Abstract
This paper explores the importance of adolescent environments as a key determinant of hope and optimism. Data were taken from the prospective, nationally representative National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to calculate correlations in hope and optimism among individuals who attended the same secondary school. These correlations generate upper-bound estimates of the influence of adolescent environments and suggest relatively modest contributions, accounting for 1–3% of population variation. In contrast, sibling correlations account for approximately 10% of the variation. Taken together, the results suggest that interventions that shape schools and neighborhoods during adolescence are likely to have relatively small benefits for hope and optimism development.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The term neighborhood effects is used to denote associations that may or may not represent causal processes.
In ordered logit models, the random neighborhood/family effect is estimated conditional on the random individual effect being logistically distributed with mean zero and variance \({\raise0.7ex\hbox{${\pi^{2} }$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{\pi^{2} } 3}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$3$}}\) and assumed to be independent of the neighborhood/family level effect.
I'm always optimistic about my future; I hardly ever expect things to go my way (reverse coded); Overall, I expect more good things to happen to me than bad; I rarely count on good things happening to me (reverse coded). There are five possible responses to each question: strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, and strongly disagree. The Cronbach’s alpha for these measures is 0.65.
In results available from the author, the results for each of the four single measure is very similar to the combined measure of optimism reported in the paper.
Oberle et al. (2011) estimate that schools contribute 5% of the variation in adolescent life satisfaction.
References
Andersson, G. (1996). The benefits of optimism: A meta-analytic review of the Life Orientation Test. Personality and Individual Differences, 21(5), 719–725.
Bowlby, J. (1980). Loss, sadness and depression (Vol. 3). New York, NY: Basic Books.
Diez Roux, A. V., & Mair, C. (2010). Neighborhoods and health. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1186(1), 125–145.
Duncan, G. J., Boisjoly, J., & Harris, K. M. (2001). Sibling, peer, neighbor, and schoolmate correlations as indicators of the importance of context for adolescent development. Demography, 38(3), 437–447.
Eccles, J. S., & Roeser, R. W. (2011). Schools as developmental contexts during adolescence. Journal of research on adolescence, 21(1), 225–241.
Eriksson, K. H., Hjalmarsson, R., Lindquist, M. J., & Sandberg, A. (2016). The importance of family background and neighborhood effects as determinants of crime. Journal of Population Economics, 29(1), 219–262.
Esteves, M., Scoloveno, R. L., Mahat, G., Yarcheski, A., & Scoloveno, M. A. (2013). An integrative review of adolescent hope. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 28, 105–113.
Fletcher, J. (2018). Crushing hope: Short term responses to tragedy vary by hopefulness. Social Science & Medicine, 201, 59–62.
Fletcher, J. M., & Kim, J. (2019). Learning hope and optimism: Classmate experiences and adolescent development. Applied Economics Letters, 26(5), 409–412.
Fletcher, J. M., & McLaughlin, S. M. (2015). Neighborhood factors during adolescence: Modest effects on cardiovascular risk, small impact on obesity and depression. Health Affairs, 34(9), 1472–1479.
Gillham, J., & Reivich, K. (2004). Cultivating optimism in childhood and adolescence. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 591(1), 146–163.
Giltay, E. J., Geleijnse, J. M., Zitman, F. G., Hoekstra, T., & Schouten, E. G. (2004). Dispositional optimism and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in a prospective cohort of elderly dutch men and women. Archives of General Psychiatry, 61(11), 1126–1135.
Goldsmith, A. H., Veum, J. R., & Darity, W. (1997). The impact of psychological and human capital on wages. Economic Inquiry, 35(4), 815–829.
Kunz, J., Page, M. E., & Solon, G. (2003). Are point-in-time measures of neighborhood characteristics useful proxies for children’s long-run neighborhood environment? Economics Letters, 79(2), 231–237.
Lorion, R. P., & Saltzman, W. (1993). Children’s exposure to community violence: Following a path from concern to research to action. Psychiatry, 56, 55–65.
Mosing, M. A., Zietsch, B. P., Shekar, S. N., Wright, M. J., & Martin, N. G. (2009). Genetic and environmental influences on optimism and its relationship to mental and self-rated health: A study of aging twins. Behavior Genetics, 39(6), 597.
Oberle, E., Schonert-Reichl, K. A., & Zumbo, B. D. (2011). Life satisfaction in early adolescence: Personal, neighborhood, school, family, and peer influences. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40(7), 889–901.
Otis, K. L., Huebner, E. S., & Hills, K. J. (2016). Origins of early adolescents’ hope: Personality, parental attachment, and stressful life events. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 31(2), 102–121.
Scheier, M. E., & Carver, C. S. (1987). Dispositional optimism and physical well-being: The influence of generalized outcome expectancies on health. Journal of Personality, 55(2), 169–210.
Snyder, C. R. (2000). Handbook of hope: Theory, measures, and applications. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Solon, G., Page, M. E., & Duncan, G. J. (2000). Correlations between neighboring children in their subsequent educational attainment. Review of Economics and Statistics, 82(3), 383–392.
Thomson, K. C., Schonert-Reichl, K. A., & Oberle, E. (2015). Optimism in early adolescence: Relations to individual characteristics and ecological assets in families, schools, and neighborhoods. Journal of Happiness Studies, 16(4), 889–913.
Yarcheski, A., & Mahon, N. E. (2014). Meta-analyses of predictors of hope in adolescents. Western Journal of Nursing Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193945914559545.
Acknowledgements
This publication was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. Cody Oltmans provided excellent research assistance. This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis. The author acknowledges research support from the Center for Demography and Ecology at UW-Madison (P2C HD047873).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fletcher, J. Assessing the Importance of Childhood Context in the Development of Hope and Optimism. J Happiness Stud 21, 2419–2427 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-019-00186-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-019-00186-8