Hope, learning goals, and task performance

This paper examines the relationships among hope in its trait and state forms, goal orientation, verbal persuasion, and task performance. Results of a laboratory experiment involving 212 undergraduate students indicated that learning goal orientation was positively related to trait hope. Findings further indicated that trait hope was positively related to performance on an anagram task through the mediating variable of state hope; moreover state hope was influenced by negative verbal persuasion but unaffected by positive verbal persuasion.