Gratitude and altruism in predicting hope

This study aims to determine whether gratitude and altruism are significant predictors of hope when considered together. Also, various demographic characteristics (gender, total monthly income level of the family, weekly participation in social activities, perceived family attitude), gratitude, and altruism were separately examined. The subjects of the study consisted of 504 university students (297 females, 207 males) studying at the undergraduate level at either a state or a private university in Istanbul. Throughout the study, relational research approach was employed, which is a quantitative research method. The data collection tools used for the research included the Socio-Demographic Information Form, developed by the researcher to obtain the demographic information of the participants. Additionally the Continuous Hope Scale, which is developed by Snyder et al. (1991) and adapted into Turkish by Tarhan and Bacanlı (2015), was used to determine hope levels. The Gratitude Scale developed by Kardaş and Yalçın (2019) was used to determine gratitude levels and the Altruism Scale, which developed by London and Robert Bower (1968) and adapted into Turkish by Cantez, Aşkın, and Akbaba (1991), was used to determine the levels of altruism. The SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) program was used for the statistical analysis. Impact of gender on hope was examined by independent variables t-test. Effects of on monthly total income level of the family, weekly participation in social activities, and perceived family attitude on hope were examined by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). According to the results of the independent variables t-test and ANOVA, no significant difference was found in hope scores of the participants. Correlational relationship between gratitude and hope as well as between altruism and hope were investigated by computing the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. It was found that there is a moderate, positive, and significant relationship between both pairs of variables (i.e., gratitude-hope and altruism-hope). To determine whether gratitude and altruism are meaningful predictors of continuous hope, a multiple regression analysis was conducted. The results of this analysis indicated that gratitude and altruism's are statistically significant, yet, weak predictors of hope. In line with the findings, the results of the research were discussed and interpreted by considering the literature. Suggestions have been made for further research. Keywords: Altruism, Gratitude, Hope, Positive Psychology