Development and Initial Validation of the Persevering Hope Scale: Measuring Wait-Power in Four Independent Samples

Hope has been conceptualized as agency and pathways to achieve goals. However, this goal-directed conceptualization does not encapsulate all situations in which hope may be beneficial. To address the dispositional motivation to endure when a desired goal seems unattainable, unlikely, or even impossible (i.e., goal-transcendent hope), we provide initial psychometric evidence for the new Persevering Hope Scale (PHS). We developed and refined the PHS with undergraduates at a public college (Study 1) and replicated our findings in a community adult sample (Study 2). We replicated and extended these findings using longitudinal data with undergraduates at a faith-based college (Study 3) and a community sample of chronically ill adults (Study 4), and examined measurement invariance (Study 5). Scores on the PHS demonstrated robust evidence of estimated internal consistency and of criterion-related, convergent/discriminant, and incremental validity. Estimated temporal stability was modest. Partial scalar invariance was evidenced across samples, and full scalar invariance was evidenced across gender, race/ethnicity, and time. These preliminary findings suggest that the PHS is a psychometrically sound measure of persevering hope. Its use can broaden the current body of literature on trait hope to include goal-transcendent hope and advance research on the nature and benefits of this important construct.