Position and Disposition: The Contextual Development of Human Values

• Published in: Social forces Vol. 91; no. 4; pp. 1499 - 1528
• Main Authors: Longest, Kyle C., Hitlin, Steven, Vaisey, Stephen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chapel Hill, NC Oxford University Press 01.06.2013; University of North Carolina Press
• Subjects: Academic achievement; Benevolence; Children; Conformity; Economic value; Educational attainment; Employment; Ethics and moral life; Income; Men; Occupations; Parents; Parents & parenting; Personal development; Personality; Personality psychology; Predictor Variables; Protestantism; Religion; Self Employment; Social factors; Social Influences; Social psychology; Social structures; Socioeconomic factors; Sociology; Sociology of knowledge and ethics; Sociology of knowledge and sociology of culture; Universalism; Value orientations; Values; Kinship; Religion; Values; Rank; Social Influence; Rate
• ISSN: 0037-7732; 1534-7605
• DOI: 10.1093/sf/sot045

Research on the importance of values often focuses primarily on one domain of social predictors (e.g., economic) or limits its scope to a single dimension of values. We conduct a simultaneous analysis of a wide range of theoretically important social influences and a more complete range of individuals' value orientations, focusing both on value ratings and rankings. Results indicate that traditional institutions such as religion and parenthood are associated with more concern for the welfare of others and maintaining the status quo, whereas more individually oriented occupational factors like higher income and self-employment are linked to achievement and change-related values. Yet several factors, such as education and gender, have complex associations when individual values are examined as part of a coherent system rather than in isolation.