Theme 4
Society and Work
Learning goals:
Vignette 1
▪ How do principles differ between cultures?
▪ How does this influence work?
Schwartz (2012). An Overview of the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values.
Values are used to characterize cultural groups, societies, and individuals, to trace change over time
and to explain the motivational bases of attitudes and behaviour. The recent theory concerns the
basic values that people in all cultures recognize. It identifies ten motivationally distinct types of
values and specifies the dynamic relations among them. Some values conflict with one another (e.g.,
benevolence and power) whereas others are compatible (e.g., conformity and security).
The structure refers to these relations of conflict and congruence among values. Values are
structured in similar ways across cultural groups. This suggests that there is a universal organization
of human motivations. Although the nature of values and their structure may be universal,
individuals and groups differ substantially in the relative importance they attribute to the values.
A Theory of Value Contents and Structure
The Nature of Values
Each of us hold numerous values with varying degrees of importance. The value theory adopts a
conception of values that specifies six main features that are implicit tot the writings of many
theorists. Values:
1. Are beliefs linked inextricably to affect: when activated they become infused with feeling.
2. Refer to desirable goals that motivate action: pursue important goals such as helpfulness.
3. Transcend specific actions and situations: this distinguishes them from norms and attitudes
that refer to specific actions, objects, or situations. For example, obedience is relevant in school.
4. Serve as standards or criteria: values guide the selection or evaluation of actions, policies,
people, and events. People base their behaviour on their values, but the impact of values is
rarely conscious, only when actions or judgments one is considering have conflicting
implications for different values one cherishes.
5. Are ordered by importance relative to one another: people’s values form an ordered system of
priorities that characterize them as individuals. This hierarchical feature also distinguishes
values from norms and attitudes.
6. The relative importance of multiple values guides action: any attitude or behaviour typically
has implications for more than one value. Values influence action when they are relevant in the
context (hence likely to be activated) and important to the actor.
What one value from another is the type of goal or motivation that it expresses. The 10 values of the
value theory are likely to be universal because they are grounded in one or more of three universal
requirements of human existence with which they help to cope. These requirements are needs of
individuals as biological organisms, requisites of coordinated social interaction, and survival and
welfare needs of groups. Values are the socially desirable concepts used to represent these goals
mentally and the vocabulary used to express them in social interaction
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, 1. Self-direction: independent thought and action, choosing, creating and exploring (defining
goal).
o Derives from organismic needs for control and mastery and interactional requirements of
autonomy and independence (e.g., creativity, freedom).
2. Stimulation: excitement, novelty, and challenge in life.
o Derive from the organismic need for variety and stimulation in order to maintain an
optimal, positive, rather than threatening, level of activation.
o This probably relates to the needs underlying self-direction values (e.g., daring).
3. Hedonism: pleasure or sensuous gratification for oneself.
o Derive from organismic needs and the pleasure associated with satisfying them (e.g.,
pleasure).
4. Achievement: personal success through demonstrating competence according to social
standards.
o Competent performance that generates resources is necessary for individuals to survive
and for groups and institutions to reach their objectives.
o Emphasize demonstrating competence in terms of prevailing cultural standards, thereby
obtaining social approval (e.g., ambitious).
5. Power: social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources.
o A dominance/submission dimension emerges in most analyse across cultures.
o Power values may also be transformations of individual needs for dominance and control.
o Both power and achievement values focus on social esteem:
▪ Achievement emphasize the active demonstration of successful performance in
concrete interaction (e.g., ambitious).
▪ Power emphasize the attainment or preservation of a dominant position within the
more general social system (e.g., wealth).
6. Security: safety, harmony, and stability of society, of relationships, and of self.
o Derive from basic individual and group requirements.
o Some serve primarily individual interests (e.g., clean), other wider group interests (e.g.,
national security).
7. Conformity: restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others and
violate social expectations or norms.
o Derive from the requirement that individuals inhibit inclinations that might disrupt and
undermine smooth interaction and group functioning.
o Emphasize self-restraint in everyday interaction, usually with close others (e.g., obedient).
8. Tradition: respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that one's culture or
religion provides.
o Groups everywhere develop practices, symbols, ideas, and beliefs that represent their
shared experience and fate.
o Tradition and conformity values are especially close motivationally; they share the goal of
subordinating the self to socially imposed expectations.
▪ Conformity entails subordination to persons with whom one frequently interacts—
parents, teachers, and bosses. Exhort responsiveness to current, possibly changing
expectations.
▪ Tradition entails subordination to more abstract objects—religious and cultural
customs and ideas. Demand responsiveness to immutable expectations from the
past.
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