but its applicability to non‐Western, especially Asian, populations has not been systematically studied.

    Health beliefs, optimism, and health‐related decisions: A study with Hong Kong Chinese · 2004 · DOI

  • Results indicated that although late-adolescent students did underestimate their risks to some extent, they were also able to make some discriminating judgments about the relative likelihood of various negative events, based on characteristics of both their own behaviors and the events in question They showed only limited evidence of "adolescent vulnerability.

    Australian Adolescents' Perceptions of Health-Related Risks · 1992 · DOI

  • Finally, I think that it can be stated today that the reading disability or strephosymbolia forms a fairly clear cut clinical en- tity which can be diagnosed by appropriate examination methods; that it is not related to feeblemindedness and may occur at any in- tellectual level, and that a very considerable degree of prognostic optimism is warranted when proper training is instituted early and is conscientiously carried out.

    The self fulfilling prophecy and the efficacy of treatment · 1966 · DOI

  • The swift growth of the gig economy has positioned food delivery riders in demanding work settings marked by physical hazards and unstable earnings, while the psychological capacities that help them endure remain insufficiently explored.

    Who Keeps Going? Predictors of Trait Hope in Filipino Food Delivery Riders · 2026 · DOI

  • Based on this, it is emphasized that the concept of hope fatigue should be further investigated in the field of mental health and supported by interventions, and it is expected that the concept will make an original contribution to the literature.

    Hope Fatigue: An Emerging Concept in Mental Health · 2025 · DOI

  • Our findings revealed that the majority of these studies did not follow current psychometric recommendations for establishing internal validity in part because they did not account for the ordinal nature of the data.

    A Critical Appraisal of the Evidence Supporting the Factor Structure of Extant Coping Instruments · 2022 · DOI

  • INTRODUCTION: Feeling hopeful is an important condition for adolescents' health, well-being, and educational success and attainment, yet limited research has examined hope at different ages throughout adolescence.

    Hope levels across adolescence and the transition to high school: Associations with school stress and achievement · 2021 · DOI

  • It seems that a well-adapted soldier may use unique coping styles that, although perhaps not understood by outsiders, can contribute to his capacity to carry out his undertakings.

    Coping Styles and Combat Motivation During Operations · 2016 · DOI

  • Abstract People learn more from new information when it leads to favorable future outlooks and thus can maintain optimism despite conflicting evidence.

    Self‐specific Optimism Bias in Belief Updating Is Associated with High Trait Optimism · 2014 · DOI

  • Although there is good evidence that emotions are associated with chronic airways obstruction, evidence for the influence of psychological factors on the level and decline of pulmonary function is sparse.

    Breathing easy: A prospective study of optimism and pulmonary function in the normative aging study · 2002 · DOI

  • Lazarus and Folkman proposed one of the most comprehensive theories of stress and coping in the psychology literature, but many of their postulates have received little empirical attention, and some of the existing research hasyielded contradictory findings.

    Appraised control, coping, and stress in a community sample: A test of the goodness-of-fit hypothesis · 2001 · DOI

  • Although the process of hope has been elaborated in the literature, relalively little is known about the determinants of hope and how these factors interact to foster or inhibit the existence and nurturance of hope in cancer patients.

    Facilitating Hopefulness · 1995 · DOI

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44 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 1,343 Optimism, Hope, and Well-being papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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