What Are My Values?
Values Defined
Values Defined: Values are beliefs about what is and isn’t important in life. They underlie attitudes and appraisals of people and serve as standards to motivate behavior.
Values are the fundamental beliefs that guide and motivate our behavior and our choices of what is important in life. They are standards we use to observe, evaluate, and respond to our environment at every level – the world as a whole, our country, city, town, community, workplace, school, family, or other social groups. Values are also the standards that provide us with a guidance system when we are moving through change.
The Nature of Values. When we think of values, we think of what is important in life. Each person can hold different values and with varying degrees of importance. The Schwartz Values Theory provides a model of values that defines six main features:
Values are inextricably linked to affect. When values are activated they become infused with emotions and feelings.
Values define the desirable goals that motivate action.
Values transcend specific actions, time, and situations.
Values serve as standards or criteria to guide the choice and evaluation of thoughts, behavior, and environmental factors related to people, places, things, and situations.
Values are ordered by relative importance. Personal values form an ordered system of priorities that characterize people as individuals.
The relative importance of personal values guides action. Any attitude or behavior typically has implications for more than one value.
These are the features of all values. What distinguishes one from another is the type of goal or motivation that it expresses.
The Schwartz Values Theory
The Schwartz Values Theory defines ten broad Value Types according to the kind of goal or motivation that each expresses. These Value Types have been researched and applied in studies of over seventy cultures across the world. Each Value Type defines socially desirable standards used to represent the basic goals cognitively and the vocabulary to communicate with others about them.
In addition to identifying ten (10) basic Values Types and defining fifty-seven (57) unique values, the theory highlights eight (8) dynamic dimensions explaining the relationships among them. One basis of the value structure is the fact that actions in the pursuit of any value have consequences that conflict with some values but are congruent with others.
The 8 Dimensions of the Schwartz Values Wheel
Outer Ring:
Growth: Values that motivate self-actualizing, free expression of one’s own ideas, abilities, and feelings and self-expansion that includes concern for the welfare of others
Self-Protection: Values that express the need to protect the self, motivating either self-restricting or dominating behavior that can avoid, minimize or control anxiety and threat
Middle Ring:
Social Focus: Values that primarily regulate how one relates socially to others and affects their interests
Personal Focus: Values that primarily regulate how one expresses personal interests and characteristics
Inner Ring:
Self-Transcendence: Values that emphasize concern for and devotion to the welfare and interests of others
Conservation: Values that emphasize order and safety, self-restriction, and preserving the past, and that express resistance to change
Self-Enhancement: Values that emphasize pursuit of one’s own interests and relative success and dominance over others
Openness to Change: Values that emphasize the importance of independence of thought, action, and feelings, and that express readiness to accept change
INNER CIRCLE:
Values Types and Values — Defining What Motivates Us
The Schwartz Values Model highlights ten (10) Values Types and a list of fifty-seven (57) color-coded, concrete, and explicit values. All are written as motivational goals and listed in the Discovery Cards deck and Facilitator Guide. You can see more details for each Values Type in our earlier post on values.
Questions to Explore
Answer these questions for yourself and share with another person:
What do you find most helpful about the Schwartz Values Wheel when thinking about and identifying values?
Which of the 10 Values Types do you find most important for you at this point in your life? Explain.
As you looked at the 8 Dimensions in the outer, middle, and inner rings, what resonated with you?
How do these dimensions help you make sense of what your values are and what’s motivating you?
Which specific values do you think will be most important for you as you look toward the future?
What actions can you take to live each of these values more fully each day moving forward?
Who can you ask for help and support?
References
Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theory and empirical tests in 20 countries. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25) (pp. 1-65). New York: Academic Press. doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60281-6
Schwartz, S. H. (2012). An overview of the Schwartz theory of basic values. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1). doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1116
Schwartz, S. H. (2017). The refined theory of basic values. In S. Roccas & L. Sagiv (Eds.), Values and behavior: Taking a cross-cultural perspective (pp. 51-72). Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
Copyright 2020 Tom Karl / All Rights Reserved. Use of this article for any purpose is prohibited without permission.
Values Thought Leadership — Dr. Shalom Scwartz
Shalom H. Schwartz is a social psychologist, cross-cultural researcher and creator of the Theory of Basic Human Values. He also contributed to the formulation of the values scale in the context of social learning theory and social cognitive theory. The Schwartz Values Wheel defines ten broad Value Types according to the kind of goal or motivation that each expresses. These Value Types have been researched and applied in studies of over seventy cultures across the world. Schwartz is a fellow of the American Psychological Foundation and is a member of the American Sociological Foundation, European Association of Experimental Social Psychology, the Israel Psychological Association, the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. He is president of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology. He coordinates an international project in more than 70 countries that studies the antecedents and consequences of individual differences in value priorities and the relations of cultural dimensions of values to societal characteristics and policies. His value theory and instruments are part of the ongoing, biannual European Social Survey.
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