Introduction

The most recent Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that climate change is already causing profound disruptions on a global scale. There is robust evidence attributing climate change to declines in agricultural yields, intensification of malnutrition and heat stress, the spread of infectious diseases, and damage to infrastructure from extreme weather events in nearly every region of the world1. These and other climate impacts will amplify as the average global surface temperature increases, and this is likely to exceed 2 °C above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century2.

Given that climate change presents cascading risks to the stability of our environment and social systems3, it may be tempting to succumb to a narrative of despair. Certainly, the time we live in is not rich soil for hope. Indeed, some areas of climate science may even be interpreted as arguing for the death of hope. A one-dimensional lens applied to the literature on climate change adaptation could result in this view. What the adaptation literature brings to light is an acknowledgment that, as a global collective, we have failed to avert climate change4. Though mitigation efforts remain critical to avoid more dangerous forms of climate change, we must adapt the way we live so that we can better manage the impacts of an increasingly unstable climate2. Ironically, as the authors argue in this paper, accepting this reality and engaging in adaptation may fuel hope, and hope in return may inspire adaptation. It is within the extremes—those spaces where hope and adaptation might seem least likely—that meaningful change is most needed and can emerge.

Our motivation for this research comes from extensive field-based research on adaptation in the Global South, and our analysis of findings from affective science, environmental and social psychology. Across these fields, there is a small but growing body of empirical research about the relationship between hope and adaptation, yet a comprehensive model is needed. In our geographical research, we have listened to people whose homes have been destroyed by extreme events, and we have witnessed people respond to slow-onset changes such as salination of soils, changes in seasonal weather patterns and erosion of shorelines. In most cases, the lack of adaptation funding and resources means these people have had to fend for themselves, and yet, hope has played an important role in their responses, stimulating us to consider the work that hope does and may do further in adaptation processes.

The case for adaptation

Climate change adaptation is defined as ‘the process of adjustment to actual and expected climate and its effects, in order to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities’2. This is distinct from climate change mitigation, which describes actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Adaptation is focused on behaviours, actions and decisions which adjust our social and ecological systems to manage climate change impacts5. For example, adaptation could involve relocating houses to minimize flood impacts, shifting to drought-tolerant crops, updating building regulations so that infrastructure can better withstand cyclones, or planting mangroves to protect from coastal erosion.

Adaptation can occur at an individual scale, but it is most effective when implemented at broader scales where resources can be pooled and where more people stand to benefit6. For example, in northern Ghana, smallholder farmers impacted by drought are collectively investing in irrigation systems and planting trees7. In parts of Kenya and Uganda, farmers are applying for group loans to provide finances during the planting season and are collectively managing livestock8. In the Republic of the Marshall Islands, communities work cooperatively to share the labour of copra production9 and fish in groups to equitably distribute their catch and reduce fuel costs10. In Fiji, communities collectively repair damaged sea walls in Fiji11. Without collective action, adaptation is likely to be limited to short-term, incremental change and fail to meet the global challenges of climate change12,13.

Given that adaptation involves multiple actors and limited resources, it invariably involves trade-offs that can lead to inequitable distribution of benefits. For example, a group may seek to build a dam to manage drought conditions, only to heighten water scarcity for communities downstream14. This means that adaptation, though essential, is far from a neutral process and requires careful planning and implementation.

Because of its challenges, action to implement adaptation is lacking in most places, sectors and across scales. Indeed, the gap between adaptation goals and tangible actions to achieve adaptation is growing15,16. Barriers to adaptation are extensive and have been well-explored in the adaptation literature, stemming from economic, political and environmental processes17,18. Psycho-social processes related to social capital, cultural values, perceptions of efficacy, and trust in authorities have also been found to constrain adaptation progress19,20,21,22,23. These findings warrant a closer look at the (social) psychological processes that underpin adaptation behaviour.

Studies in psychology have frequently focused on fostering pro-environmental actions such as reducing the number of people who drive or fly, or increasing the number of people who recycle24, but this provides a weak proxy for adaptation. Unlike pro-environmental behaviour, individuals and collectives usually stand to benefit significantly from adaptation (i.e. their house would be protected by a flood embankment). Moreover, because adaptation is targeted at improving both social and environmental conditions, adaptation can involve trade-offs that negatively impact the environment25. For instance, homeowners may burn excess vegetation to manage forest fire risk and drought-affected farmers may damage river health by increasing their irrigation. This makes pro-environmental behaviour a poor substitute for understanding adaptation.

Findings from the Global North do not translate well to marginalized communities in the Global South, where many households depend on natural resources for their livelihoods, are highly sensitive to climate impacts, and where adaptation often involves collective effort (see seminal work by Adger, 200319). Human Geography, with its focus on the lived experiences of people embedded in complex social and environmental systems, provides a unique perspective here. Research consistently shows that communities experiencing poverty and marginalization are disproportionately impacted by climate change and have the fewest resources to facilitate adaptation1. What follows in this paper is an investigation of the literature that examines the psychological dimensions of adaptation, with a focus on hope, in the Global South.

The case for hope

Emotions are important drivers of individual and collective action. Meta-analyses have found a positive correlation between negative emotions, particularly anxiety and fear, and pro-environmental behaviour24 as well as climate adaptation26. Positive affect is likewise associated with climate engagement in meta-analysis27. Moral emotions described as a ‘warm glow’ or the ‘helper’s high’ have been found to motivate individual contributions to environmental causes28,29. Self-transcendent emotions of awe, compassion, and gratitude can also drive pro-environmental behaviour30. These competing emotional processes can make affect a somewhat slippery area of study. Ojala reflects that it can be difficult to identify the influence of specific emotions like hope on climate action amongst other attendant emotions, such as worry31. Nevertheless, in this work, we make a case for the role of hope in shaping adaptation.

Definitions of hope

Hope is multidimensional and can be understood as an emotion32,33, a cognition34, or as an individual disposition35. Our conceptualization of hope integrates affective and cognitive approaches. Hope is a positive feeling about the prospect of a desired future, and thus, a future-focused positive emotion36. The inverse of hope—despair—is the feeling of being committed to change that one feels will not occur37. Where hope shows promise for acting on climate change27, despair is accompanied by emotions of anxiety, grief, and helplessness, and has been increasingly observed by public health professionals in the context of climate change38.

Focusing on affective components, hope is an emotional experience—the feeling that good things might happen and that one feels positively attached to the possible outcome33. In addition, hope has cognitive components, in that it involves appraisals about the likelihood of future change away from the current status quo39. Taking a middle ground, we apply the definition of Lazarus in which hope is “the belief in the possibility of a favourable outcome” (p. 653), incorporating both affective and cognitive components40. This perspective is in keeping with appraisal theories of emotion, where particular cognitions (e.g., that change is possible) are theorized to give rise to discrete affective experiences (e.g., subjective feeling of hope) with specific action tendencies (e.g., motivation to work toward change)41.

In terms of appraisals, there is an element of uncertainty in hope that sets it apart from related constructs like optimism, which is a tendency to expect positive outcomes42,43. Where optimism describes a generic expectation that good things will happen, hope allows us to feel emotionally strong in the face of uncertain problems, where problems are intractable, and success is not guaranteed38,44. Although one may hope the future will be better than today, there is no guarantee that the future will change in line with one’s wishes45. This is reflected in the use of hope in colloquial parlance: we ‘cling’ to hope, are ‘buoyed’ by hope, and sometimes we ‘hope against hope’46. Consequently, hope is not a wishful fantasy about how things might turn out40,47, but a positive, yet uncertain, anticipation about what the future holds.

Mechanisms of hope

In addition to describing what hope is, researchers have theorized on the function, or purpose, of hope33,34. The function of hope is hypothesized to bring distant goals closer, even though the future is uncertain48,49. In other words, hope not only feels good (i.e., has hedonic value), but also helps people achieve what they set their mind to (i.e., has instrumental value)50. In achieving this function, hope operates through two key mechanisms: bolstering agency to pursue an identified goal (‘willpower’) and enhancing knowledge of pathways to meet that goal (‘waypower’)34. In tandem, these mechanisms allow individuals to pursue their hoped-for goals: trusting their capability and using different strategies at their disposal to overcome obstacles51.

Combining elements of willpower and waypower in hope theory34, the concept of perceived self-efficacy describes the belief a person has in their ability to attain a desired outcome48,49. Hope acts as an affective primer for efficacy, where individuals and groups with higher perceived efficacy will have higher “motivational investment in their undertakings” and stronger “staying power in the face of impediments and setbacks”52. Indeed, hope has been shown to enhance collective efficacy to achieve social change both correlationally and experimentally32.

Outcomes of hope

In keeping with its hypothesized function, hope has a strong bidirectional relationship with action. The more hope people feel, the more they can be expected to act. In a study on adult US Americans’ motivation to act on climate change, Geiger and colleagues found that hope had a stronger correlation with intentions to act than anxiety, helplessness, or political orientation27. This finding suggests anxiety—another future-focused, though negative, emotion36 —is not an antithesis to hope. Rather, anxiety can be experienced alongside hope –indeed, it is because an individual feels worried that hope becomes relevant53. Marlon and colleagues additionally found that people who were hopeful about climate change were more likely to have observed other people take climate action, or to believe that collective awareness about climate change was increasing54. This suggests that hope can enable climate action, but also that climate action can enable hope.

A few studies suggest that hope does not foster individual climate action, or that the correlation is weak55,56. However, these studies do not focus on climate adaptation, but on private mitigation actions amongst mostly wealthy individuals in the Global North (cycling instead of driving a car, for example). These studies do not translate well to marginalized communities in the Global South, where many households depend on natural resources for their livelihoods, are already significantly impacted by climate change, and where adaptation often involves collective effort3. Note that further caveats and limitations related to hope have been identified in the literature, and these will be discussed towards the end of the paper.

A second outcome of hope is well-being. Hope correlates with improved interpersonal relationships and higher levels of subjective and social well-being34. Hope has been found to protect individuals from developing chronic anxiety and to help people to feel a greater sense of control in their lives despite risk and uncertainty18. Thus, hope has hedonic as well as instrumental benefits.

Measurement of hope

Hope can be measured at the individual and collective level. Snyder’s Trait Hope Scale has been widely used to measure personal hope, in which individuals self-assess their willpower and waypower to enact change. Personal hope is not only assessed on the individual level (e.g., my own subjective feeling of hope); it is usually assessed with reference to individual outcomes (e.g., hope for an outcome that affects me personally).

Hope scales can also be effective when used to measure group-level hope. Group-level hope can be assessed as a perception in its own right (e.g., a feeling of hope on behalf of my group) with reference to group outcomes (e.g., hope for an outcome that affects my group)32. Accordingly, this form of hope is most appropriately referred to as ‘group-based hope’. Alternatively, group-level hope can be assessed as an aggregate of individual hope perceptions. For instance, Li and colleagues took this approach in a study of climate hope amongst high school students57. This form of hope is most appropriately referred to as ‘collective hope’, in that it is the collective product of individually-assessed hope perceptions. The assumption is that groups that have a higher average of collective hope should be more likely to act on their shared goals.

A conceptual model of hope as an enabler of climate change adaptation

We propose that hope is an enabler of climate change adaptation. In this, we focus largely on the functions and outcomes of hope in promoting action. To be clear, we are somewhat agnostic about how to create hope. Though our model presupposes some factors that may be associated with hope, we do not present a case for sure-fire ways to generate hope where there is none. Indeed, the literature shows that hope can be elusive and difficult to establish58, but once hope is present, we argue that hope should enable adaptation and be mutually reinforcing.

If hope and adaptation can reinforce each other, this could have far-reaching implications. It could increase the well-being of people who are highly vulnerable to climate change; build their adaptive capacity (as motivation to act and perceived efficacy increases); and improve the way in which external actors perceive the efficacy of adaptation investment. For example, despairing narratives about Tuvalu’s climate future have had a negative impact on the mental health and well-being of Tuvaluans, greater than the impact of sea level rise and other climate impacts on well-being to date59. Despairing narratives have also had a negative impact on adaptation investment in Tuvalu, with foreign investment in rainwater tanks difficult to establish due to investor perceptions of climate vulnerability, despite a strong appetite for adaptation locally60. In such situations, more hopeful framings of climate change could have positive repercussions for local well-being and investor confidence, both of which promise to enable adaptation. In short, it is worthwhile investigating the relationship between hope and adaptation further.

Figure 1 presents our conceptual Model of Hope as an Enabler of Climate Change Adaptation (MHECCA) at a personal and a collective scale. It draws on existing evidence from studies in climate change adaptation, affective science, environmental psychology, and social psychology, but is yet to be empirically tested. The model has two overarching tenets: that hope helps to foster collective adaptation and that adaptation can, in turn, foster hope. The model itself cuts across multiple levels of analysis (personal, group, environmental), and centres personal and group hope experiences as (a) a product of background conditions that are capable of stymying or catalysing hope and (b) a driver of personal and collective adaptation efforts.

Fig. 1: Conceptual model of hope as an enabler of climate change adaptation.
Fig. 1: Conceptual model of hope as an enabler of climate change adaptation.
Full size image

Note that all factors in this model, including within each level, are hypothesized to be mutually reinforcing and bidirectional. The strength of the line indicates the anticipated strength of the relationship, noting that some relationships may be relatively weak or take time to emerge (for example, the impact of hope experiences on broader society or individual dispositions).

Background conditions

Our inspiration for the structure of MHECCA is embedded in Bandura’s concept of triadic determinism from social cognitive theory52. This concept holds that behaviour is shaped by personal and environmental conditions. In our model, Bandura’s ‘environment’ is split into two categories: environmental factors and group factors. We do this to more clearly delineate the broader sociocultural environment from the (social) psychological environment, capitalizing on theories drawn from the social identity approach61. Sociocultural forces must be incorporated in this model because the background factors influencing climate change adaptation are deeply layered, presenting a “wicked problem” that can limit and filter what individuals and groups feel is possible. Group forces must also be incorporated because adaptation is predominantly a collective action problem. We therefore draw on theories of collective action, notably the social identity model of collective action (SIMCA)62,63,64, the social identity model of pro-environmental behaviour (SIMPEA)65, and the model of belonging, individual differences, life experience, and interaction sustaining engagement (MOBILISE)66. These background conditions in our model are a precursor for hope to thrive, and/or may moderate the downstream relationship between hope and adaptation.

Personal factors

Individual difference factors shape the way in which people appraise climate risk, the viability of adaptation options, and feelings of hope. These factors may include personal experiences or demographic features of the individual. Without direct experience of climate change impacts, individuals may feel psychological distance from climate change and be unmotivated to adapt to climate risk, nor have cause to feel climate hope24,67. Likewise, having access to education and trusted climate science communication shapes individual perceptions of climate change risk and the need to adapt68,69. Information on adaptation options similarly shapes personal adaptation decisions. For example, farmers stressed from drought in Zimbabwe were faced with multiple sources of information on adaptation options, so many options that they were cognitively overwhelmed in their adaptation decision-making21. These background conditions in the form of personal climate experience, education, and communication are therefore hypothesized in MHECCA to influence hope and motivation for adaptation.

Group factors

Group factors, such as the collective experience of extreme weather events and social identity, also influence hope and adaptation64,70. Where individuals perceive that participation in collective action is the norm and receive positive social feedback in the form of group identification and belonging, they are more likely to act62,71. This is because these group-based psychological resources constitute ripe conditions for efficacy to thrive, and perceived efficacy to engage in an action is one of the strongest predictors of performing that action72. For instance, group identification has been shown to enhance feelings of efficacy on the personal and collective level73,74. Further, an ability to envisage changes to the status quo (and therefore have hope) is hypothesized to be the product of favourable group conditions61. Because of these mutually reinforcing relationships, social psychological theories of collective action, including climate action, situate group factors—including identification and social norms—as drivers of collective action64,65,66.

There is evidence for the processes we envisage, whereby shared group experiences foster collective hope and efficacy to engage in adaptation, including from the Global South. In India, a large study showed that people with strong beliefs in collective efficacy were more likely to participate in community projects to improve drinking water supply, showing a positive correlation between community-level collective efficacy and community adaptation75. Another example comes from Grantham, a small town in rural Australia. Following two devastating floods, galvanized by their collective flood experiences and with support from the local mayor, the citizens relocated their township to a safer site with significant improvements to their collective wellbeing76. Considering the reverse process, in Ghana and Bangladesh, case studies show how collective grief and trauma from extreme weather events have led to feelings of hopelessness and resignation, such that little or no adaptation was undertaken77,78.

Environmental factors

The broader social, political, economic and environmental conditions are key to the emergence of hope. The white and grey literature on adaptation is replete with case studies in which marginalized communities have been unable to access the resources needed to adapt effectively 1,4,16. High levels of poverty, limited access to social freedoms and opportunities, minimal infrastructure, and rapid environmental degradation severely curtail opportunities for managing the impacts of climate change79,80. This is true in the Global North but amplified in the Global South with the legacy of colonialism and unsustainable development practices81. It is difficult for hope in adaptation to flourish under conditions of poverty and marginalization. Individuals are less likely to feel hopeful when adaptation goals and pathways are constrained. Resource scarcity can make consensus difficult and can splinter collectives, undermining collective hope6.

In addition to political and economic conditions, climate change risk is often communicated by external actors in ways that create a backdrop of hopelessness. Media, government, non-governmental organizations, climate scientists, and politicians all have a significant role to play in developing a narrative of risk that leaves space for hope and is conducive to adaptation. External assessments of climate risk that focus on the intractability of adaptation barriers can promote anxiety and close down thinking about alternative futures. For example, the media commonly portrays low-lying atoll states like Tuvalu as ‘inevitably uninhabitable’, focusing on worst-case scenario emissions scenarios and ignoring intermediate time horizons82. Media framing of uninhabitability has been found to negatively impact Tuvaluan’s sense of hope for the future59.

Studies from the Global South nonetheless demonstrate that even where structural barriers are deeply entrenched, hope can be sustained. A case study on hope in Afghanistan found that despite chronic conflict and poverty, many men were hopeful that they could positively influence their lives, whereas women were more likely to draw hope from the perceived efficacy of their extended family83. In another example, fisher communities in Kerala, India, were hopeful in their efforts to drive change despite political marginalization. The fisherfolk formed a union to resist industrialized aquaculture, which was impacting fish stocks already depleted by climate change. Their activism led to organized protests and court hearings, prompting recognition from government entities and action to sustain their livelihoods84. Despite structural barriers, even those with limited control over their social conditions may find reasons to feel hopeful and ways to influence adaptation.

Hope experiences

MHECCA situates hope as a product of personal, group and environmental forces, and as a driver of climate change adaptation. We see a further role for hope as an outcome of adaptation behaviour, in ways that constitute a positive feedback loop. In terms of the motivating role of hope, we are guided by theories of collective action that situate emotions as catalysts for behaviour84. For instance, SIMCA centres affective injustice in the form of group-based anger, which is argued to ‘become a state of action readiness’64. We adapt this logic, suggesting that hope can play a similar role as an affective primer for adaptation. This is not to say that anger—or indeed other emotions—cannot be present also. As identified by Fritsche and colleagues, multiple affective pathways influence collective action; research should expand to consider how multiple emotions overlap and shape collective action65. For instance, anger and hope may work together to drive collective action. Taking the example of the Arab Spring, group-based anger accompanied by hope for political change motivated political uprisings85. In MHECCA we focus on hope specifically, given that we feel it deserves greater consideration, though we do acknowledge that other emotions likely play an important role.

Personal hope

Personal hope describes the state in which an individual feels hopeful about their future. This can be present even if the broader collective is in a state of despair. Personal hope is shaped by personal traits and resources40. Relative wealth is a key moderating factor here, where an individual with multiple properties may have flexibility and security in managing climate risks, or sufficient insurance to allow them to build back following an extreme event86. We hypothesize that personal hope should predict individual adaptation intentions and behaviour. This is because the more someone feels a desired future is possible (i.e., hope), the more motivated they should be to engage in action to bring about that future (in ways we have argued in ‘Mechanisms of Hope’, above). Maintaining a focus on the Global South, personal hope might motivate uptake of actions to protect personal property and assets, microfinancing69, livelihoods diversification87 and seasonal migration88.

Psychological research suggests that when acted on, personal hope can be somewhat self-sustaining. For instance, affective hope increases the closer an individual gets to attaining their goal89 and rises sharply when the likelihood of success shifts from seeming improbable to feeling possible90. Brosch’s ‘positive affect feedback loop’ shows how feeling a ‘warm glow’ motivates pro-environmental action such that individuals anticipate and seek out further feelings of ‘warm glow’91. Drawing on the broaden-and-build theory, Fredrickson shows that experiencing positive affect helps build an individual’s personal resources to engage in action and support an ‘upward spiral’92. Applied to the domain of climate change adaptation, personal hope has the potential to motivate and build momentum for adaptation to continue and further reinforce hope.

Group hope

Group hope describes hope at a collective level and can be measured as an individual’s perception of hope for one’s group or as the aggregate of a group of individuals’ personal hopes. The boundaries of the group in question depend on the group’s shared identity—this could be a local community, region, nation, or even all of humanity73. In the context of adaptation, it may be most useful to keep the scale local, given that climate impacts are confined to particular geographies and social systems.

The literature suggests that group hope can enable collective climate action93, though there are few studies that explicitly link hope at this level to climate adaptation. One study, looking at mitigation, demonstrated that collective motivation and hope increased after students participated in a group simulation where they collectively explored the impacts of their emissions decisions94. Given that this intervention was successful in experimental settings, we suggest that adaptation-based interventions could be particularly successful in communities already experiencing climate change impacts and where personal investment in adaptation is high. We suggest that group hope is most likely to predict collective adaptations such as working together to repair a damaged sea wall, or planting mangroves to protect from coastal erosion95. This is because collective perceptions constitute more proximal predictors of collective actions than individual perceptions96.

Climate change adaptation

Individual adaptation

Where individuals have higher levels of hope, the literature suggests they are more adaptable and better able to make decisions to deal with adversity, including environmental changes97,98. Indeed, a study on Senegalese farmers found that a one-point rise on Snyder’s hope scale effectively doubled the chances of a farmer shifting to drip irrigation, more than the effect of education, income, and distance to the city99. Individuals who feel optimistic about their futures and motivated to act tend to be those who have high perceptions of personal efficacy and outcome efficacy—they believe in their ability to adapt, and they believe in the effectiveness of the adaptation itself26.

Collective adaptation

The literature on community-based adaptation (CBA) is well-placed to conceptually incorporate hope. CBA is an inclusive, bottom-up approach to adaptation that involves local communities in the planning and implementation of adaptation to climate change100. Done well, it works with communities to establish shared values, build consensus on adaptation goals, and develop a pathway to achieve those goals101,102. Whilst hope is not the usual framing for CBA studies, the process in CBA focuses on collective willpower and waypower in ways featured in Snyder’s hope theory34. Research will be needed to examine the impact of CBA interventions on hope levels and the reciprocal impact of hope on adaptation intentions. If communities experience tangible success in adaptation, even modest success, this may foster hope and prompt further adaptation action.

Distiling MHECCA, we suggest that where personal and group hope levels are high, and where a group shares adaptation goals and an understanding of pathways to achieve those goals, then the conditions are optimal for hope to enable climate change adaptation, and for adaptation to fuel hope. Indeed, we explicitly theorize that components in the model are mutually reinforcing, such that interventions to increase one component may have positive flow-on effects to other components.

Caveats and limitations

We can envisage several caveats to the main reinforcing relationship we posit between hope and adaptation. In addition to empirical support for MHECCA itself, we make a call for future research on the following potential boundary conditions.

False hope

Having hope for a particular adaptation does not mean it will eventuate. There are very real limits to the effectiveness of adaptation in some cases103. In such circumstances, bolstering hope may create a moral hazard. For example, a hopeful community that invests heavily in a seawall that is poorly designed or unable to prevent inundation is likely increasing its vulnerability. Likewise, hope can be exploited, as has been found in a study on aspiring migrants in Nepal, where migrant brokers profit from people’s hope through sham migration schemes104, and in Ghana, where weavers labour to maintain hopes to migrate despite persistent, systemic barriers105.

There is a tension then between political economy approaches to adaptation—even those that recognize the importance of hope—and hope theorists. The former are concerned with the limits to adaptation and the possible exploitation of hope, whereas the latter suggest that hope remains valuable even when the hoped-for outcome does not materialize. Hope is considered desirable where it ‘serves to improve one’s quality of life and does not cause one to avoid taking adaptive action when it is possible’106. This suggests that false hope is not necessarily a reason for concern, provided adaptation goals and pathways are feasible and likely to be effective. However, feasibility is difficult to assess under a changing climate, where climate impacts and adaptation barriers will likely shift the viability of adaptation pathways over time.

The adaptation pathways approach is one method that can support communities to adapt in ways that avoid ‘false hope.’ Pathways are a framework that sequences adaptation responses alongside changing risk profiles, such that longer-term risks can be addressed progressively through smaller steps106,107. For example, a low-lying community vulnerable to sea level rise may pursue the goal of adaptation through low-cost nature-based coastal protection measures. Working towards this goal would likely reduce the vulnerability of the community in the short to medium term and maintain well-being, while buying time for further adaptation strategies. Indeed, the hope fostered through early adaptation may help the community feel empowered to imagine and cultivate further adaptive measures.

Dashed hopes

For the most part, hope appears to have a positive impact on well-being. However, when aspirations are high but the outcome is not achieved, then this can have a negative impact on people’s well-being in the longer term. For example, research on student aspirations found a link between dashed aspirations and greater depression that persisted even five years after students had failed to meet their goal73. This effect was more pronounced when the aspiration was high. A similar dynamic has the potential to occur in the context of climate change adaptation, although research on dashed hopes in this context is needed. Instead of focusing on dashed hopes, the adaptation literature tends to focus on the physical impacts of failed adaptation projects (flood levee failures, for example, ref. 108). Key lessons that can be drawn from the psychology literature are that setting realistic adaptation goals is integral and that external support is needed to help realize these goals.

Faith and complacency

Some studies suggest that hope can diminish the perception of urgency and with it the motivation to act109. Many religions invoke hope but vest the agency for hope in divine entities. For example, research in Tuvalu and Kiribati shows that faith in God has contributed to people’s sense of hope for the future59,110,111. Yet this belief may not be conducive to action, as suggested by Hermann’s study in Kiribati, which found that some individuals placed such high levels of hope in God that they did little to adapt themselves110. These examples of hope and complacency align with the work of Hornsey and Fielding, who examine how optimism can reduce action to climate change58, and research by Ojala on the conditions which foster more constructive hope31. It also resonates somewhat with Marlon and colleagues’ findings on ‘fatalistic doubt’, in which beliefs in the will of God or of ‘Mother Nature’ can mean that people feel there is little point in acting themselves to address climate change54.

Hope as labour

Being hopeful is a struggle that requires labour, courage and endurance. Research finds that being hopeful often involves emotional labour where individuals negotiate loss and grief, and where other emotions, such as anger, overlap with hope to galvanize action112,113. Attempts to stimulate already marginalized communities to engage in the labour of hope present ethical challenges, even if research consistently shows that being hopeful has positive impacts on people’s well-being and that well-being is in itself an indicator of successful adaptation51,114,115,116,117. Research on the impact of hope on adaptation then needs to be attentive to the costs of the labour of hope as well as its possible benefits.

Clearly, more empirical research is needed to understand the interplay between adaptation and hope, including potential boundary conditions. Such research needs to be attentive to the complex structures of communities and recognize the personal, social, economic, and political environments that shape their hope appraisals. This is true for the Global North, but it is particularly needed in the Global South, where adaptation is most needed and where psychological research is most lacking, challenged by the transferability of its models and methods across cultures. In this, MHECCA is useful as a united theoretical framework to identify factors that may shape hope and adaptation and influence the relationship between these conditions.

Advancing knowledge of hope and adaptation

Our working assumption is that more hopeful individuals and communities are more likely to show more proactive adaptation to climate change. For this assumption to be meaningful, research must test it beyond controlled conditions, in real life settings where individuals and communities are facing significant impacts from climate change and where adaptation projects are planned or already underway. Such an initiative would require inductive research methods, at least initially, allowing for expansion to replicable studies and other datasets to compare and contrast findings over time.

Given the lack of data to select communities based on levels of hope, one way forward may be to conduct comparative research in communities with similar levels of climate change risk exposure but which are involved in varying degrees of adaptation. Such comparative research could involve quantitative surveys and self-reports, including the Snyder hope scale as a reliable measure of hope (Snyder et al.39), and qualitative interviews with a broad cross-section of residents from these communities. Administering these measures longitudinally would allow an exploration of the relationship between hope and adaptation over time. In keeping with MHECCA theorizing, the following factors would need to be examined as potential background or moderating conditions: drivers of environmental change, economic resources and infrastructure, political and socio-cultural factors, group identity and norms, social cohesion and community leadership, personal exposure to climate change and reported levels of individual well-being. The complexity of conducting research in real-life settings, rather than experimentally, precludes strong evidence of causality. Nevertheless, research could determine if there is a correlation between hope and adaptation at the individual and collective level and establish whether one precedes the other in ways that sustain adaptation over time.

Research could also pilot interventions to see if hope can be leveraged to increase adaptation engagement101,118,119. Community-based adaptation approaches offer an established process to embed this research. This could involve an initial assessment of hope levels and perceptions of efficacy, a discussion sharing adaptation successes from elsewhere, activities to help build consensus on feasible adaptation goals and co-produced adaptation pathways, and, at the end of the process, a final assessment of hope levels and perceptions of efficacy for comparison. Ideally, this research would be ongoing to assess the extent to which adaptation goals were realized.

Conclusion

This paper has demonstrated that hope can, in theory, increase well-being and spur collective action to reduce vulnerability to climate change. Far more research is needed to explore this relationship. This research should focus on communities experiencing climate impacts in contexts of persistent inequality and systemic barriers. It should unpack how hope can be cultivated and translated into adaptive action and identify opportunities to lessen and share the labours of sustaining hope. Advancing this research is vital for the purposes of reducing the impacts of climate change on well-being, for theories of hope in general, and, moreover, to fulfil the research community’s moral imperative to imagine and work towards a better future.