Hope and Decision-making Coping Patterns of Teaching Professionals

Description

M. Ramya Maheswari¹ and A. Malarkodi² (Department of Psychology Ethiraj College for Women, Chennai, Tamil Nadu¹ and Department of Psychology, Presidency College, Chennai , Tamil Nadu²)

Hope, as a cognitive-motivational construct, enhances goal-directed thinking, cognitive flexibility, and integrative problem-solving (Snyder et al., 1991). The style of decision-making adopted by individuals can significantly influence their psychological well-being, social participation, and engagement in meaningful activities (Smeaton, Barnes, & Vegeris, 2016). In the teaching profession, where decisions often carry significant weight, understanding how hope influences decision-making can be crucial. Hence, this study aimed to explore how hope affects decision-making styles among male and female college teachers, focusing on the relationship between hope and the patterns of decision-making employed by teachers. The study employed an ex-post facto design and adopted purposive sampling to select participants from various city colleges. It was hypothesized that hopeful employees will employ adaptive decision-making coping patterns than those who are less hopeful. Data were collected using the Flinders Decision Making Questionnaire (Mann, 1982) and the Adult Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1991). Descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, and Pearson’s correlation coefficients were used for data analysis. Results indicated no significant gender differences in overall levels of hope. However, a significant difference was found in decision-making self-esteem, with male teachers scoring higher. Furthermore, highly hopeful teachers were more likely to engage in vigilant decision-making patterns-considered adaptive responses-while less hopeful individuals showed higher tendencies toward non-vigilant coping patterns, such as procrastination, buck-passing, and hypervigilance. These findings suggest that hope may serve as a protective factor in fostering effective decision-making styles in the teaching profession.