Value (personal and cultural)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Value.
 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references (ideally, using inline citations). Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008)

A personal and cultural value is a relative ethic value, an assumption upon which implementation can be extrapolated. A value system is a set of consistent values and measures that are not true. A principle value is a foundation upon which other values and measures of integrity are based. Values are considered subjective, vary across people and cultures and are in many ways aligned with belief and belief systems. Types of values include ethical/moral values, doctrinal/ideological (political, religious) values, social values, and aesthetic values. It is debated whether some values are intrinsic.

Contents

[edit] Personal values

Personal values evolve from situations with the external world and can change over time. This integrity in the application of values refers to its continuity; persons have integrity if they apply their values appropriately regardless of arguments or negative reinforcement from others. Values are applied appropriately when they are applied in the right area. For example, it would be appropriate to apply religious values in times of happiness as well as in times of despair.

Personal values developed early in life may be resistant to change. They may be derived from those of particular groups or systems, such as culture, religion, and political party. However, personal values are not universal; one's family, nation, generation and historical environment help determine one's personal values. This is not to say that the value concepts themselves are not universal, merely that each individual possess a unique conception of them i.e. a personal knowledge of the appropriate values for their own genes, feelings and experience.

[edit] Cultural values

The Inglehart-Welzer Cultural Map of the World, created by political scientists Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel based on the World Values Survey.

Groups, societies, or cultures have values that are largely shared by their members. The values identify those objects, conditions or characteristics that members of the society consider important; that is, valuable. In the United States, for example, values might include material comfort, wealth, competition, individualism or religiosity and sex, drugs and rock and roll. The values of a society can often be identified by noting which people receive honor or respect. In the US, for example, professional athletes are honored (in the form of monetary payment) more than college professors, in part because the society respects personal values such as physical activity, fitness, and competitiveness more than mental activity and education. This may also be the case because the society takes its education for granted and repays its teachers with non-tangible honors of relatively equal value with that of the athlete. Surveys show that voters in the United States would be reluctant to elect an atheist as a president, suggesting that belief in God is a value.

Values are related to the norms of a culture, but they are more general and abstract than norms. Norms are rules for behavior in specific situations, while values identify what should be judged as good or evil. Flying the national flag on a holiday is a norm, but it reflects the value of patriotism. Wearing dark clothing and appearing solemn are normative behaviors at a funeral. They reflect the values of respect and support of friends and family.

Members take part in a culture even if each member's personal values do not entirely agree with some of the normative values sanctioned in the culture. This reflects an individual's ability to synthesize and extract aspects valuable to them from the multiple subcultures they belong to.

If a group member expresses a value that is in serious conflict with the group's norms, the group's authority may carry out various ways of encouraging conformity or stigmatizing the non-conforming behavior of its members. For example, imprisonment can result from conflict with social norms that have been established as law.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Sister project Look up value in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(personal_and_cultural)"
Personal tools