Hopelessness: Analysis of the construct, its relationship to depression, and the impact of childhood experience on the development of hopelessness

The present investigation differentiated between hopelessness and depression by examining the relationship of these variables to past, present and future-self orientations and by determining which constructs are more strongly related to hopelessness than to depression. Additionally, the study explored the contribution of negative childhood events to the development of hopelessness. Fifty women, ages 20-60, diagnosed with a history of major depression, completed several self-report measures which were used to form present and future-self composite scores. Structured interview and medical record data were used to composite the past-self experience score. Results failed to support a differential relationship of depression to present-self and hopelessness to future-self orientation. Hopelessness emerged as the stronger predictor of both present and future-self orientation. While there was a strong positive correlation between depression and hopelessness (.77), partial correlations revealed that mastery was the only variable more significantly correlated with hopelessness than depression. The past-self composite score was not significantly correlated to hopelessness or depression. Together these findings may indicate that the relationship of hopelessness to mastery may be a more powerful factor in development of hopelessness than the predicted but unsupported relationship to self-orientation.