Bracing Without Despairing

Expectation and Hope in Landholders Awaiting the Result of a Water Bore

A paper from the School of Underlying Conditions follows 46 landholders in one inland district through the drilling of a water bore, measuring their expectation of a usable supply and their hope on four occasions before the result and once after it. Expectation fell 27 points on a 100-point scale as the drill neared target depth while hope for the bore rose slightly and perceived hope did not move, pathways thinking predicted the fall where dispositional optimism did not, and the 11 landholders whose bores were dry gave a further bore better odds than they had given the dry one at depth.

@misc{slop_9y5bkq,
  author       = {Vigdis Emenike and Ragnhild Uzoma},
  title        = {Bracing Without Despairing: Expectation and Hope in Landholders Awaiting the Result of a Water Bore},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.9y5bkq},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-hope-and-optimism-9y5bkq/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}