The Hopelessness Scale
View PDF - The Hopelessness Scale_ Beck.pdf
Beck, A. T., Weissman, A., Lester, D., & Trexler, L. (1974). The measurement of pessimism: The hopelessness scale. Journal Of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42(6), 861-865.
True or False; For every statement, each response was assigned a score of 0 or 1, and the total "hopelessness score" was the sum of the scores on the individual items. Thus, the possible range of scores was from 0 to 20.
1. I look forward to the future with hope and enthusiasm.
2. I might as well give up because I can't make things better for myself.
3. When things are going badly, I am helped by knowing they can't stay that way forever.
4. I can't imagine what my life would be like in 10 years.
5. I have enough time to accomplish the things I most want to do.
6. In the future, I expect to succeed in what concerns me most.
7. My future seems dark to me.
8. I expect to get more of the good things in life than the average person.
9. I just don't get the breaks, and there's no reason to believe I will in the future.
10. My past experiences have prepared me well for my future.
11. All I can see ahead of me is unpleasantness rather than pleasantness.
12. I don't expect to get what I really want.
13. When I look ahead to the future, I expect I will be happier than I am now.
14. Things just won't work out the way I want them to.
15. I have great faith in the future.
16. I never get what I want so it's foolish to want anything.
17. It is very unlikely that I will get any real satisfaction in the future.
18. The future seems vague and uncertain to me.
19. I can look forward to more good times than bad times.
20. There's no use in really trying to get something I want because I probably won't get it.
The internal consistency of the scale was analyzed by means of coefficient alpha (KR-20), which yielded a reliability coefficient of .93.
Validity information was not available.
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Individuals may use this information for research or educational purposes only and may not use this information for commercial purposes. When using this instrument, please cite:
Beck, A. T., Weissman, A., Lester, D., & Trexler, L. (1974). The measurement of pessimism: The hopelessness scale. Journal Of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42(6), 861-865.
When presenting results using any survey information you obtained from the SABI, please acknowledge the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), an NIH funded program P30 AI50410.