Psychological basis of behavior

(2013-14)
Human Values
Psychological perspective of human values


CONTENT:
- Introduction to the human values theory
- The basic human values
- Structure of the value relations
- History and current development
- Sources of value priorities
- The pattern of value relations with other variables:
An Integrated System
1. Age Influences
2. Gender Influences
3. Education influences
- Measuring value priorities
1. The Schwartz Value Survey
2. The Portrait Values Questionnaire
- Predicting behavior by basic values
1. Linking process
2. Exemplary studies
- Controversies
- Future directions







ABSTRACT
The value concept able to unify the apparently diverse interests of all the sciences concerned
with human behavior. [Rokeach, 1973]. A psychologist wrote these words that proclaim the
centrality of the value concept. Sociologists [e.g., Williams, 1968] and anthropologists [e.g.
Kluckhohn, 1951] have echoed similar opinions. These theorists view values as the criteria
people use to evaluate actions, people, and events.
Here, this article presents a theory within this tradition. The theory identifies ten motivationally
distinct value orientations that people in all cultures recognize, and it specifies the dynamics of
conflict and congruence among these values. It aims to be a unifying theory for the field of
human motivation, a way of organizing the different needs, motives, and goals proposed by other
theories.
Introduction to the Human Values Theory
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. We can summarize the main features of the conception of basic
values implicit in the writings of many theorists and researchers as follows:
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. Peoples 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 peoples lives. The five features above are common to all values.
The crucial content aspect that distinguishes among values is the type of motivational goal they
express. In order to coordinate with others in the pursuit of the goals that are important to them,
groups and individuals represent these requirements cognitively (linguistically) as specific values
about which they communicate. Ten motivationally distinct, broad and basic values are derived
from three universal requirements of the human condition: needs of individuals as biological
organisms, requisites of coordinated social interaction, and survival and welfare needs of groups.
Ten Basic Human Values
The ten basic values are intended to include all the core values recognized in cultures around the
world. These ten values cover the distinct content categories found in earlier value theories, in
value questionnaires from different cultures, and in religious and philosophical discussions of
values. It is possible to classify virtually all the items found in lists of specific values from
different cultures, into one of these ten motivationally distinct basic values.
Schwartz [Schwartz, 1992, 2005a] details the derivations of the ten basic values. For example, a
conformity value was derived from the prerequisites of interaction and of group survival. For
interaction to proceed smoothly and for groups to maintain themselves, individuals must restrain
impulses and inhibit actions that might hurt others. A self-direction value was derived from
organism needs for mastery and from the interaction requirements of autonomy and
independence.
Each of the ten basic values can be characterized by describing its central motivational goal:
1. Self-Direction. Independent thought and action; choosing, creating, exploring.
2. Stimulation. Excitement, novelty, and challenge in life.
3. Hedonism: Pleasure and sensuous gratification for oneself.
4. Achievement: Personal success through demonstrating competence according to social
standards.
5. Power: Social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources.
6. Security: Safety, harmony, and stability of society, of relationships, and of self.
7. Conformity: Restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others and
violate social expectations or norms.
8. Tradition: Respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that traditional
culture or religion provide the self.
9. Benevolence: Preserving and enhancing the welfare of those with whom one is in frequent
personal contact (the in-group).
10. Universalism: Understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all
people and for nature.
The comprehensiveness of any set of value orientations in covering the full range of
motivational goals cannot be tested definitively. However, some evidence is consistent with the
comprehensiveness of the ten basic values. Local researchers in 18 countries added to the survey
value items of significance in their culture that they thought might be missing. These were
assigned a priori to the existing basic values whose motivational goals they were expected to
express. Analyses including the added value items revealed that these items correlated as
expected with the core, marker items from the basic values to which they were assigned. They
identified no additional basic values.
The Structure of Value Relations
In addition to identifying ten motivationally distinct basic values, the Values Theory explicates a
structural aspect of values, namely, the dynamic relations among them. 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-honored 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.
Sources of Value Priorities

Peoples 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.
For example, a woman who lives in a society where common gender stereotypes prevail is likely
to be rewarded for pursuing benevolence values and sanctioned for pursuing power.
This section discusses how background variables influence value priorities. In other words, we
treat values as dependent variables.
The first section of the chapter discusses how the whole set of ten values relates with other
variables. Then we investigate how age, gender, and education influence value priorities.
Although we treat values as dependent variables in this chapter, it is important to note that values
do not merely depend on our life circumstances. Our value-based choices also influence many of
our life circumstances.
We return to the reciprocal influence of values and life circumstances on one another at the end
of this section.

The Pattern of Value Relations with Other Variables:
An Integrated System

Most research on the antecedents or consequences of values has examined empirical relations
between a few target values and a particular attitude, behavior, or background variable (e.g.,
obedience and social class; equality and civil rights). The value theory enables us to treat
peoples value systems as coherent structures. The critical idea is that the ten values form a
circular structure of motivationally opposed and compatible values. The structure derives from
the conflicts people experience when they act on their values. Drawing on this structure, we can
relate the full set of values to other variables in an organized, integrated manner.
The structure of values has two implications for value relations:

1. Values that are adjacent in the structure (e.g., power and achievement) should have
similar associations with other variables.
2. Associations of values with other variables should decrease monotonically in both
directions around the circle from the most positively to the most negatively associated
value.

For example, say voting for a party with a left orientation correlates most positively with
universalism values and most negatively with security values. Then, going from universalism
round the circle to the right (benevolence, tradition, conformity, security), correlations are likely
to become less positive and more negative. This is also likely going from universalism round the
circle to the left.
Thus, the order of associations for the whole set of ten values follows a predictable pattern.
Specifically, if a trait, attitude, or behavior correlates most positively with one value and most
negatively with another, the expected pattern of associations with all other values follows from
the circular value structure.
This view of value systems as integrated structures makes it easier to generate systematic,
coherent hypotheses that relate the full set of value priorities to any other variable. It also makes
it easier to interpret the observed relations of sets of values to other variables. The integrated
structure of values facilitates theorizing about relations of value priorities to other variables.
Theorizing begins with reasoning about the particular values that are most and least positively
related to a variable.
The circular motivational structure of values then implies a specific pattern of positive, negative,
and zero associations for the remaining values. The next step is to develop theoretical
explanations for why or why not to expect these implied associations. The integrated structure
serves as a template that can reveal deviations from the expected pattern. Deviations are
especially interesting because they direct us to search for special conditions that enhance or
weaken relations of a variable with values [Schwartz, 1996].

How age influences values

It is common to speak of three systematic sources of value change in adulthood: historical events
that impact on specific age cohorts (e.g., war, depression), physical ageing (e.g., loss of strength
or memory), and life stage (e.g., child rearing, widowhood). Each of these sources affects value-
relevant experiences. They determine the opportunities and constraints people confront and their
resources for coping.
Cohorts Inglehart [1997] demonstrated that older persons in much of the world give higher
priority to materialist vs. post-materialist values than younger people.9 He interpreted this as a
cohort effect. People form values in adolescence that change little thereafter. The more economic
and physical insecurity the adolescents experience, the more important materialist values are to
them throughout their lives. The lower priority on materialist values in younger cohorts is due to
the increasing prosperity and security many nations have enjoyed during most of the past 50
years.
What hypotheses does the cohort approach suggest for age differences in basic values? Most of
the ESS-participants, but especially in West-Europe and the northern periphery, have enjoyed an
increase in security and prosperity over the past 50 years. These increases have reduced
existential threats and dependence on extended primary groups for subsistence. They have
increased individuals opportunities to indulge themselves, to be more adventuresome, and to
choose their own way. These changes imply that younger groups will give greater priority to
hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, and, possibly, to universalism values, but less priority to
security, tradition, and conformity values.

1. Physical ageing

Strength, energy, cognitive speed, memory, and sharpness of the senses decline with age.
Although the onset and speed of decline vary greatly, the decline rarely reverses. This suggests
several hypotheses. With age, security values may be more important because a safe, predictable
environment is more critical as capacities to cope with change wane.

2. Life stage

Opportunities, demands, and constraints associated with life stages may cause age differences in
values. Gender influences the experience of life stages, but we focus here on the main effects of
age. In early adulthood, establishing oneself in the worlds of work and family is the primary
concern.
We can investigate these assumptions using the ES\S data. The pattern of correlations for age
fits the order expected according to the structure of values quite well. Age correlates most
positively with tradition values, and the correlations decrease in both directions around the
motivational circle to stimulation, with only a small reversal for benevolence and universalism.

How gender and education influence values

1. Gender

Psychoanalytic theorists contend that women are more related and more affiliated with others
than men, whereas men are more autonomous and more individuated [e.g., Chodorov, 1990].
"Cultural feminist" theories posit women's "self-in-relation," in contrast to men's greater
autonomy [e.g., Scott, 1988].
They claim that women show more concern for an ethic of care and responsibility, while men
focus more on an ethic of rights based on justice and fairness [Gilligan, 1982]. Evolutionary
psychologists postulate that women probably gained evolutionary advantage by caring for the
welfare of in-group members.
Men probably gained evolutionary advantage by attaining and exploiting status and power.
Social role theorists attribute gender differences to the culturally distinctive roles of men and
women.
Parsons and Bales [1985] hold that the allocation of women to nurturing roles reduces
competition and preserves family harmony. Women assume more "expressive," person-oriented
roles; men engage in and learn more "instrumental," task-oriented roles. Similarly, Bakan
proposes agency and communion to distinguish mens and womens modes of social and
emotional functioning [Bakan, 1966].
Socialization also contributes: societies typically socialize boys and girls to occupy different
social roles and to affirm different life goals and sanction them for failing to do so.

2. Education

Educational experiences presumably promote the intellectual openness, flexibility, and breadth
of perspective essential for self-direction values (Kohn & Schooler 1983).
These same experiences increase the openness to non-routine ideas and activity central to
stimulation values. In contrast, these experiences challenge unquestioning acceptance of
prevailing norms, expectations, and traditions, thereby undermining conformity and tradition
values. The increasing competencies to cope with life that people acquire through education may
also reduce the importance of security values.
In addition, education correlates positively with achievement values. The constant grading and
comparing of performance in schools, emphasizing meeting external standards, could account for
this.
The associations of education with values are largely linear, with the exception of universalism
values. Universalism values begin to rise only in the last years of secondary school. They are
substantially higher among those who attend university.
This may reflect both the broadening of horizons that university education provides and a
tendency for those who give high priority to universalism values to seek higher education.

(1) The background variables tend to have similar associations with values that are adjacent in
the value circle.
(2) Associations with the background variables decrease monotonically around the circle in both
directions, from the most positively associated to the least positively associated value.

Measuring Value Priorities

1. The Schwartz Value Survey

The first instrument developed to measure values based on the theory is now known as the
Schwartz Value Survey (SVS; Schwartz, 1992, 2005a). The SVS presents two lists of value
items. The first contains 30 items that describe potentially desirable end-states in noun form; the
second contains 26 or 27 items that describe potentially desirable ways of acting in adjective
form.
Each item expresses an aspect of the motivational goal of one value. An explanatory phrase in
parentheses following the item further specifies its meaning. For example, EQUALITY (equal
opportunity for all) is a universalism item; PLEASURE (gratification of desires) is a hedonism
item.
Respondents rate the importance of each value item "as a guiding principle in MY life" on a 9-
point scale labeled 7 (of supreme importance), 6 (very important), 5, 4 (unlabeled), 3
(important), 2,1 (unlabeled), 0 (not important), -1 (opposed to my values).
People view most values as varying from mildly to very important. This nonsymmetrical scale is
stretched at the upper end and condensed at the bottom in order to map the way people think
about values, as revealed in pre-tests.

2. The Portrait Values Questionnaire

The Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ) is an alternative to the SVS developed in order to
measure the ten basic values in samples of children from age 11, of the elderly, and of persons
not educated in Western schools that emphasize abstract, context-free thinking. Equally
important, to assess whether the values theory is valid independent of the SVS method required
an alternative instrument.
The PVQ includes short verbal portraits of 40 different people, gender-matched with the
respondent (Schwartz, 2005b; Schwartz, et al., 2001). Each portrait describes a persons goals,
aspirations, or wishes that point implicitly to the importance of a value. For example:Thinking
up new ideas and being creative is important to him.
He likes to do things in his own original way describes a person for whom self-direction values
are important. It is important to him to be rich. He wants to have a lot of money and expensive
things describes a person who cherishes power values.

Predicting Behavior with Basic Values
Do peoples value priorities influence their behavior in systematic, predictable ways? First
consider processes through which values can influence behavior. Then we examine a few studies
of value-behavior relations.

1. Linking Processes

Value activation
Values affect behavior only if they are activated (Verplanken & Holland, 2002). Activation may
or may not entail conscious thought about a value. Much information processing occurs outside
of awareness.
The more accessible a value, i.e., the more easily it comes to mind, the more likely it will be
activated. Because more important values are more accessible (Bardi, 2000), they relate more to
behavior. Value-relevant aspects of situations activate values. A job offer may activate
achievement values and a car accident may activate security values. Even coincidental increases
in the accessibility of a value, say by coming across value-relevant words in a puzzle, increase
chances it will be activated.
If it is a high-priority value, it may then lead to behavior. Focusing attention on the self may also
increase value-behavior relations because it activates values that are central to the self-concept,
values of high importance. Verplanken and Holland (2002) demonstrated these effects in
experiments where they manipulated the accessibility of values in one study and self-focus in
another.
Although the reasoning is causal, they are all co relational. Values as a source of motivation,
Peoples values, like their needs, induce valences on possible actions (Feather, 1995). That is,
actions become more attractive, more valued subjectively, to the extent that they promote
attainment of valued goals. People who value stimulation would likely be attracted to a
challenging job offer whereas those who value security might find the same offer threatening and
unattractive.
Value priorities also influence the weight people give to each value issue. Even if both women
recognize the same value-relevant opportunities and constraints, the weight they give them will
differ depending on their value priorities. Influence of values on the planning of action. More
important goals induce a stronger motivation to plan thoroughly (Gollwitzer, 1996). The higher
the priority given to a value, the more likely people will form action plans that can lead to its
expression in behavior.
Planning focuses people on the pros of desired actions rather than the cons. It enhances their
belief in their ability to reach the valued goal and increases persistence in the face of obstacles
and distractions. By promoting planning, value importance increases value-consistent behavior.

2. Exemplary Studies

The following three studies each used a different instrument to measure values. A study of
cooperative behavior in the laboratory (Schwartz, 1996) illustrates the crucial idea of tradeoffs
between competing values in guiding behavioral choice.
Typically, the consequences of a behavior promote the expression or attainment of one set of
values at the expense of the opposing values in the circle. To predict a behavior successfully, we
must consider the importance of the values the behavior will harm as well as those it will
promote. The probability of a behavior depends on the relative priority a person gives to the
relevant, competing values.
Participants who completed the SVS were paired with another student to play a game. They
were to choose one of three alternatives for allocating money between self and a member of their
group whose identity was not revealed. Each would receive the amount of money they allocated
to self plus the amount their partner allocated to them.
The cooperative choice entailed taking the equivalent of 1 for self and giving .8 to the other.
Compared to the other choices, this meant sacrificing a little of what one could gain (.2) and
giving the maximum to the other. The other two choices were both not cooperative, maximizing
either one's absolute (individualism) or relative gain (competing).
Analyses of the consequences of cooperative and non-cooperative behavior for the goals of the
ten values suggested that benevolence and power values, opposed in the circle, are most relevant.
Cooperation is more a matter of conventional decency and thoughtfulness in this setting than of
basic commitment to social justice.
In the group that valued benevolence highly and gave low importance to power values, 87%
cooperated.
This was twice the rate in any other group (35%-43%). Thus, to elicit a high level of cooperation
required both high priorities for values that promote cooperation (benevolence) and low priority
for values that oppose it (power) Voting.
The next example of how value systems relate, as integrated wholes, to behavior takes us outside
the laboratory. There were two main coalitions in the Italian elections of 2001, center-right and
center-left. Both coalitions championed liberal democracy. But there were also policy
differences. To the extent that citizens recognize these differences, the values whose attainment
is most affected by them should influence their voting patterns. The center-right emphasized
entrepreneurship and the market economy, security, and family and national values. The
intended consequences of such a policy are compatible with power, security, and achievement
values. But they may harm the opposing values in the value circle, universalism and, perhaps,
benevolence. The latter values call for promoting the welfare of others even at cost to the self.
And universalism values express concern for the weak, those most likely to suffer from market-
driven policies.
In contrast, the center-left advocated social welfare, social justice, equality, and tolerance even of
groups that might disturb the conventional social order. The intended consequences of such a
policy are compatible with universalism and benevolence values. They conflict, however, with
pursuing individual power and achievement values and with security values that emphasize
preserving the social order.

Controversies

Key tensions in the values literature focus on the conditions under which they may influence
behavior, and the appropriate level of analyses for seeing values in action. Interest in values as a
research focus has ebbed in the past as each paradigm for studying values has been criticized for
lack of specificity of findings as due to values and not other social norms, attitudes or situational
constraints.
Current cultural psychology focuses attention on social structures as the repository of values
such as personal freedom, group harmony, personal happiness, and duty or filial piety. How do
we know that values exist? A number of options are available:
(a) Individual testimony people say what values they hold. Yet, self-reports of values are
subject to pronounced context effects (see Attitudes and Behavior).
(b) Behavioral choiceseither in naturalistic or laboratory settings, value differences may be
imputed from behavior. Yet, behavior is influenced by many variables other than values. At the
individual level, values themselves are assumed to link to behaviors via their influence on norms
and attitudes, but people may infer their values from their behavior, reversing the causal
relationship.
(c) Cultural and social structuresexpenditure of resources, time, energy and structuring of
the natural environment; cultural products can be seen as concrete residues of value-based
choices (see Cross-cultural Psychology; Cultural Psychology).
(d) Social interchange observation of behavior in situations of conflict, and more generally
observation of what is rewarded or punished, praised or vilified provides data for identifying
what is socially valued.
Here, too, the question of appropriate evidence arises. To what extent is it appropriate to assume
that differences in social structures and societies are evidence of value differences? Political and
economic influences and simple inertia may set the stage for behaviors, without a causal
influence of necessarily values.

For each portrait, respondents answer: How much like you is this person? Responses are: very
much like me, like me, somewhat like me, a little like me, not like me, and not like me at all. We
infer respondents own values from their self-reported similarity to people described implicitly in
terms of particular values.
The verbal portraits describe each person in terms of what is important to him or her. Thus, they
capture the persons values without explicitly identifying values as the topic of investigation. The
PVQ asks about similarity to someone with particular goals and aspirations (values) rather than
similarity to someone with particular traits.
The same term can refer both to a value and a trait (e.g., ambition, wisdom, obedience).
However, people who value a goal (e.g., creativity) do not necessarily exhibit the corresponding
trait (creative); nor do those who exhibit a trait (conforming) necessarily value the corresponding
goal (conformity).
The number of portraits for each value ranges from three (stimulation, hedonism, and power) to
six (universalism), reflecting the conceptual breadth of the values. The score for the importance
of each value is the average rating given to these items, all of which were designated a priori as
markers of a value.
All the value items have demonstrated near equivalence of meaning across cultures in analyses
using multi-dimensional scaling (SSA; Schwartz, 2005b). The designers of the European Social
Survey chose the PVQ as the basis for developing human values scale to include in the survey.
The ESS version includes 21 PVQ items, a few revised in order better to cover the content of the
ten different values.

Future Directions

Cross-cultural perspectives are currently becoming increasingly central to values discussion. For
example Inglehart (1990) documented values and value change in a large multinational study,
and a large number of two-nation comparison studies has emerged.
Another important topic of research is the connection between values of individuals, values of
sub-cultural groups, and values of larger cultural systems and methods for identifying and
studying each of these.
Perhaps in addition to identifying value vocabularies at each level, it is time to begin to ask
whether values appropriately are studied as fixed traits of individuals or as embodied in groups,
and to what extent values research is synonymous with cultural and cross-cultural research.
Given that any particular behavior importantly is influenced by context effects that make certain
information salient at the moment of action, it is not surprising that the effects of individual
value endorsements on behavior have a sometimes you see it, sometimes you dont quality
about them.
The most profound influence of values may be through the ways that they influence rules, norms,
procedures within a society, and in this way structure the everyday life choices for individuals
within a society.
Thus, whereas previous researchers have documented values using survey techniques in which
individuals rated the extent to which various values were important to them, future assessment of
values may need to consider more indirect approaches such as what services a society provides
its members, what behaviors are rewarded or sanctioned and so on.


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