The 10 Types Of Values: Principles That Govern Our Lives
Human beings do not act in a completely unpredictable way; Behind our actions there are a series of goals and objectives, most of which are shared and can be expressed in words.
But what moves us to act does not have to be simply a specific need related to our physiological state, such as hunger or cold. Being rational animals, we are capable of creating new forms of motivation through abstract thinking. We will talk precisely about this in this article: about types of values the ideals that we defend on a daily basis.
Values are concepts that guide our way of behaving and that link abstract concepts to a positive or negative emotional charge, serving as references about what is desirable and what is undesirable. Each person has a scale of values that expresses how certain aspects of life are prioritized over others, and which are defended with greater vehemence.
Thus, a person who holds the value of peace in high esteem will have a very different way of seeing things than another person who values survival above peace, or another person who primarily defends respect for traditions. , For example.
There are many types of values, and these They are investigated by both cognitive sciences and social psychology as well as by ethical philosophy since we must not forget that these are not merely descriptive concepts, but are associated with the ideas of “good” and “bad.”
Below you can find a classification with the main types of securities. Keep in mind that some of these categories partially overlap each other, and that the same value can belong to more than one of them.
1. Personal values
This type of values is defined by being applied on a daily basis through the simplest actions and, especially, through habits. Therefore, personal values They are characterized by being applied to practically all areas and contexts of life are not limited to a single place or type of activity.
For example, respect for a son or daughter is usually a personal value, since it is valid in all contexts, but innovation usually is not, since under certain conditions it can be relegated without special internal conflicts.
2. Work values
Work values are related to our way of acting in a professional context l, that is, in the field of work. For example, it is understood that if a person’s work values do not fit with the company’s values, an implicit conflict is created that generates discomfort in the worker and problems in the operation of the company.
Some examples of work values are perseverance, innovation, effort, adaptation to change, etc.
3. Company values
What characterizes company values is that they aim to be both a production style and a component of marketing of an organization. They are not attached to a natural person, but to a legal person, and therefore do not arise naturally from a real person, but are a social construction that influences how work is done in the company (not only in the office, but also in the Public Relations activities).
religious values are linked to a belief system based on faith of a specific religion. By definition, religions include a system of symbols, religious dogma and certain rituals shared by several people, so religious values are also related to this social factor by which some believers influence the decisions and evaluations of others, often punishing those who think differently in an aspect that is conflictive.
5. Family values
This type of values is related to the experience of belonging to a family. With the establishing strong emotional ties that characterize the family, there are also values used to put order in the way in which we do not relate with the rest of its members.
For example, respect for elders may be very present in one family, while in another the value of “protection of the weak” may be above it, which causes the grandfather or grandmother to be treated with greater paternalism.
6. Social values
Social values They are not limited to a specific social circle just as it does with family members, but can be extended to the entire population. Respect for the rest of others, which translates into trying to make little noise at night, is a social value, and the same goes for respect for the right to privacy.
7. Political values
Political values have to do with the ideal political model for a person, which has to do with public management of resources. Individual freedom, for example, is usually one of the values most defended by the liberal political tendency, while universal access to basic goods is usually more demanded by the left.
This set of values has to do with forms of sensory perception and the way in which these induce certain aesthetic appreciations. For this reason, they are especially important in art, but they are not limited to this area, since they are also relevant in crafts and design in general, whether artistic or not.
Simplicity, harmony or a taste for the strange are aesthetic values.
9. Ethical values
Those values related to morality are aesthetic ones, principles that serve to distinguish in a relatively clear way Between good and bad and that they are, in a certain sense, a priori: they do not have so much to do with a specific context or with the usefulness of one strategy over another, but rather they have value in themselves.
Respect and peace are ethical values.
10. Material values
Material values designate which material aspects of life have value over others. For example, there are people who live on very little voluntarily, while others, despite being middle class, feel great frustration at not being able to afford a large number of great luxuries.
