Values
Chapter 2 - EGM
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Welcome to the Values page
What is valuable to us?
When we think of our values, we think of what is important to us in our lives (e.g., security, independence, wisdom, success, kindness, pleasure). Each of us holds numerous values with varying degrees of importance. A particular value may be very important to one person, but unimportant to another.
Values are beliefs. But they are beliefs tied inextricably to emotion, not objective, cold ideas.
- Values are a motivational construct. They refer to the desirable goals people strive to attain.
- Values transcend specific actions and situations. They are abstract goals. The abstract nature of values distinguishes them from concepts like norms and attitudes, which usually refer to specific actions, objects, or situations.
- Values guide the selection or evaluation of actions, policies, people, and events. That is, values serve as standards or criteria.
- Values are ordered by importance relative to one another. People’s values form an ordered system of value priorities that characterize them as individuals. This hierarchical feature of values also distinguishes them from norms and attitudes.
The Values Theory defines values as desirable, trans-situational goals, varying in importance, that serves as guiding principles in people’s lives.
Actions in pursuit of any value have psychological, practical, and social consequences that may conflict or may be congruent with the pursuit of other values. For example, the pursuit of achievement values may conflict with the pursuit of benevolence values - seeking success for self is likely to obstruct actions aimed at enhancing the welfare of others who need one's help. However, the pursuit of achievement values may be compatible with the pursuit of power values - seeking personal success for oneself is likely to strengthen and to be strengthened by actions aimed at enhancing one's own social position and authority over others. Another example: The pursuit of novelty and change (stimulation values) is likely to undermine preservation of time-honoured customs (tradition values). In contrast, the pursuit of tradition values is congruent with the pursuit of conformity values: Both motivate actions of submission to external expectations.
People’s life circumstances provide opportunities to pursue or express some values more easily than others: For example, wealthy persons can pursue power values more easily, and people who work in the free professions can express self-direction values more easily. Life circumstances also impose constraints against pursuing or expressing values. Having dependent children constrains parents to limit their pursuit of stimulation values by avoiding risky activities. And people with strongly ethnocentric peers find it hard to express universalism values. In other words, life circumstances make the pursuit or expression of different values more or less rewarding or costly.
| Content source |
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| Basic Human Values: An Overview - Shalom H. Schwartz - 2006 |
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What is valuable to the community?
One theory suggests that extremist ideologies appeal to thinkers who tend to conceptualise the world in unambiguous, black-and-white terms. Growing evidence shows that ideological extremism is associated with low cognitive flexibility, meaning the ability to adapt to new, shifting or unexpected events and perspectives.
Another theory argues that individuals who think of the world as uncontrollable and difficult to understand have a motivational need to adopt political ideologies that foster a sense of order and predictability.
- Extreme social conservatives and extreme economic leftists seek to impose top-down constraints on personal freedoms to safeguard collective societal wellbeing.
- Social liberals and economic conservatives might share some psychological roots – and perhaps even common political ground.
Research suggests that a healthy dose of intellectual humility helps to protect against polarisation and bias. Popper: absolute certainty is something to avoid.
| Content sources |
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| Popper was right about the link between certainty and extremism - Psyche - 2022 |
| The role of cognitive rigidity in political ideologies: theory, evidence, and future directions - Leor Zmigrod - Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - 2020 |
| Ideological Asymmetries and the Essence of Political Psychology - John T. Jost - Political Psychology - 2017 |
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What is valuable to the enterprise?
A recent stydy of the European Corporate Governance insitute about "Culture and firms":
The team found that firms exposed to Confucianism, outperformed competitors. These firms make “greater social contributions, provide greater employee protection, and have higher entertainment expenses, more patents, and more trade credits,” the researchers write.
The researchers conclude that “these corporate attributes match the five basic virtues of Confucianism:
- benevolence (compassion and altruism)
- righteousness (respecting and helping others)
- courteousness
- wisdom (“use of knowledge in a prudent way”)
- trustworthiness
| Content source |
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| Culture and Firms - European Corporate Governance Institute – Finance Working Paper No. 822/2022 - Gu Zhihui - SSRN - 2022 |
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