Although lay beliefs about hope have been studied extensively in college student populations, little is known about how working professionals understand hope. Accordingly, the present study examined lay beliefs about hope among healthcare workers through the prism of two prominent models of hope. A directed content analysis of healthcare professionals’ qualitative responses indicated that the top seven most prevalent lay beliefs about hope were: cognition, implicit goal, agency thoughts, future orientation, likely, affect, and pathway thoughts. Consistent with the dominant perspective in the hope literature, Snyder’s Hope Theory, the three key ingredients of hope—agency thoughts, pathway thoughts, and goals—were all present, albeit to varying degrees. Aspects of Herth’s hope model, another prominent conceptualization, were less supported by our findings. When examining whether agency thoughts or pathway thoughts were more prevalent, there were no significant differences. When examining whether cognition or affect were more prevalent, there was a significant difference such that lay theories of hope typically reflected cognitive rather than affective processes. We discuss implications for existing hope models, implications for healthcare professionals, and future research avenues.

尽管在大学生群体中对希望的非专业信念进行了广泛的研究，但对于职场人士如何理解希望却知之甚少。因此，本研究通过两种著名的希望模型的棱镜检验了医护人员对希望的外行信念。对医疗保健专业人员的定性回答进行的定向内容分析表明，关于希望的前七种最普遍的外行信念是：认知、内隐目标、代理思想、未来取向、可能性、情感和途径思想。与希望文学中的主流观点一致，斯奈德的希望理论，希望的三个关键要素——代理思想、途径思想和目标——都存在，尽管程度不同。Herth 希望模型的各个方面，另一个突出的概念化，我们的研究结果不太支持。在检查代理思想或途径思想是否更普遍时，没有显着差异。在检查认知或情感是否更普遍时，存在显着差异，即希望理论通常反映认知过程而不是情感过程。我们讨论了对现有希望模型的影响、对医疗保健专业人员的影响以及未来的研究途径。