The measurement of pessimism: The Hopelessness Scale.

A scale designed to quantify hopelessness was administered to several diverse samples of patients to assess its psychometric properties. This scale was found to have a high degree of internal consistency and showed a relatively high correlation with the clinical ratings of hopelessness and other self-administered measures of hopelessness. Furthermore, the scale was sensitive to changes in the patient's state of depression over time. An affective, a motivational, and a cognitive factor were extracted.