Consideration of Optimal Best, Using Hope as a Point of Reference

Abstract

Hope is a psychological process that may yield positive educational and non-educational outcomes. Its characteristics, positive in nature, reflect a non-deficit positioning, enabling individuals to anticipate, plan, and persist in different courses of action. One inquiry that has credence for research development is the extent to which hope, as a collective entity, could facilitate and encourage the achievement of optimal best. We recently developed the 'optimal achievement bests theory' (Phan, Ngu, and Williams, 2016), which has been refined to include the 'continuum of achievement bests framework', whereby five progressive achievement bests are noted: 'historical achievement best', 'realistic achievement best', 'personal achievement best', 'optimal achievement best', and 'ultimate achievement best'. Optimal achievement best is a point of reference, which may serve to encourage individuals to strive for successful performance outcomes. Ultimate achievement best, differently, is more inspirational and outside the scope of capability for most individuals. Accomplishing ultimate achievement best, however, is a possibility that cannot be discounted, overall. We consider the possibility that hope, in effect, could positively relate to individual achievement bests (i.e., notably optimal outcomes) of enriched emotional well-beings, situated within the context of the period of adolescence. Emotional well-beings, encompassing a wide range of affective responses have been argued to feature centrally in human agency (Phan, 2015b; Phan and Ngu, 2015b), especially for adolescents who may experience both positives and negatives. Does hope, for example, facilitate the striving and achievement of enriched emotional well-beings in the face of difficulties and obstacles? To what extent does hope enable adolescents to experience positive affective responses (e.g., happiness) that may, in turn, counter detrimental personal functioning on a daily basis (e.g., feeling of pessimism)? Our conceptualization of achievement bests is significant, and may contribute substantive theoretical, methodological, and practical yields for consideration. This chapter then, makes attempts to explicate theoretically the impact of hope on adolescents' optimal achievement bests of their emotional well-beings. This theoretical positioning may provide grounding for advancement into the study of: (i) hope as a facilitator and central mediator of achievement best in relation to emotional well-being (e.g., optimal achievement best), and (ii) the achievement best theoretical framework as reflecting the nature and characteristics of positive psychology. Our in-depth analysis in particular, may explain the impact of emotional well-beings as a proactive vehicle for adolescents.