Journal of Adolescence 42 (2015) 98e102

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Journal of Adolescence
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jado

Brief report: Attention to positive information mediates the

relationship between hope and psychosocial well-being of
adolescents
Dannii Y. Yeung*, Samuel M.Y. Ho, Christine W.Y. Mak
Psychology Laboratories, Department of Applied Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This study tested the mediating roles of cognitive reappraisal and attentional preferences
Available online 18 May 2015 in the relationship between hope and psychosocial well-being among 712 adolescents.
Results of the structural equation modeling revealed that the beneficial relation of hope to
Keywords: subjective happiness, anxiety, depressive symptoms, and interpersonal difficulties was
Hope partially mediated by attention to positive information but not cognitive reappraisal.
Attention to positive information
Findings of this study may inform the design of intervention research by highlighting the
Cognitive reappraisal
importance of hopeful thinking style and attention to positive information in mental
Chinese adolescents
health of adolescents.
© 2015 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier
Ltd. All rights reserved.

Past research reveals that dispositional hope is predictive of psychological well-being, academic performance, and future
career success among youth (Lopez & Calderon, 2011; Marques, Pais-Ribeiro, & Lopez, 2009). To promote the mental health of
teenagers and to strengthen their capabilities to deal with life challenges, this study aimed at identifying the mediating
factors of hope in predicting well-being.
Hope is defined as a positive motivational state that initiates goal-directed agency thinking, and generates plans to achieve
goals (Snyder, 2000). Past studies demonstrated that hope contributed uniquely to the prediction of general well-being in-
dependent of self-efficacy and optimism (Gallagher & Lopez, 2009; Magaletta & Oliver, 1999). The beneficial relation of hope
to psychosocial well-being (PSWB) has consistently been shown in Western and Chinese youth. For example, dispositional
hope has correlated positively with mental health, interpersonal life satisfaction, and social competence, but negatively with
depression, anxiety, and aggressive behaviors (Barnum, Snyder, Rapoff, Mani, & Thompson, 1998; Chang, 1998; Duan, Ho, Bai,
& Tang, 2013; Feldman & Snyder, 2005; Snyder et al., 1997).
Snyder (2002) proposed two cognitive elements, appraisal of the stressor and attentional preferences, to clarify the
positive association between hope and well-being. In light by his proposition, this study tested the mediations of cognitive
reappraisal and attentional preferences in the relationship between hope and PSWB. To the best of our knowledge, these
mediations have not yet been examined.
Cognitive reappraisal (CR) refers to the reframing of the interpretation about a situation with the objective of changing its
emotional impact (Gross & John, 2003). In a 28-day diary study, Snyder et al. (1996) found that high-hope undergraduates

* Corresponding author. Department of Applied Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong. Tel.: þ852 3442 8119; fax:
þ852 3442 0283.
E-mail address: dannii.yeung@cityu.edu.hk (D.Y. Yeung).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2015.04.004
0140-1971/© 2015 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 D.Y. Yeung et al. / Journal of Adolescence 42 (2015) 98e102 99

reported more positive appraisal of the daily events than their low-hope peers. High-hope individuals expressed more CR
than those with lower hope when facing a violent conflict situation (Halperin & Gross, 2011). Therefore, we hypothesized that
hope is positively associated with CR (H1).
Individual differences in cognitive tendency of focusing on positive and negative aspects of life events can be explained by
personality factors such as optimism (Noguchi, Gohm, & Dalsky, 2006). Past experimental studies showed that optimistic
youth are less likely to focus on negative information than their pessimistic peers (Isaacowitz, 2005; Segerstrom, 2001). We
hypothesized that high-hope adolescents attend to more positive but less negative information (H2).
Fredrickson and Losada (2005) and Keyes (2002) have stressed the importance of positive elements, such as positive affect
and purpose in life, in mental health. Similarly, individuals who utilize more CR and attend to more positive but less negative
information have better well-being and interpersonal relations (Chan, Ho, Law, & Pau, 2013; Gross, 2007; Taylor, Bomyea, &
Amir, 2011). We hypothesized that CR and attention to positive information (API) are associated with better PSWB, while
attention to negative information (ANI) are associated with poorer PSWB (H3).
The aforementioned review demonstrates the beneficial relation of hope to PSWB, though it remains unclear how hope
may be important to PSWB. In light of the pathway of self-efficacy beliefs to psychological well-being and behaviors (see
Bandura, 2012 for a review), this study tested whether the positive relationship between hope and PSWB is mediated by CR,
API, and ANI (H4). In this study, PSWB was indexed by four variables, namely subjective happiness, anxiety, depressive
symptoms, and interpersonal difficulties. The conceptual model is presented in Fig. 1.

Method

Participants and procedure

Through the network of the funding agency, participants were recruited from three secondary schools in Hong Kong to
join a cross-sectional study on hope and PSWB. Human ethical approval was first obtained, followed by approval from the
school principals and parental consent. All the invited students agreed to join the study. The sample consisted of 712 students,
with 54.5% males. The mean age was 15.19 years (SD ¼ 1.63). Participants completed the questionnaire in the classroom after
school.

Measures

The Chinese version of the following measures was used. The Cronbach's alpha of each measurement scale is summarized
on Table 1. Justification for each measurement is available by sending request to the authors.

Dispositional hope
The Children's Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1997) was used to assess the participants' perception of their abilities and
motivation in achieving goals (1 ¼ none to 6 ¼ all of the time).

CR
The cognitive reappraisal subscale of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003; Yeung, Wong, & Lok,
2011) was used to measure one's tendency to alter interpretation of the event to minimize its emotional impact
(1 ¼ strongly disagree to 7 ¼ strongly agree).

Fig. 1. The conceptual model.

100 D.Y. Yeung et al. / Journal of Adolescence 42 (2015) 98e102

Table 1
Descriptive and correlation statistics.

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1. Hope 21.09 4.98 (.87) .301*** .468*** .030 .391*** .222*** .347*** .254*** .152** .070
2. Cognitive reappraisal 4.49 .92 (.82) .521*** .110** .343*** .169*** .320*** .193*** .049 .001
3. Attention to positive 79.53 10.20 (.88) .252*** .512*** .188*** .523*** .325*** .091* .000
information
4. Attention to negative 62.52 8.10 (.80) .297*** .442*** .107** .402*** .077* .054
information
5. Subjective happiness 4.48 1.13 (.80) .515*** .584*** .607*** .003 .047
6. Anxiety 8.45 3.45 (.80) .429*** .518*** .135*** .001
7. Depression 6.63 3.14 (.65) .499*** .109** .035
8. Interpersonal difficulties 3.16 .75 (.71) .044 .053
9. Gender (female)a 45.5% e e .058
10. Age 15.19 1.63 e

Note. The Cronbach's alpha of each measurement scale is shown in parentheses on the diagonal. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
a
Gender: 1 ¼ male; 2 ¼ female.

API and ANI

The 40-item Attention to Positive and Negative Information Scale (Chan, Ho, Tedeschi, & Leung, 2011; Noguchi et al., 2006)
was adopted to measure the participants' attentional preferences for positive and negative information (1 ¼ very untrue to
5 ¼ very true of me).

Subjective happiness
Participants rated the Subjective Happiness Scale (Ho, Yeung, & Kwok, 2014; Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999) by using a 7-
point Likert scale.

Anxiety and depression

The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Leung, Ho, Kan, Hung, & Chen, 1993; Zigmond & Snaith, 1983) was used to
assess the level of anxiety and depression.

Interpersonal difficulties
Zhang and Jin's (1998) interpersonal relation scale was developed from a Chinese community sample to assess the quality
of interpersonal relationships. Participants rated the 18 items on a 6-point scale (1 ¼ strongly disagree to 6 ¼ strongly agree).

Results

Table 1 shows that hope correlated positively with CR, API, and subjective happiness, but negatively with anxiety,
depressive symptoms, and interpersonal difficulties. However, there was no significant relationship between hope and ANI.
CR and API correlated positively with subjective happiness, and negatively with anxiety, depressive symptoms, and inter-
personal difficulties, while a reverse pattern was found for ANI. Therefore, H1 and H3, and part of H2 were supported. Because
of its nonsignificant relationship with hope, ANI was excluded from the following mediation analysis.
The structural equation model (SEM) was conducted by AMOS 20.0 (Arbuckle, 2011) to test the mediations of CR and API.
Parceling was performed for the scales of API and interpersonal difficulties (Little, Cunningham, Shahar, & Widaman, 2002).
For other constructs, the original item was inputted to the SEM. Both direct and indirect effects of hope on the four PSWB
variables were assessed, plus the covariances between the two mediators and between the four PSWB variables. Age and
gender were inputted as control variables. The goodness-of-fit indices of the SEM are satisfactory: RMSEA ¼ .052, CFI ¼ .908,
and IFI ¼ .909. The unstandardized estimations of parameters of the mediation model are presented in Fig. 2.
The significance of indirect paths of hope to PSWB through the two mediators was evaluated using the Sobel (1982) test.
Table 2 shows that only API, but not CR, could significantly mediate the effect of hope to the four PSWB variables. The direct
effect of hope was still significant even after controlling for CR and API, suggesting a partial mediation of API. H4 was partly
supported.

Discussion

Based on the proposition of Snyder (2002), this study aimed at identifying the mediating factors of hope in predicting
PSWB. Consistent with our predictions, hope was positively associated with CR and API, and CR and API correlated with
greater happiness but fewer anxiety, depressive symptoms, and interpersonal difficulties. Moreover, API partially mediated
the relationship between hope and PSWB.
Consistent with past research (Noguchi et al., 2006; Sears, Stanton, & Danoff-Burg, 2003), this study demonstrated that
hopeful adolescents show greater tendency to look at positive information and develop greater ability to alter the inter-
pretation of the event than their low-hope peers. However, there was no significant association between hope and ANI, which
 D.Y. Yeung et al. / Journal of Adolescence 42 (2015) 98e102 101

Fig. 2. Results of the structural equation model on the four psychosocial well-being variables. Note. A multi-level SEM model was considered to handle the
clustered data among the three schools. Preliminary results of the multi-level analyses did not show significant between-school variations, therefore a multi-level
SEM model was not needed. Maximum likelihood method was used to handle the missing data. Age and gender were controlled in the SEM analysis. The
goodness-of-fit indices are: RMSEA ¼ .052, CFI ¼ .908, IFI ¼ .909, c2 ¼ 1441.392. The chi-square is sensitive to sample size (Schumacker & Lomax, 2004). In light of
a large sample size, the chi-square value may be inflated, and its statistical significance may erroneously imply a poor model fit. However, other indices indeed
demonstrate a good data-to-model fit. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

Table 2
Statistics of indirect paths in the SEM mediation models.

Indirect path B (unstandardized path coefficient and product) Z SE

Hope / CR / subjective happiness (.273)  (.054) ¼ .015 .735 .020
Hope / API / subjective happiness (.294)  (1.381) ¼ .406 7.056*** .058

Hope / CR / anxiety (.273)  (.012) ¼ .003 .460 .007

Hope / API / anxiety (.294)  (.115) ¼ .034 2.098* .016

Hope / CR / depressive symptoms (.273)  (.013) ¼ .004 .563 .006

Hope / API / depressive symptoms (.294)  (.457) ¼ .134 6.963*** .019

Hope / CR / interpersonal difficulties (.273)  (.001) ¼ .000 .045 .006

Hope / API / interpersonal difficulties (.294)  (.197) ¼ .058 3.684*** .016

Note. CR denotes Cognitive Reappraisal; API denotes Attention to Positive Information. *p < .05; ***p < .001.

may be attributed to the greater emphasis of dialectical thinking among Chinese people (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). It is possible
that Chinese people, regardless of their levels of hope, attend to both positive and negative information in order to gain a
holistic view of the situation.
Results of the mediation analyses revealed that highly hopeful adolescents exhibited greater API, which contributed to
their PSWB. Individuals with high-hope focus more on positive aspects of the event, which help them to remain positive even
in face of difficulties and challenges. Inconsistent with our prediction, the mediation of CR was not found. According to Gross
(2007), one's attention precedes his/her appraisal of the situation, which in turn influences his/her appraisal of the event.
Accordingly, the predictive power of CR is largely reduced when the influence of API has been taken into consideration.
102 D.Y. Yeung et al. / Journal of Adolescence 42 (2015) 98e102

To conclude, this study showed that API partially mediated the relationship between hope and PSWB among adolescents.
Findings of this study may inform the design of intervention research by highlighting the importance of hopeful thinking style
and API in mental health of adolescents. Nevertheless, due to the cross-sectional design of this study, content of the inter-
vention program awaits future replication of these findings with longitudinal data.

Acknowledgment

This study was commissioned by, and developed in partnership with, The Women's Foundation, with financial support
from J.P. Morgan (Project No.: 9231094).
We thank Rita Ching and her team for coordinating with the secondary schools, and Vivian Leung, Bowie Siu and Sonia
Chan for data collection and management.

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