4. Human values at the individual level

Abstract

Values play an important role on many mental processes and observable behavior. This chapter reviews the state of the art in the mental representation of human and social values. To do this, we borrow theories and empirical studies from cognitive and experimental psychology, which have been well reviewed by Gregory R. Maio. Human values can be elusive phenomena, but their psychological functioning gets clear when we conceptualize them as mental representations that operate at three distinct level. At system level, values reflect motivational tensions that are well accounted for in the circular model of universal human values by Shalom H. Schwartz; we present the original and the revised circular models, and we review empirical studies that investigate value correlations, accessibility from memory, usage in rhetoric, feelings of ambivalence, effects of value priming, and value change. At the value level, values have been proved to be more strongly influenced by feelings than by past behavior or beliefs; also, the types of emotion depend on whether the values play the role of an ideal or an ought self-guide. At the instantiation level, we will discuss how a reflection on a given value leads to increase behavior that is compatible with such value; especially when that reflection includes concrete and typical situations where the value is relevant. The three levels help bridging the gap from a mental representation to actual behavior. We end the chapter reviewing several applications of these theories to the e information and communication technology (ICT) domain, paying special attention to the Values Q-Sort tool, that allows eliciting and analyzing value prioritizations by ICT researchers and practitioners.