Answer to Question 1
Hope theory was introduced by C. R. Snyder as a way to better understand how people move closer to their goals. In his formulation, hope is seen as a combination of cognitive pathways and agency. Pathways refer to the ability to envision one or more routes toward reaching a desired goal and agency refers to the motivational trait-like perception that a wide range of goals will be pursued. Thus, hopeful thinking requires both the perceived ability to generate routes to a goal and the perceived ability/determination to use those routes.
Answer to Question 2
Seligman proposed that whereas some people confronting stressors can learn to be helplessknown as learned helplessness (a passive state analogous to depressed states). Persons in a state of learned helplessness believe that their efforts will not affect outcomes--they expect defeat--because they do not see a relationship between their efforts and results.