Values are constructs that guide human behavior, helping people distinguish between the desirable and undesirable. On the individual level, they are conceptions that motivate personal action. On the aggregate level, they reflect collective experience and provide general orientation to a society. Values have emotional connotations. We feel when something is unacceptable and undesirable even when we don't know what is wrong with a situation. Values cannot be simply empty axioms. To have directive force, they must be embodied in concrete individual and social practice. We can talk of "family values," but these are meaningless unless actualized in living experience. Researchers cannot observe values, but they can study their behavioral impact.

Virtually all disciplines concerning human affairs use and propose definitions for values because evaluative standards are fundamental to human existence. Homo sapiens are evaluative animals that exhibit few innate, invariant, complex behavioral patterns. Our species has a very open biogram (the biological substrate that supports/sustains our humanity; i.e., what is essentially shared by all humans) and is able to override basic biological predispositions and capacities. We may be predisposed to eat, reproduce, and protect our lives, activities that make perfect sense from an evolutionary angle, but we can also choose to starve ourselves, not procreate, and seek martyrdom. Equally important, our words or deeds have arbitrary and multiple significances because the human brain supports symbolic thought and action. Symbols allow us to refer to the nonimmediate and nonexistent and to propose imaginary scenarios. Biology thus predisposes us to make judgments of what is, what could be, and what ought to be in the realms of both ideas and actions. The evaluation and transformation of the conditions of existence is the main adaptive strategy of Homo sapiens.

Social scientists have debated extensively the nature of value systems and what value systems contribute to individuals and societies. Because all human societies hold standards concerning what is acceptable, good, and desirable, many have postulated functional explanations that emphasize behavioral or mental aspects. Those favoring the phenomenal (behavioral) viewpoint tend to focus on the problems of choice. Values reduce the ambivalence of choice by suggesting preferred states of affairs. When individuals confront decision-making situations, preferential standards limit the possibilities for action, reduce the cognitive load created by diverse alternatives, and possibly make the individuals more efficient actors. For example, if a woman feels that honesty is important, she will be less hesitant to report there is some uncharged item left in the shopping cart. If honesty is not an issue, the decision-making process will be more prolonged and complex. Values can reduce the burden of choice frequently experienced in ordinary living.

Values can also promote a general collective order by increasing behavioral predictability. Human plasticity at the ideational and phenomenal levels can create chaos on the organizational plane. When individuals share few fixed patterns of action, their coordination potential diminishes substantially. Values motivate individuals to choose certain options over others and to pursue the most acceptable path in a particular context. Furthermore, they offer standards by which to judge the actions of others and provoke sanctions that help induce conformity and promote order. The best way to understand the relevance of a value is to observe closely its transgressions and their corresponding responses.

References:

1) Hofstede, Geert. 2003. Culture's Consequences, International Differences in Work-Related Values. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

2) Kroeber, A. L. 1963. Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology.

3) Noblit, George W. and R. Dwight Hare. 1988. Meta- Ethnography: Synthesizing Qualitative Studies. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

4) Shils, Edward and Talcott Parsons. 2001. Toward a General Theory of Action: Theoretical Foundations for the Social Sciences. Abridged ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Vickers, Geoffrey. 2001. Value Systems and Social Process. New York: Routledge.

5) Werner, Oswald and G. Mark Schoepfle. 1987. Systematic Fieldwork: Foundations of Ethnography and Interviewing. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

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