Hope, Optimism, and Expectations for the Political Future, 2023

People tend to expect their future to go well. But does this extend to politics, where optimism may come less naturally? And are political expectations driven more by this optimism, the general belief that good things will happen, or by hope, a more active belief that good things can be achieved? We assess pre-registered hypotheses about the distinct influences of hope and optimism on two familiar types of beliefs about the political future – prospective evaluations and electoral expectations – in a representative-sample survey experiment in the UK (N = 1,697). The results suggest that optimism drives positive prospective evaluations but, when it comes to electoral expectations, it is hope that dominates. Indeed, partisan bias in expectations is shown only by those scoring higher on dispositional hope. We show experimentally that positive information from polls and expert commentary dampens the impact of dispositional hope by raising the expectations of the unhopeful. More hopeful supporters of the leading party are already upbeat about their party’s prospects but less hopeful supporters need some persuading. Overall, our findings highlight that different types of expectations may have distinct psychological drivers, with theoretical implications for positive, social, and cognitive psychology as well as political science.