The Central Role of Daily Hopeful Feelings in Predicting Well-Being: A Network Perspective

Hope is associated with many positive outcomes. However, most research on hope has focused on its cognitive aspect, with few studies examining the affective aspect. To further clarify the nature of hope and its association with well-being, this study examined the relationship between the affective aspect of hope-namely, hopeful feelings-and various aspects of well-being.

A daily diary analysis was conducted with 187 Chinese adults (mean_age = 28.17 ± 5.56). Hopeful feelings and affective (positive and negative emotions), eudaimonic (meaning in life), and evaluative (life satisfaction) aspects of well-being were assessed twice per day (morning and night) for 14 consecutive days. A multilevel vector autoregressive model was used to investigate the temporal, contemporaneous, and between-person networks of hopeful feelings with positive emotion and well-being.

Hopeful feelings had the strongest outstrength in the temporal networks and were the most central node in the between-person networks. In addition, hopeful feelings exhibited significant cross-lagged predictive roles on all the well-being nodes except negative emotion.

These findings revealed a close association between hopeful feelings and well-being, with hopeful feelings predicting various aspects of daily well-being. Future interventions to improve well-being should focus on the enrichment of daily hopeful feelings.