Origin and Purpose of the “Hope-Barometer”

Amsterdam, July 04th, 2014

Dr. Andreas M. Walker

Co-President swissfuture, Switzerland

Initiator “Hope-Barometer” in 2009

Dr. Andreas M. Krafft

Member of the board of swissfuture, Switzerland

University of St. Gall

Symposium

The Annual Hope-Barometer and Positive Attributes Survey

in Switzerland, Germany and the Czech Republic

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Motivation

• Since about 30 years in Switzerland there are two annual surveys

• “Barometer of Angst” (fear), sponsored by a Swiss bank.

• “Barometer of Worries”, sponsored by another Swiss finance

institute.

• These two barometers have a broad perception

within politics and media.

• Risk management, doom saying, apocalyptical thinking,

worst case scenarios, black swans and wild cards are taking a

dominating place within the academic and political discussion

of the “future” and within the media.

• Google.ch 2014/06/28

• “Angst” 105 Mio sides

• “Hoffnung” 34 Mio sides

• Is there any academic research and discussion

of the phenomenon of “hope” at the European Universities?

• Is there a motivation to experience the future if there is no hope?

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Objectives

• To make “hope” an issue

within the academic and political debate.

• To initiate a “future debate” where “angst” and “hope”

are part of a dialectical debate.

• To collect data and

to develop tools for collecting data about “hope”.

• To analyze and understand the phenomenon of “hope”

in a trans-disciplinary way by various methods.

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Milestones and Success Factors

1. To start! (against the dominance of “Angst” and “worries”)

2. To win “swissfuture Swiss Society for Futures Studies” and

“Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences”

as academic partners in Switzerland 2009

3. To win “20minutes” as media / internet partner

for Switzerland 2009

4. To win “BILD” as media /internet partner for Germany 2013

5. To enlarge the team and to win international academic partners

thanks to the ECPP and ICPP in Philadelphia 2011, Moscow 2012

and Los Angeles 2013

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Enlarging Transdisciplinary team

PhDr. Andreas M. Walker, expert for strategic foresight

Co-President swissfuture

PhDr. Francis Müller, journalist, sociologist

Member of the board swissfuture

PhDr. Andreas Krafft, economist, expert for salutogenesis

Member of the board swissfuture, University of St. Gallen

Stefan Schwarz, educationalist,

psychotherapist and expert for logotherapy (Victor Frankl)

Prof. Dr. Charles Martin-Krumm, Maître de

Conférences à l’Institut Universitaire de

Formation des Maîtres de Rennes, France

Prof. PhDr. Alena Slezáčková, Academic

Centre for Positive Psychology, Masaryk

University, Brno, Czech Republic

Prof. Dr. Tatjana Schnell, Institute of

Psychology, University of Innsbruck, Austria

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Measures for the 2013/14 survey

• What do you expect for the coming year 2014? (5 items)

• Which are your main personal wishes for 2014? (17 items)

• Perceived Hope (6 items)

• From whom do you expect that she or he transmits hope? (16 items)

• Social Relations (Ryff) (4 items “positive” + 5 items “negative”)

• What do you do towards having your hopes fulfilled? (17 items)

• Dispositional Hope (Snyder) (4 items “agency” + 4 items “pathways”)

• Changes in Outlook (Joseph / Lindley) (5 items “negative” + 6 items

“positive”)

• Life Orientation Scale (Scheier / Carver) (3 items “optimism” + 3 items

“pessimism”)

• Passion (Vallerand) (5 items “harmonious” + 5 items “obsessive”)

• Meaning (Schnell) (5 items)

• Religiosity (Schnell) (3 items)

• Spirituality (Schnell) (5 items)

• Generativity (Schnell) (6 items)

• Life-satisfaction (Dalbert) (7 items)

• Mood (Dalbert) (4 items “positive” + 3 items “negative”)

• Physical health (1 item)

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Demografics for the 2013/14 survey

• Gender

• Age

• Place of birth

• Place of living

• Family status

• Number of children

• Education level

• Religious confession

• Attachment to a religious institution

• Current main and secondary activity

• Job position

• Volunteer activity

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Public Perception

• Hope 2010: 2’735 participants in German speaking CH

• Hope 2011: 6’193 participants in German speaking CH

• Hope 2012: 5’038 participants in German speaking CH

• Hope 2013: 18’914 participants in CH, France, Germany

• Hope 2013: 21’812 participants in CH, France, Germany, Cz

Challenge: to extract the valid files,

to handle quality of the sample

• Speeches for managers, politicians, churches, teachers

• e.g. 2013: more than 30 media articles within Switzerland

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Next Steps

• To evaluate academic partners in other countries

• To optimize the survey

• To promote the academic analysis of the data

• To promote the development of trainings and tools

for schools and workplaces

• Conference 2015 in Switzerland about “hope”