Cultural Values
In this video we’ll review the concept of values and how the values cultural groups
hold can be used to understand human behavior.
The information in this video provides a general overview of values.
Please consult assigned readings on this topic for more in-depth information.
As the course progresses, many of the ideas discussed in this video will be covered in
more detail.
What are values?
Values are shared ideas on what is good versus bad, ethical versus unethical, just versus
unjust, reasonable versus unreasonable, and the like.
Values are what people use to judge the rightness or wrongness of what goes on in the world
around them.
In order to function and survive, societies create a collection of shared rules and norms
based largely on their shared cultural values.
Adults pass down what they know about proper communication behavior to their children and,
as this this passing down of knowledge continues through generations, cultural values can persist
within cultures for hundreds of years or longer.
Most cultural values are learned before the age of 10, and once learned, it is difficult
to unlearn them.
The values we learn in childhood can influence the way we move through the world for the
rest of our lives.
And, since they are mostly invisible to us, we aren’t even aware they influence our
views.
People tend to be drawn to others who behave similarly to them and who value and like the
same types of things as they do.
Humans have discussed this need for group member similarity since ancient times, as
the idea of “birds of a feather flock together” is mentioned in Plato’s Republic.
In fact, human connection is so important that much of an individual’s time is dedicated
to building relationships and maintaining group membership.
Group membership can be separated into two general categories.
Those who are in your group, and those who are out of your group.
Those in your group are perceived as sharing similar ideas, likes, interests, beliefs,
and values.
The similarities among in-group members draw them together.
It is not uncommon for people in the same in-group to feel related even if they are
not from the same family.
Those that are not considered part of your group, out-group members, are perceived as
not sharing the same principal ideas, likes, interests, beliefs, or values.
Dissimilarity can be perceived as so significant and the idea in contention so fundamental,
that people of out-groups are considered complete outsiders.
When it comes to making judgments on people’s behaviors, humans tend not to use the same
rules to judge in-group members as they do to judge out-group members.
Only members of the in-group deserve full consideration, care, support, benefits, and
the like.
Those outside of the group are not entitled to these things and are treated differently.
Understanding how obligations and benefits differ for in-group and out-group members,
can help explain why contradictions seem to exist in belief structures.
For instance, a government may claim that all people in their country deserve free health
care (as it should be a fundamental right), but then only make it available it to its
citizens (immigrants without citizenship should not receive the same benefit).
A person may believe it’s important to be polite when interacting with others, but is
only polite to people who speak her or his language and is rude or cold to people who
speak a foreign language.
Or, a group may believe that people who are soul mates, and truly love each other, should
live together, but only if the soul mates are comprised of one woman and one man.
As humans, we belong to many groups, and some group ties are stronger than others.
We can identify with national groups, ethnic groups, intellectual groups, religious groups,
regional groups, and even neighborhood and family groups.
And, when making decisions each of our in-groups’ values are considered, and only those for
which we feel the most connected to are given all benefits, rights, and considerations available.
In summary, all human groups maintain values.
The values are learned early in childhood and endure throughout a lifetime, influencing
how people understand and judge the world and others around them.
For the most part, the values we hold are hidden to us and work in the background of
our thinking influencing our responses to things around us.
We align ourselves with people who seem to hold the same values as we do, forming in-groups,
and see ourselves as different than those who do not share the same values, keeping
them in out-groups.
People do not feel obligated to give people in out-groups the same benefits, considerations,
or fair judgments as those in their in-groups.
Knowing the role of values in the formation and maintenance of human societies and how
value structures influence human behavior is necessary to understanding why humans of
different cultures perceive and move through the world in very different ways.
One way of comparing and understanding behavioral differences among societal groups is through
the analysis of cultural value patterns.
Common themes that occur across all cultures include a focus on categories of equality,
extent of group allegiance, appropriate levels of cooperation or competiveness, how to deal
with the unknown, and perceptions of time.
These themes and others will be examined more closely as the course progresses.