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Values When you question your own identity, or the meaning of life, the most important questions you can ask are about values. Consider, for example, the following list of values. Which do you consider of most importance and which of least importance. A Comfortable Life The majority of people at Monday Night Live ranked Happiness as most important and Salvation as least important; however, one person ranked Salvation as most important. The person ranking Salvation as most important ranked A World at Peace and A World of Beauty as second and third. This person argued that they were happy but that wasn't the value they were concerned with. Others argued that they put Happiness first because that encompassed other values that were of concern to them, for example, Close Companionship and A Sense of Lasting Contribution. Also highly ranked were A Comfortable Life and Self-Respect. Values that were ranked very high by some people and very low by others included An Exciting Life, A sense of Lasting Contribution, Social Recognition, Close Companionship and Wisdom. Imagine being in a relationship, high/low on any one of these values, and what it could mean to the relationship. Using both the list above and the list in the e-question (in the right hand colmun) we divided people into groups of highly valued areas. The following five groups resulted: An Exciting Life For the final round we formed groups of people with mixed value choices and discussed the complementary and conflicting nature of different values in relationships. Final Reflections: It's good to have shared core values and some values that are different to give challenge to the relationship. Every day of your life expresses what you value. Notes: The values discussed above were drawn from the work of Duane Brown, R. Kelly Crace, and Milton Rokeach and published in the following sources: Rokeach, M. (1973). The Nature of Human Values. New York: The Free Press and Crace, R.K. & Brown, D. (1996/2002). Life Values Inventory. Chapel Hill, NC: Life Values Resources, Inc./Applied Psychology Resources, Inc.
Discussion co-leader, Russ Robbins, is a researcher and teacher at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a board member of Singles Outreach, Inc.. He is working with professors Al Wallace and Yingrui Yang to better understand the process of ethical problem solving and how values and personality may be linked to certain ethical problem solving techniques. He also is embedding this developing knowledge within a software simulation to better understand emerging properties of group ethical problem solving. If you are interested in learning more, please contact him at robbir@rpi.edu. |
E-Question: Below
is a list of values: All these values are very important to me. Disagreement
sometimes sneaks in, For me the most important are Belonging, Concern for the environment, Concern for others, Creativity, Health and activity, Humility, Interdependence, Objective analysis, Responsibility and Spirituality; least important is Financial Prosperity. I'd rank Independence and Health and Activity as most
important and Belonging and Humility as least important. I didn't realize
that I'm not very humble! For me, the most important is a tie between Responsibility and Concern for others; least important for me would be financial prosperity. If we all assume responsibility for ourselves, and those people and things we bring into our own lives by choice, the world would be a much better place. Concern for others is just something I was taught by example growing up, and it has not only enabled me to be a better person in the world, but has given me tremendous joy. Money is important to some people, but I've never been motivated by it. There are times when I don't have enough and things are tough, but you muddle through. Winning the lottery would sure give me more freedom to do the things I enjoy and be more generous than I am, but as long as I have enough, I count my blessings. I do not need more. I don't surround myself with people who think my income level determines my value as a human being either, so that helps! Interdependence and Spirituality are most important to
me and Humility is least important. But with the possible exception of
humility, they are all important to me and |