The language of hopes and duties

What is it about?

When people pursue their hopes, they tend to feel eager, and when they pursue their duties, they tend to feel vigilant. Presumably, people can view any goal as a hope or as a duty; it just depends on how they perceive the goal. However, my research suggests that people bring different experiences to mind when they describe their hopes and duties. The participants in this research were almost 1000 adults in the United States and Canada who I asked to write about their hopes and duties. I found that people tend to write about things they feel more positively about when they write about their hopes, including leisure, achievement, and rewards. People write about duties in a more narrative style that is about social relationships and that distinguishes more between what they personally did and what they or someone else may have wanted to do.

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Why is it important?

Hopes and duties are common ways to view goals, but hopes and duties are not just ways to view goals. They also seem to be goals in different kinds of activities. However, these views may differ between cultures. People in cultures that emphasize personal achievement might tend to have different views of what is a hope or a duty than people in cultures that emphasize personal relationships. More research is needed on the contents of hopes and duties and how these contents could differ across cultures.