4 The Theory of Action and 1

Its Application
4.2 Values and Value-Orientations in the Theory of Action1
CLYDE KLUCKHOHN AND OTHERS
An Exploration in Definition and Classification

Human life is–and has to be–a moral life precise- 1 Various drafts of this paper have had the benefit
ly because it is a social life, and in the case of the of a critical reading by David Aberle, Chester I. Bar-
human species cooperation and other necessities of nard, Munro Edmonson, Rose Goldsen, Florence
social life are not taken care of automatically by ins- Kluckhohn, Donald Michael, Donald Marquis, Ro-
tincts as with the social insects. In common-sense bert Morison, Henry A. Murray, Thomas O’Dea, Tal-
terms, morals are socially agreed upon values re- cott Parsons, John Peirce, John M. Roberts, Lauriston
lating to conduct. To this degree morals–and all Sharp, Eliseo Vivas, E. Z. Vogt, John W. M. Whiting,
group values–are the products of social interaction and Robin Williams; their comments and criticisms
as embodied in culture. From this point of view the have led to major revisions.
examination which follows largely proceeds. On the Grateful acknowledgment is made to the University
other hand, there is a sense in which “conscience” of Nebraska and to the Division of Social Sciences,
may be said to be the last residuum of instinctive be- Rockefeller Foundation, for opportunities which
havior in man–other than the relatively few human have contributed to the writing of this paper.
ref lexes. At very least “conscience” certainly has a
biological basis, though a broad and long-term one. In April 1948, I was privileged to give the Montgo-
Later in this essay the relations and distinctions be- mery Lectures at the University of Nebraska on the
tween “values” and concepts such as “motivation,” subject “An Anthropologist Looks at Values.” Par-
“drive,” and “need,” which have a strong biological ticipation in the project, “A Comparative Study of
reference, will be examined at some length. First Values in Five Cultures,” supported by a grant from
we must make a detailed exploration of the concept the Rockefeller Foundation, has greatly facilitated
“value.” Since this will be oriented primarily by con- my research and thinking in this field. Finally, I am
siderations of social science, it is probably inevitable indebted to the “Summary of Discussions of the Cor-
that aesthetic values are inadequately dealt with. It nell Value Study Group” (June 11, 1949). I am grateful
is felt, as indicated below, that in a very broad and to this group and to its chairman, Robin Williams,
general way the same principles apply to aesthetic for permission to quote liberally from this valuable
and expressive values as to moral and cognitive va- but unpublished memorandum.
lues. However, a conceptual analysis on the aesthetic It would be improper to claim single authorship for
side as full as that which follows on the ethical must this paper, for I have borrowed ideas, sentences,
be a separate task.
 and phrases from unpublished memoranda and “social structure” in sociology: upon static “need-re-
oral communications from at least the following duction” theories of personality in psychology.)
colleagues and students David Aberle, Eleanor In addition to the varied and shifting connotations
Hollenberg, William Lambert, David MeClelland, of value in ordinary speech, the word is a technical
Kaspar Naegele, Thomas O’Dea, John M. Roberts, term in philosophy, economics, the arts, and, increa-
Katherine Spencer, Arthur Vidich, E. Z. Vogt, and singly, in sociology, psychology, and anthropology.
John W. M. Whiting. There can hardly he said to be an established consen-
2 I have been benefitted by their help in the “Compa- sus in any one of these fields. L. M. Fraser has shown
rative Study of Values in Five Cultures” project. On that in economics there are three main senses, each
the other hand, none of these individuals is to be with subvariants.2
blamed for any statement made herein; responsibi- In philosophy, there are numerous competing defi-
lity, though not originality, rests entirely with the se- nitions.3 One current of philosophical thought has
nior author. Finally, I have incorporated with minor distinguished the right (ethics) from the good (va-
changes a few sentences from the chapter on values lues). Charles Morris has recently defined the study
in Part II of this book. of values as “the science of preferential behavior.”
Charles Elton, the ecologist, has observed that it is Ralph Barton Perry’s well-known definition is “any
not much use to observe and describe animals until object of any interest.” Reading the voluminous,
you can name them. Data and reasoning can bring and often vague and diffuse, literature on the sub-
about more confusion than enlightenment unless ject in the various fields of learning, one finds values
they are firmly attached to referents which, if not considered as attitudes, motivations, objects, mea-
universally accepted, are at least thoroughly unders- sureable quantities, substantive areas of behavior,
tood. Indeed some philosophers today even define affect-laden customs or traditions, and relationships
science as “the techniques for giving words preci- such as those between individuals, groups, objects,
se meanings.” A concept is a word which has been events. The only general agreement is that values
given a precise meaning. The term value urgently somehow have to do with normative as opposed to
requires an attempt at precise definition of the con- existential propositions.
ceptual territory covered and not covered before 2 Economic Thought and Language (London, 1937).
it can serve ef fectively as an analytical element in
the theory of action. Moreover, as the Cornell va- 3 The social scientist will find Value Theory: A Coo-
lue-study group has observed: perative Inquiry (1949), edited by Ray Lepley, perhaps
the most useful introduction to the current state of
The concept “value” supplies a point of convergence philosophical discussion.
for the various specialized social sciences, and is a
key concept for the integration with studies in the 390 The Theory and Its Application
humanities. Value is potentially a bridging concept NORMATIVE AND EXISTENTIAL PROPOSITIONS
which can link together many diverse specialized stu-
It is often said that all value judgments are selecti-
dies–from the experimental psychology of perception
ve and discriminative ways of responding. If this is
to the analysis of political ideologies, from budget
accepted, there is nothing which cannot be–which
studies in economics to aesthetic theory and philo-
has not been–“valued” by someone in some situa-
sophy Of language, from literature to race riots ...
tion. The work of Adelbert Ames and Hadley Can-
Sophisticated use of value-theory can help to correct tril, among others, has demonstrated the evaluative
the wide-spread static-descriptive bias of the social element in sheer perception. It is easy to magnify
sciences. (The pervasive emphasis, for example, out of all proportion the distance from the indicative
upon static-equilibrium theories in economics; upon to the optative and imperative modes. Existential
propositions often have nonempirical elements–for quences as an operational test of values (at least as
example, “There is a God.” Charles Morris has shown far as the more ultimate values are concerned) will
that factual, wish, and appraisal sentences all have be presented in the last section of this paper. With
empirical, syntactical, and pragmatic or technic refe- Thorndike’s statement that the linkage between nor-
rence, but they differ in the degree to which various mative and existential propositions rests in the con-
elements of reference are present.4 There is a diffe- ception of the nature of things in relation to human
rence of emphasis, but the difference is seldom of an interests we are in hearty agreement.
all-or-none character. Ray Lepley, in a paper entitled “The Identity of Fact 3
A judgment that a person is destructive, greedy, jea- and Value,” has argued that the separation of the two
lous, envlous is not too different from a physician’s categories results solely from our conventional ha-
statement about a dysfunction of the heart or lungs. bits of thought:
It can be argued that in both cases the underlying The belief that valuative statements as expressive of
assumption is that of a lack of healthy fulfillment of means-end relations are inherently different from
naturally given potentialities. scientific propositions as denoting cause-effect re-
In reaction against the prevalent intellectual folklore lations has apparently risen, as has the view that va-
regarding the utter separateness of fact and value, luative sentences are less verifiable than factual sta-
some scholars have tried to merge the two catego- tements, from failure to see that the whole gamut of
ries. E. L. Thorndike, for example, in his 1935 presi- events and relations can be referred to by both forms
dential address to the American Association for the of statement, and this failure has perhaps in turn
Advancement of Science, said: risen from failure to escape wholly from what Dewey
Judgments of value are simply one sort of judgments has deplored as the subjectivistic psychology.
of fact, distinguished from the rest by two characte- The habit of looking at personal and social events
ristics: They concern consequences. These are con- and relations from the inner, subjective viewpoint
sequences to the wants of sentient beings. Values, and referring to them in more valuative terms and
positive and negative, reside in the satisfaction or of surveying non-human organic and especially in-
annoyance felt by animals, persons or deities. If the organic events and relations and the outer, objective
occurrence of X can have no inf luence on the satis- viewpoint and denoting them in more factual ter-
faction or discomfort of any one present or future, ms has given rise to the notions that means-end and
X has no value, is neither good nor bad, desirable cause-effect relations are inherently different, and
nor undesirable. Values are functions of preferences. that therefore factual and valuative propositions are
Judgments about values–statements that A is good, inherently different because they respectively denote
B is bad, C is right, D is useful – refer ultimately these two supposedly distinct kinds of relations.6
to satisfactions or annoyances in sentient creatures This much is certainly true: “The whole gamut of
and depend upon their preferences. (Competent stu- events and relations can be referred to by both for-
dents judge the existence of things by observations ms of statement.” Here is the source of much of our
of them: they judge the values of things by observa- confusion. One can and does think both about values
tions of their consequences.5) and about existence. And the two modes are often
4 Signs, Language and Behavior (1946). See also Char- linked in the same proposition. “This is a value for
les L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language (1944), esp. me” is an existential proposition about me. When
chap. iii, which shows “how emotive and descriptive the scientist says, “This is valid,” he is making an
meanings are related, each modifying the other.” evaluation in terms of an existential standard, but
391 Values and Value-Orientations he is not af fectively neutral toward his utterance,
for it is made partly in terms of his highest values:
Reservations that are necessary concerning conse-
 truth, validity, correctness. There can be no doubt perfectible, they may be. In other words, existential
that an individual’s or a group’s conceptions of what propositions also supply the clues for major values.
is and of what ought to be are intimately connected. The Navaho think of the natural order as potentially
As McKeon says: harmonious. It is therefore a prime value of Navaho
In the context of cultural expressions, ideas and ceremonialism to maintain, promote, or restore this
ideals are not opposed to facts or derived from inte- potential harmony.9
rests but are themselves facts. In that factual con- George Lundberg has done a service in calling atten-
4 text the preferable and the possible are determined tion to the interdependence between normative and
by what men want or think they want and by the existential propositions, but he has strained unduly
social order which they plan or dream as means to to dissolve the distinction completely.
attain it, not by what can be shown to be better for He writes: The first step toward the recognition of
them on sorne grounds of practical or scientific ar- the essential basic similarity of scientific and ethi-
gument and on some analysis of fact and practica- cal statements will have been taken when we recog-
bility, or by what they can secure or think they can nize that all “should” or “ought” statements, as well
secure by negotiation with those possessed of related as scientific statements, represent an expectation
and opposed interests.7 which is, in effect, a prediction. This is true of such
5 Science, January 3, 1936. varied forms as “if the gasoline line and the ignition
6 Philosophy of Science, X (1943), 124-131. are both in order (etc.), then the engine ought to
start”; or “he [under stated or implied circumstan-
392 The Theory and Its Application ces] ought to be ashamed,” (i.e., “if he were a ‘decent,’
Northrop is probably right in maintaining that pri- ‘civilized,’ socially sensitive person, then he ought
mitive 8 concepts of nature and primitive postulates to be ashamed”). Sometimes the actual expectation
about nature underlie any value system. Values go may be very low and, in fact, may represent merely
back to a conception of nature, “verified” by facts the individual’s wishful thinking, that is, expecta-
which are in some sense independent of culture. tion according to the standards of an ideal or dream
However, the primitive concepts and primitive pos- world; e.g., “People should not (ought not) gossip ;
tulates are not independent of culture. We live in ‘We should love our enemies.” (Incidentally, the la-
a world where the same sets of phenomena are be- tter statement involves a semantic confusion of its
ing accounted for by different postulates and con- own in that, by definition, an enemy is someone not
cepts. Dif ferent cultures are tied to dif ferent con- loved, i.e., if we loved our enemies we would no lon-
ceptualizations. ger regard them as enemies.)
It can, however, be said that in all cultures “normal” Expected behavior of some kind (under whatever
individuals recognize some natural limitations upon circumstances are assumed), is implicit in all “ou-
what can be. To take an almost absurd hut clear ght” statements. Mankind often disappoints us; our
example: In their conceptions of a desirable state predictions in this area are not, as yet, as accurate as
of affairs people do not postulate conditions under those of the meteorologist. But this is merely saying
which the law of gravity ceases to operate, the threats that (a) the probability of the sequence “if–-–then”
and irritations of climatic variations disappear com- varies; that (b) the stipulated conditions or desiderata
pletely, or food and drink appear spontaneously re- vary; and that (c) both may be misgauged in physical
ady for consumption. Values are constrained within as well as in social affairs. Thus, all “ought” state-
the framework of what is taken as given by natu- ments are essentially of the “if–. then” type charac-
re. If the nature of human nature is conceived as teristic also of all scientific statements.
intrinsically evil, men are not enjoined to behave 7 Conf licts of Values in a Community of Cultures”,
like gods; though if human nature is believed to be
Journal of Philosophy, XLVII (1950), 202. ched by the same scientific methods as the first
8 In, of course, the meaning of modern logic. proposition. The reader is invited–and challenged
to produce a single “ought” statement which cannot
9 See Clyde Kluckhobn, “The Philosophy of the Na- be more fully expressed in the “if–-–then” form. At
vaho Indians,” in Ideological Differences and World least one premise usually will be found unspoken,
Order, edited by F. S. C. Northrop (1949). implicit, and taken for granted. That premise implies
Values and Value-Orientations 393 a desideratum which, it is assumed by the speaker of
an “ought” statement, is a necessary and sufficient 5
Why, then, do we have the deep-seated feeling re-
condition for the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of
garding the difference between scientific and ethical
what it is asserted “ought” to happen.10
statements? One, and perhaps the principal, reason
is that certain implicit unspoken premises in ethi- What Lundberg apparently fails to see is the so-
cal statements are usually overlooked, whereas in mewhat arbitrary process of selection involved in
scientific statements these premises are always re- his “unspoken” premises relating to the desirable.
cognized. This fact, in turn, is related to a subtle Values, as has been pointed out, are limited by na-
and unrecognized assumption that, while scientific ture and depart in some sense from nature, but are
statements describe events of nature, ethical state- only to a limited extent given by nature. Existential
ments describe only personalistic judgments, wi- propositions purport to describe nature and the ne-
shes, or whims, whether of men or of gods. These cessary interconnections of natural prenomena. Va-
latter are assumed not to be amenable to the me- lues say, in effect: “This appears to be naturally pos-
thods found ef fective in predicting “natural” phe- sible. It does not exist or does not fully exist, but we
nomena. Actually, as I have pointed out elsewhere, want to move toward it, or, it already exists but we
(Can Science Save Us? pp. 2633, 97-103), the word “Va- want to preserve and maintain it. Moreover, we aver
lues” refers to valuating behavior of some sort and that this is a proper or appropriate or justified want.”
as such can be studied scientifically like any other Lundberg also equivocates in his use of “expected”
behavior. Most of our statistics on prices, salaries, between what is anticipated as a result of the opera-
occupations, migrations, consumption and, for that tion of natural processes and what is demanded or
matter, all so-called “voluntary” or “choice” behavior hoped for in terms of humanly created standards.
whatsoever are studies of human “Values.” Finally, it should be noted that existential statements
often ref lect prior value judgments. In scientific
Consider, from this point of view, the following illus-
discourse, at least, our propositions relate to matters
trations: (1) “If {specifying all the necessary and suffi-
we consider important. 10 “Semantics and the Value
cient conditions], then we shall (with stated degree of
Problem,” Social Forces, XXVII (1948), 11~116. Cf. Max
probability) avoid another war.” How does it differ
Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, edi-
from this statement:
ted by Shils and Finch (1949), esp. pp.50-55.
(2) “We ought to avoid another war”? Implicit in the
394 The Theory and Its Application
“ought” form of this statement is the unspoken pre-
mise “if we want to avoid all the undesirable con- “Nature” is one frame of reference; “action” is ano-
sequences entailed in another war, then we should ther frame of reference. In the former, one need only
(ought to) prevent another war.” This proposition ask, “Is this the case (fact) ?” In the latter, one must
depends for its validity on(a) the accuracy of the es- ask both this question and, “Ought this to be the case
timated probability that another war would, in fact, (value) in the conceptions of the subject(s) of the en-
entail the expected undesirable consequences, and quiry?” The two frames of reference, as has been
(b) the reliability of the prediction that certain condi- shown, are intimately related. Perhaps one further
tions prevent or produce war (the “if” clause of state- statement is in order:
ment I)–both of them questions that can be approa-
 Because man inevitably builds up for himself an as- exist in familiar usages in ordinary language and
sumptive world in carrying out his purposive activi- scholarly terminology. It also requires simplicity so
ties, the world he is related to, the world he sees, the far as this is consistent with precision.
world he is operating on, and the world that is ope- Value implies a code or a standard which has some
rating on him is the result of a transactional process persistence through time, or, more broadly put,
in which man himself plays an active role. which organizes a system of action. Value, conve-
Man carries out his activities in the midst of concrete niently and in accordance with received usage, pla-
6 events which themselves delimit the significances he ces things, acts, ways of hehaving, goals of action on
must deal with.11 Existence and value are intimate- the approval-disapproval continuum. Furthermore,
ly related, interdependent, and yet – at least at the following Dewey, “the desirable” is to be contrasted
analytical level–conceptually distinct. It is a fact with “the desired.” Cathexis and valuation, thou-
both of introspection and of observation that there gh concretely interdependent in some respects, are
are three fundamental types of experiencing: what is distinguished in the world of experience and must
or is believed to be (existential) ; what I and/or others therefore be distinguished conceptually. In all cul-
want (desire) ; what I and/or others ought to want tures people have wants for themselves and for a
(the desirable). Values are manifested in ideas, ex- group which they blame themselves for wanting–or
pressional symbols, and in the moral and aesthetic which at very least they do not feel or consider to
norms evident in behavioral regularities. Whether be justifiable.
the cognitive or the cathectic factors have primacy Such cases represent negative valuation, to be sure,
in the manifestation of a value at a particular time, but the point here is the nonidentity of the desired
both are always present. Values synthesize cognitive and the desirable. The existence of the value element
and cathectic elements in orientations to an object transforms the desired iut~ the not desired or into
world, most specifically a social object world – that the ambivalently desired 12 A value is a conception,
it, a social relationship system. Values define the explicit or implicit, distinctive of an individual or
limits of permissible cost of an expressional gratifi- characteristic of a group of the desirable which in-
cation or an instrumental achievement by invoking f luences the selection from available modes, means,
the consequences of such action for other parts of and ends of action.
the system and for the system as a whole.
A commentary on each term in this definition will be
11 H. Cantril, A. Ames, Jr-, A. H. Hastorf, and W. set forth below.It should be emphasized here howe-
H. Ittelson, “Psychology and Scientific Research: III. ver, that affective (“desirable”), cognitive (“concep-
The Transactional View in Psychological Research,” tion”), and conative (“selection”) elements are all es-
Science, November 18,1949. sential to this notion of value. This definition takes
395 culture, group, and the individual’s relation to cultu-
DEFINITION OF VALUE FOR THE THEORY OF ACTION re and place in his group 13 as primary points of de-
parture. Later a definition within the psychological
No definition can hope to incorporate or synthesize frame of reference will be presented.
all aspects of each conception established in the va-
rious fields of learning and yet remain serviceable. 12 Pragmatically speaking, values are also more or
Selection or construction of a definition for our pur- less stable ways of resolving ambivalence.
poses must depend upon convenience (considering, That is, actors perhaps most often think about and
of course, the problems at hand) and upon meeting refer to values when they are in doubt about alter-
the special requirements of basic social science. native courses of conduct: when the long-run results
Convenience demands doing as little violence as pos- of the possible selections of paths of behavior are
sible to whatever established core of meaning may not immediately obvious or scientifically demons-
trable or when the pressures of personal motiva- one manifestation of a value. In its analytic meaning,
tion are strong on one side and social sanctions or the locus of value is neither in the organism nor in
practical expediency of some other kind strong on the immediately observable world; its locus is ra-
the other side. ther that of all scientific abstractions. Concretely, of
13 For example, a value is classified in a following course, any given value is in some sense “built into”
section as “idiosyncratic” or “personal” only becau- the apperceptive mass or neural nets of the persons
se the group is taken as the standard of reference who hold that value–in the same way that a culture
and because values are taken as communicated and is “built into” its carriers. However, the social science 7
transmitted by symbolic means. abstraction “value” is not abstracted from neurologi-
cal properties but from verbal and nonverbal beha-
14 In spite of the fact that conception is a noun this vioral events. These internalized symbolic systems
definition is thoroughly congruent with Lepley’s “ad- do have a special status as regards methodology, re-
jectival” position on value: “The underlying issue–. . quiring in part, at least at present, a verstehen rather
is whether ‘value’ is a noun standing for something than an erklaren type of interpretation.
that is an entity in its own right or whether the word
is adjectival, standing for a property or quality that A value is not just a preference but is a preference
belongs, under specifiable conditions, to a thing or which is felt and/or considered to be justified–“mo-
person having existence independently of being va- rally” or by reasoning or by aesthetic judgments,
lued. If the first view is adopted, then to say that a usually by two or all three of these. Even if a value
diamond, or a beloved person, or holding an official remains implicit, behavior with reference to this
position, has or is a value, is to affirm that a connec- conception indicates an undertone of the desira-
tion somehow has been set up between two separate ble–not just the desired. The desirable is what it is
and unlike entities. If the second view is held, then it felt or thought proper to want. It is what an actor
is held that a thing, in virtue of identifiable and des- or group of actors desire–and believe they “ought”
cribable events, has acquired a quality or property or “should” desire–for the individual or a plurality
not previously belonging to it. As a thing previous- of individuals.
ly hard becomes soft when affected by heat, so, on This means that an element, though never an exclu-
this view, something previously indifferent takes on sive element, of the cognitive is always involved; and
the quality of value when it is actively cared for in hence the word conception was deliberately inclu-
a way that protects or contributes to its continued ded in the definition. The observer imputes to ac-
existence. Upon this view, a value-quality loses the tor or actors ideas held in an implicit sense. Values
quasi-mystical character often ascribed to it, and is are ideas formulating action commitments. These
capable of identification and description in terms of ideas are instigators of behavior “within” the indi-
conditions of origin and consequence, as are other vidual but are not to be conceived as internal social
natural events” (Value, p. 8). “forces” in the classical sense of the word “force.”
396 The Theory and Its Application Operationally, the observer notes certain kinds of
patterned behavior. He cannot ‘explain” these re-
A conception identifies value as a logical construct gularities unless he subsumes certain aspects of the
comparable to culture or social structure.14 processes that determine concrete acts under the
That is, values are not directly observable any more rubric “value.”
than culture is. Both values and culture are based 15 It is true that William McDougall defined “senti-
upon what is said and done by individuals but repre- ment” as a combination of an affective disposition
sent inferences and abstractions from the immedia- with a cognitive disposition, the centering of a sys-
te sense data. The statement, “people ought to help tem of emotions about the idea of some object. His
each other,” is not a value in strict usage but rather “sentiments” run the gamut of specificity all the way
 from the “concrete particular” (e.g., love for a certain The answer is that “verhalizable” is not to be equated
painting) through the “concrete general” (e.g., love with “clearly and habitually verbalized.” The actor’s
for paintings) to the “abstract” (e.g., love for beauty). values are often inchoate, incompletely or inadequa-
His notion of the “sentiment” is similar at many tely verbalized by him. But implicit values remain
points to ours of a “personal value” (see “Organi- “conceptions” in the sense that they are abstract and
zation of the Affective Life,” Acta Psychologica, XI generalized notions which can be put into words by
[1937], 233-346). the observer and then agreed to or dissented to by
8 the actor. Verbalizability is a necessary test of value.
Values and Value-Orientations 397
This is perhaps a way of saying that such matters as
The history of thought has always more or less clearly instinctual behavior and needs are below the level of
distinguished values from sentiments,15 emotions, abstraction and hence not part–directly–of the realm
drives, and needs. To the extent that man is a spe- of value. Values must be susceptible of abstraction by
cies characterized by a propensity for rationalizing the observer and formulable by the observer in such
his acts verbally, the consistent connection between terms that the subject can understand and agree or
values and notions of approval and disapproval im- disagree. The subjects on ordinary verbalization with
plies the potentiality for rational justification.16Va- respect to values will often be oblique or indirect,
lues are eminently discussable, even though in the and implicit values will he manifested only in beha-
case of implicit values the discussion does not men- vior and through verbalizations that do not directly
tion what the observer would call the value hut ra- state the pertinent values.
ther centers on approval or disapproval of concrete
acts, with the value left as the tacit premise that is 16 To say, following certain contemporary usage, “Ea-
the least common denominator of the reaction to ting spinach is a value for Smith,” because Smith li-
these acts. Finally, something which is “desirable” kes spinach or prefers spinach to broccoli is to confu-
(not something merely “desired”) means an eman- se the desired with the desirable. This practice both
cipation from immediate physiological stresses and negates one of the few constant differentia of value
from the press of a specific, ephemeral situation. (that of approval-disapproval) and makes the cate-
Such generalization and abstraction is referable only gory value so broad as to be useless. It is much more
to the realm of concepts. While there are, of course, convenient to separate “value” and “preference,” res-
more general and more specific values, conception tricting “preference” to those selections which are
also implies reference to a class of events which may neutral (i.e., do not require justification or reference
encompass a variety of content and differ conside- to sanctions) from the point of view of the individual
rably in detail.17 and/or the culture. Of course, if Smith justified his
preference for spinach in rational or pseudo-ratio-
The phrase explicit or implicit is necessary to our de- nal terms of vitamins, mineral content, and the like,
finition since it is an induction from experience that it then becomes by definition one of his values. If,
some of the deepest and most pervasive of personal however, he simply says “I just like spinach better
and cultural values are only partially or occasiona- than broccoli,” it remains a mere preference.
lly verbalized and in some instances must be infe-
rential constructs on the part of the observer Fo~ex- 17 Cf. Perry’s relational definition of values: “Value
pla~~½sis~&ncfes in behavior An alm6st ~ –actor arises whenever interest is taken in something and
as WLelJ~as ~y observer. On the other hand, the fact does not inhere in an object as isolated entity.”
that everybody cannot readily verbalize such con- 398 The Theory and Its Application
ceptions does not remove them from the realm of Values are clearly, for the most part, cultural pro-
value. It may legitimately be asked, “Can a concep- ducts. Nevertheless, each group value is inevitably
tion be implicit?” given a private interpretation and meaning by each
individual, sometimes to the extent that the value ying assumption of least effort as the goal and hence
becomes personally distinctive. Furthermore, the desirable. At any rate there can be no question at all
facts that values change and that new values are in- that when one talks of values one gets somehow into
vented could not be accounted for, did we not posit the realm of cathection.
idiosyncratic as well as group values. Moreover, as Values and Value-Orientations 399
the Cornell value-study group has noted:
The individual, as Henry A. Murray says, can cathect
Some values are directly involved in the individual’s anything from an object to a philosophical idea. Sin-
existence as a “self.” values which manifest this qua- 9
ce value always involves affect, cathexis and value
lity appear to be especially important in many ways; are inevitably somehow interrelated. Sometimes the
they are powerful in the world. These values are relationship is that the value is little more than a ra-
registered or apprehended as part of the “self,” as a tionalization for a cathexis.18 A probable example is
psychological entity or system, no matter how diver- the widespread conception among the working class
se the structure or content of specific systems may that regular sexual intercourse is necessary for heal-
be. (The quality in question is further suggested by th–at least the health of the male. In other cases, ca-
alternative phrasings; such values act as components thexis in the strict sense and value in the strict sense
of super-ego or ego-ideal; they are constitutive of the pull against each other. Disvalued activities are ca-
person’s sense of identity; if violated, there is guilt, thected. People are strongly attracted to adulterous
shame, ego-def lation, intropunitive reaction.) relationships. Conversely, a man goes to church
The word desirable is crucial and requires careful on Sunday when (apart from the value element) he
clarification. It places the category in accord with would strongly prefer to start his golf game early.
the core of the traditional meaning of value in all The reason that cathexis and value seldom coincide
fields, with the partial exception of the economic. completely is that a cathexis is ordinarily a short-
Value statements are, by our tradition, normative term and narrow response, whereas value implies a
statements as contrasted with the existential propo- broader and long-term view. A cathexis is an impul-
sitions to which they are closely related. In the ethi- se; a value or values restrain or canalize impulses in
cal sphere the desirable includes both the jus (strictly terms of wider and more perduring goals.
legal or cultic prescriptions) and the fas (general mo-
ral commandments) of the Roman jurists. The desi- A football player wants desperately to get drunk after
rable, however, is not restricted to what is commonly his first big game, but this impulse conflicts with
designated as the “moral.” It includes the aesthetic his values of personal achievement and loyalty to his
and those elements of the cognitive which ref lect teammates, coach, and university. In a society whe-
appraisal. The cue words are “right” or “wrong,” “be- re livelihood depends upon the cooperation of mem-
tter or worse.” It can be argued that these words are bers of the extended family, the group must attach
crude scalar dimensions just as Lundberg suggests strong sanctions to values which minimize friction
that ought can be considered an implicit conditiona- among the relatives who live and work together.
lity. Nevertheless it remains a fact that in all langua- More abstractly, we may say that the desired which
ges such words have strongly affective and conative is disvalued (i.e., cathected but not desirable) is that
tinges. Even the arts not only record values but are which is incompatible with the personality as a sys-
always in some sense implicit criticisms of society. tem or with the society or culture as systems. Values
The cue words are certainly used whenever it is felt define the limits of permissible cost of impulse satis-
that there is an incomplete matching between an faction in accord with the whole array of hierarchical
existent state of affairs and what is possible in na- enduring goals of the personality, the requirements
ture. “ Things would be a lot simpler if people acted of hoth personality and sociocultural system for or-
the way they ‘ought’ to.” Perhaps there is an underl- der, the need for respecting the interests of others
 and of the group as a whole in social living. The focus suggest were possible. Too many, however, are a
of codes or standards is on the integration of a total threat to the preservation of the system as a system.
action system, whether personal or sociocultural. Moreover, what appear superficially as incompati-
The inf luence of value upon selective behavior is, bilities are seen on closer examination to he func-
then, always related to the incompatibilities 19 and tions of varying frames of reference. Compare the
consequences, among which are those which follow aged philosophical chestnut, “One can’t step into the
upon rejection of other possible behaviors. same river twice.”
10 400 The Theory and Its Application
In cultural systems the systemic element is coheren-
ce: the components of a cultural system must, up to a With many older peo’ple, as has often been remar-
point, be either logically consistent or meaningfully ked, the sharp contrast between wjsh and 4uty tends
congruous. Otherwise the culture carriers feel un- to become obliterated. Only in the exceptional per-
comfortably adrift in a capricious, chaotic world. In sonality, however, is the Confucian state reached in
a personality system, behavior must be reasonably which “you want to do what you have to do and have
regular or predictable, or the individual will not get to do what you want to do.” Values and motivation
expectable and needed responses from others becau- are linked, but only rarely do they coincide comple-
se they will feel that they cannot “depend” on him. In tely. Values are only an element in motivation and
other words, a social life and living in a social world in determining action; they invariably have impli-
both require standards “within” the individual and cations for motivation because a standard is not a
standards roughly agreed upon by individuals who value unless internalized. Of ten, however, these
live and work together. There can be no personal se- implications are in the nature of interference with
curity and no stability of social organization unless motivation conceived in immediate and purely per-
random carelessness, irresponsibility, and purely sonal terms. When there is commitment to a va-
impulsive behavior are restrained in terms of priva- lue–and there is no value without some commitment
te and group codes. Inadequate behavior is selfish 20–its actualization is in some sense andd to some
from the viewpoint of society and autistic from the degree “wanted”; but it is wanted Only to the extent
viewpoint of personality. If one asks the question, that it is approved. Desirability and desiredness are
“Why are there values?” the reply must be: “Becau- both involved in the internal integration of the mo-
se social life would be impossible without them; the tivational system. But values canalize motivation.
functioning of the social system could not continue This is what has happened in the case of old people
to achieve group goals; individuals could not get whose personalities are both well adjusted and in-
what they want and need from other individuals in ternally harmonious.
personal and emotional terms, nor could they feel The word desirable, then, brings out the fact that
within themselves a requisite measure of order and values, whether individnal or cultural (and the line
unified purpose.” Above all, values add an element between these is elusive), always have an af fective
of predictability to social life. as well as a cognitive dimension. Values are never
18 For further consideration of cathexis, motivation, immediately altered by a mere logical demonstration
sentiment, and value see the last section below un- of their invalidity. The combination of conception
der “Psychology.” with desirable establishes the union of reason and
19 It is perfectly true that both personalities and cul- feeling inherent in the word value. Both components
tures can continue to function in the face of many must be included in any definition. If the rational
internal incompatibilities. Integration is tendency element is omitted, we are left with something not
rather than literal fact. We all live with more in- very different from “attitude” or “sentiment.” When
compatibilities than our personality models would the affective aspect is omitted, we have something
resembling “ethics plus aesthetic and other taste ca-
nons.” The elements of “wish” and “appraisal” are is proper to point out that for certain purposes the
inextricably united in “value.” statements, “the actor can choose” and “the actor
20 Including, of course, repudiation in the case of behaves in some respects as if he had the possibili-
negative values. ty of choice,” are equivalent. From the viewpoint of
the social scientist the propositions, “choice is real”
401 and “choice is psychologically real,” lead inevitably to
The word inf luences would have been rejected out of about the same operations. In any case, the matter
hand by most sectors of the scientific world until qui- at issue here is clear-cut: as the observer sees beha- 11
te recently. It was fashionable to regard ideas of any vior, the actor or actors have open in the observable
sort as mere epiphenomena, verbal rationalizations world more than one mode, or means, or direction of
after the fact. Mechanists, behaviorists, and positi- action, each of which is “objectively” open.
vists 21 maintained, and natural science knowledge 21 leading logical positivist, while denying the “oh-
justified them in maintaining, that human beings jectivity” of value judgments has recently conce-
responded only to particulars–not to universals such ded their inf luence upon action (A. J. Ayer, “On the
as ideas. This group agreed, though for different re- Analysis of Moral Judgments,” Horizon [London], XX
asons, with the idealists and dualists that “scienti- [1949], no.117; see esp. pp. 175-176).
fically verifiable knowledge of biological and other
natural systems provides no meaning for purposes, 22 F. S. C. Northrop, “Ideological Man in His Rela-
for universals, or for human behavior which is a res- tion to Scientifically Known Natural Man,” in Ideo-
ponse to and specified as to its form by a temporally logical Dif lerences and World Order (Yale University
persistent normative social theory.” 22 Press, 1949), p.413. This article also gives hihijogra-
phical references to the works of the writers referred
However, the work during the past twenty years of to in the next paragraph.
Arturo Rosenblueth, Lorente de No, Norbert Wiener,
Warren McCulloch, and other neurologists, physio- 23 Of course, the fundamental question is that
logists, and mathematicians has demonstrated that of frame of reference, not of ontology. More than
not only can human heings reason deductively, but one frame of reference is legitimately operative in
that, given the structural and physiological pro- the scientific world. In the social sciences selection
perties of their nervous systems, they must reason (“choice”) and evaluation are inherent in the frame
deductively, responding to general ideas as well as of reference. The biological sciences are prohably
to particulate stimuli. The anthropologist Leslie a meeting ground between the physical and social
White has been proven right in saying that symbo- sciences in this respect.
lism is “that modification of the human organism 24 The union of “desirable” and “selection” in the de-
which allows it to transform physiological drive into finition signifies that both affective and conative ele-
cultural values.” ments are essential–neither has universal primacy.
In addition to the newly discovered neurological 402 The Theory and Its Application
basis of the determinative force of ideas in human The reality of “choice” in human action presents one
behavior, one might also on a cruder empirical level major opportunity for the study of values. Values
say simply, “Consider the history of Russia since the are operative when an individual selects one line of
November Revolution.” 23 thought or action rather than another, insofar as this
Selection is used in the definition as a more neu- selection is inf luenced by generalized codes rather
tral word than choice.24 There is no intentionor than determined simply by impulse or by a purely ra-
any necessity–to beg any metaphysical questions tional calculus of temporary expediency. Of course,
regarding “free will” or “determinism.” However, it in the long run, the person who disregards values is
not behaving expediently, for he will be punished by
 others. Most selective behavior therefore involves ei- within which men inevitably live) become problems
ther the values of the actor or those of others or both. for value research. For example, in the case of the
The social scientist must be concerned with the di- comparative study of five cultures in the Ramah
ffering conceptions of “choice” from the viewpoints area, one could examine the alternatives that are
of the individual actor, a group of actors, and of the open to all five societies in particular situations and
observer. Most situations can be met in a variety the varying “choices” which have been made. There
of ways. From the actor’s point of view, his degree is a range of possibilities for dealing with drought
12 of awareness of these various possibilities will vary (and other common environmental pressures), and
in different situations: in some cases he will make a each group has “selected” varying emphases in co-
conscious choice between alternatives for action; in ping with this common problem–a selection which
others, an action will appear inevitable and the actor is determined in part by its particular value system
will not be aware that any selection is being made. as well as by such situational factors as technological
From the viewpoint of the observer as scientist, equipment and capital.
“choice” becomes a process of selection from a range Values and Value-Orientations 403
of possibilities, many (or even all) of which may not Conceptions of the desirable are not limited to proxi-
be obvious from a cultural point of view or from the mate or ultimate goals. Ways of acting are also va-
viewpoint of any given individual. These three angles lued; there is discrimination in approval-disappro-
of vision may overlap or diverge in differing degrees. val terms of the manner of carrying out an action,
Available, in our definition, is another way of saying whether the act itself be conceived as a means or as
that genuine selection is involved. It does not im- an end. It is equally a fact of ordinary expen en cc
ply that the same amount of “effort” or “striving” is that, even when an objective is agreed upon, there
necessarily involved in one mode, means, or end as is often violent disagreement about the “rightness”
opposed to another. It implies merely that various or “appropriateness” of the means to be selected. Of
altematives are open in the external world seen by course, the distinction between ends and means is
the observer. Nor is the question of “functional somewhat transitory, depending upon time perspec-
ef fectiveness” prejudged. So far as the satisfac- tive. What at one point in the history of the indi-
tion of the actor’s need-dispositions are concerned, vidual or the group appears as an end is later seen
this cannot always be estimated in terms of the as a means to a more distant goal. Similarly, the
consequences of a discrimination between modes and means is some-
“choice” as seen from the standpoint of an observer. times blurred (empirically, not analytically). Mode
It is clear that there is always an economy of values,” refers to the style in which an instrument is used.
for no actor has the resources or time to make all For example, the English language is learned by
possible “choices.” But the effectiveness of a selec- some foreigners as a means of obtaining positions
tion must be interpreted, in part, in accord with the with our establishments abroad. But the language
intensity with which the actor feels the value–re- is spoken by some softly, by others loudly, by others
gardles ~f how little sense the “choice” makes accor- with exaggerated precision of enunciation. These
ding to an observer’s rational calculus. variations in the utilization of the instrument are
attributable, in part, to the cultural or personal va-
In any case, selection of modes, ends, and means of lues of the learners.
action is assumed to involve orientation to values.
The relation between such selections and the objec- In summary, then, any given act is seen as a com-
tive limitations upon them (imposed by the biologi- promise between motivation, situational conditions,
cal nature of man, the particular environment, and available means, and the means and goals as inter-
the general properties of social and cultural systems preted in value terms. Motivation arises in part
from biological and situational factors. Motivation
and value are both inf luenced by the unique life his- rational, including aesthetic, terms) are constantly
tory of the individual and by culture. made in daily behavior. They are also embodied in
OPERATIONAL INDICES the formal oral or written literature of the group, in-
cluding laws, mythology, and standardized religious
Surely one of the broadest generalizations to be dogmas. Neither in the case of the individual nor in
made by a natural historian observing the human that of the groups are such “ought” or “should” sta-
species is that man is an evaluating animal. Always tements random or varying erratically from event to
and everywhere men are saying, “This is good”; “that event or from situation to situation. There is always 13
is bad”; “this is better than that”; “these are higher some degree of patterned recurrence.
and those lower aspirations.” Nor is this type of be-
havior limited by any means to the verbal. Indeed The observer should watch not only for approval and
it might be said that the realm of value is that of disapproval but for all acts which elicit strong emo-
“conduct,” 25 not that of “behavior” at all. Approval tional responses. What, in a given society, is conside-
is shown by many kinds of expressive behavior, by red worth-while to die for? What frightens people–
deeds of support and assistance. Acts regarded as particularly in contexts where the act is apparently
“deviant,” “abnormal,” and “psychotic” provide clues interpreted as a threat to the security or stability of
to conduct valued by a group. Disapproval of the the system? What are considered proper subjects for
acts of others or of the particular actor is manifested bitter ridicule? What types of events seem to weld
on a vast continuum a plurality of individuals suddenly into a solidary
group? Tacit approval-disapproval is constantly ma-
25 “Conduct” here means regularities of action-moti- nifested in the form of gossip. Where gossip is most
vation which are explicitly related to or which imply current is where that culture is most heavily laden
conceptions of desirahie and undesirahie hehavior. with values. The discussability of values is one of
404 The Theory and Its Application from overt ag- their most essential properties, though the discus-
gression, through persistent avoidance, to the subt- sion may be oblique or disguised–not labeled as a
le nuances of culturally standardized facial expres- consideration of values.
sions.26 Self-disapproval is indicated by defensive The second area relevant to the study of values is that
verbalizations, by motor reactions which in that cul- of the differential effort exhibited toward the attain-
ture express guilt or shame, by ~cts of atonement. ment of an end, access to a means, or acquisition of a
No adults, except possibly some psychotics, behave mode of behavior. Brown will work hardest to get a
with complete indifference toward standards which scholarship in a college of engineering, Smith to get
transcend the exigencies of the immediate situation a chance to act in a summer theater.27
or the biological and psychological needs of the actor
at the moment. Even criminals, though they may Americans in general will strive hardest and un-
repudiate many or most of the codes of their society, dergo more deprivations for success in the occupa-
orient their behavior toward the codes of their own tional system, whereas members of other cultures
deviant groups and indeed (negatively) to the cul- will characteristically give their fullest energies
tural standards. There is almost no escaping orien- only to preserving a received tradition or to types of
tation to values. self-fulfillment that do not make them a cynosure of
the public eye.
The first area of action, then, which is relevant to
the study of values is that where approval or disa- 26 It is, of course, required by the definition that re-
pproval is made explicit by word or deed. “Ought” gularities of action or of motivation be referable to
or “should” statements and all statements of prefe- an expressed or underlying conception.
rence (where the preference is directly or indirectly 27 These examples may imply only motivation but
shown to be regarded as justifiable in moral and/or in such cases motivation is partls determined by
 value elements. It is interesting that it is precisely in the fields rejec-
Values and Value-Orientations 405 ted by the behaviorists, positivists, and reductionists
that perhaps the best social science techniques have
The third area, that of “choice” situations, blends into been developed: the procedures of public-opinion po-
the second. When two or more pathways are equally lling and various projective instruments. The former
open, and an individual or a group shows a consis- are well suited to the establishment of explicit values
tent directionality in its selections, we are surely in and the latter to the discovery of implicit values.
14 the realm of values, provided that this directionality
can be shown to be involved in the approval-disa- 28 Other remarks on operational methods will be
pproval continuum. An example of an individual found throughout this paper. It is impossible here
“choice” situation is the following: Three college gra- to refer to all the literature on methodology for the
duates, from the same economic group, of equal I.Q., study of values. Mention should he made, however,
and all destined eventually for business, are offered of George D. Birkhoff’s Aesthetic Measure (Cambri-
by their fathers the choice of a new automobile, a dge, Mass., 1933), an attempt to arrive at objective
year of travel, or a year of graduate study. Such determination of universal aesthetic values, and
“choice” points come up frequently in life histories. of Ralph White’s attempts at rigorous establish-
An example of a “choice” situation at the group level ment of values by content analysis. See his “Value
is: Five groups, each with a distinct culture, who ca- Analysis: A Quantitative Method for Describing
rry on subsistence agriculture in the same ecological Qualitative Data,”
area in the Southwest, are faced with severe drou- Journal of Social Psychology, XIX (1944), 351~358.
ght. Two groups react primarily with increased ra- Rashevsky’s mathematical approach to this problem
tional and technological activity, two with increased is also noteworthy. See also S. C. Dodd, “How to Me-
ceremonial activity, and one with passive acceptan- asure Values,” Research Studies of the State College
ce. It should be profitable to observe members of two of Washington, XVIII (1950), 163-168.
or more groups confronted with any objective crisis 406 The Theory and Its Application
situation (war, epidemic, and the like). Under such
circumstances the durability of values may come to There is, first of all, the establishment of regulari-
light and hence the manner in which various challen- ties in “should” or “ought” statements by the usual
ges make or do not make for the suspension of va- procedures of sampling, formal and informal inter-
lues. Both individual and group crises (birth, death, views, recording of normal conversations, analy-
illness, fire, theft) and conf lict situations (marital, sis of the oral or written lore of the group.29 One
political, economic) throw values into relief. must discover the prescriptions of individuals and
of groups about what behavior a person of given
Statements about the desirable or selections between properties should manifest in more or less specified
possible paths of action on the basis of implicit con- situations. The red herring, “This doesn’t tell us what
ceptions of the desirable are crucial in the study of the values of the individual or the society ‘really’ are
values. Neither of these, however, “are” values. They but gives us only speech reactions,” should not be
are rather manifestations of the value element in drawn across this argument. The f~ct of uniformi-
action. One measures heat by a thermometer, for ties in code or standards is of signal importance,
example, but, if one is speaking precisely, one cannot regardless of what the deviations in behavior may
say that a temperature of ninety degrees “is” heat. be. Acts, as has been said, are always compromises
The concept of “force” in physical science is compa- among motives, means, situations, and values. So-
rable. No one ever sees “a force”; only the manifesta- metimes what a person says about his values is truer
tions of a force are observed directly. from a long-term viewpoint than inferences drawn
OPERATIONS FOR THE STUDY OF VALUES 28 from his actions under special conditions. The fact
that an individual will lie under the stress of unusual psychologists, and sociologists have as yet hut little
circumstances does not prove that truth is not a va- availed themselves of these resources.
lue which orients, as he claims, his ordinary beha- Values and Value-Orientations 407
vior. As a matter of fact, people of ten lie by their
acts and tell the truth with words. The whole con- It is possible to infer the values of groups from the
ventional dichotomy is misleading because speech is way in which they habitually spend their time, mo-
a form of behavior. ney, and energy. This means that values may he
inferred from historic records of all times, from 15
It is true, of course, and important that the expres- ancient documents to the latest census of manufac-
sion of group values is a way of remaining safe in tures, scales, and expenditures. In this category,
most cultures. Surface conformity values are of- also, falls the large literature on budgets of mone-
ten not really learned in the sense of being inter- tary expenditure.30
nalized–rather they have been memorized and are
used as outward and visible signs of acceptability. Hull has also developed the notion of energy dis-
Sometimes the majority of a group may indeed posal or striving as a measuring device for the
conform only on the surface, deluding each other study of values:
until a crisis situation exposes the superficiality or The consumption of physiological energy in the
purely verbal character of certain values. However, pursuit of such goals or ends may accordingly be
the persistence of characterized as work or striving. Thus, generally
“verbal” values is itself a phenomenon requiring ex- speaking, that may be said to be valued which is stri-
planation. The point is that one dare not assume ven for and, other things being equal, the maximum
ex hypothesi that verbal behavior tells the observer amount of work which an organism will execute to
less about the “true” values than other types of ac- attain a given reinforcing state of af fairs may be
tion. Both verbal and non-verbal acts must be ca- taken as an indication of the valuation of that state
refully studied. of affairs by the organism. Here, then, we have the
basis, not only for an experimental science of value,
The uniformities in codes and standards can, with but also for a theoretical science of value.31
suf ficient observation, be well established and the
“real” values (those that inf luence overt non-verbal In terms of our definition, Lundberg’s and ilull’s no-
behavior) determined by noting trends in action. tion of energy disposal must he refined; “striving” is
These will consist, in part, in motor events mani- not enough unless it can be shown to be connected
festing approval, disapproval, and self-disappro- with one or more conceptions of the desirable.
val–particularly when such acts are carried out at The Cornell group’s consideration of Operations also
some cost to the actor in terms of the expediency presents some worthwhile suggestions:
of the immediate situation. In part, trends will be
In our discussions, two main “operational tests” were
discovered by observing differential efforts made by
suggested as means for identifying the presence of
various individuals and groups toward the same and
value-phenomena. First, on the personality side, it
different goals, instruments, and modes of behaving
is suggested that when a person violates a value he
when other conditions are approximately the same.
will show evidences of “ego.diminution” 32–sub-
As Lundberg has pointed out:
jectively felt as guilt, shame, self-depreciation, etc.,
29 The work of Charles Stevenson, B. L. Whorf, Do- and objectively manifest in observable ways, e.g.,
rothy Lee, H. B. Alexander, Charles in drawing a smaller picture of himself. A variety
Morris, and certain of the logical positivists provi- of specific techniques are available for indexing re-
des highly sophisticated materials on the relations actions of this order. A parallel test for presence of
between values and language. Anthropologists, values in a social group lies in the imposition of se-
 vere negative social sanctions in the case of threat (2) the need to devise research techniques for re-
to or violation of a value. Secondly, values may be cording values at the level and in the form in which
indexed in various ways by analysis of choices–which they operate in actual behavior. For example, we
constitute a specific kind of evidence as to “direc- need to know a great deal more about the relation
tions of interest.” between asserted values, at the level of explicit tes-
30 “Human Values–A Research Program,” Research timony, and operating values which are implicit in
Stuudies of the State College of Washington, 1950 . ongoing behavior.
16 Lundberg’s basic point is well taken, though a caveat Perhaps the most provocative idea which emerged
must he entered against the culture-hound judg- from our discussions of research problems is the
ment inherent in the emphasis on “money.” Howe- hypothesis that when one studies values directly,
ver LePlay has utilized budget studies and other the values are changed by the process of study itself.
economic data in what is, substantially, the study of This is a sort of “Heisenberg effect”: the hypothesis
values. Money is, of course, merely a cover for a very is that one does not merely reveal, discover, or ren-
large system of needs and values which in our cultu- der explicit values which are themselves unchanged
re become expressed for market purposes in money. by the process of being revealed, discovered, or ex-
One may compare the objection to Veblen’s economic plicated. Thus the mere focusing of attention upon
theory, a theory founded upon the unstated cultural value-problems changes the problems. In so far as
value premise that the ultimate objective of a society this hypothesis is correct, the values we discover
is to produce as many goods as possible and distri- are in part a function of the research approach.
bute them as well as possible. One research implication is the possibility of ta-
31 “Morat Values, Behavorism, and the World Crisis,” king various groups of people, studying a certain
Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, value-problem by different methods for each group,
VII (1945), 8084. and observing changes in behavior subsequent to the
process of study.
32 It might be suggested that “ego-magnification” is
as worthy of observation as “ego-diminution.” The study of choice-behavior seems to offer the nea-
rest approach to a research method uniquely adapted
408 The Theory and Its Application to the study of values.
Our group discussed the relative merits of studying “Real” values, then, can be discerned by careful
values in circumstances of crises and threat as over analysis of selections made in “choice” situations,
against conditions of calm routine. Some of us pre- many of which occur in the usual run of living. But
fer the one, and some the other; it seems that the only the investigation can be supplemented and refined
thing we can say is that both approaches are legiti- by hypothetical selections, projective techniques,
mate and friutful, and that their respective advan- questionnaires, and simple experiments. The obser-
tages vary with the specific problem to be studied. vation and investigation of behavior in crisis situa-
As to sources of evidence for research into values, tions is particularly rewarding. In the comparison of
a great many specific suggestions have been made, values of groups, it should be particularly significant
e.g., “content analysis” (explicit themes and implicit to examine those values that are clustered around
value-assumptions and implications) of communi- recurrent human situations (such as the scapegoat
cations, budget studies, interviewing parents as to problem) and those that crystallize about the inva-
their aspirations for their children, “disguised” choi- riant points of reference of all culture patterns and
ce-tests, and so on, indefinitely. Out of all these spe- the functional prerequisites of social systems.33
cifics, two suggestions seem especially noteworthy: 33 “D. Aherle, A. Cohen, A. Davis, M. Levy, and F.
(1) the need to pay attention to implicit materials as Sutton, “The Functional Prerequisites of a Society,”
well as to explicit testimony;
Ethics, LX (1950), 100-111. dividual is endlessly simplifying, organizing, and
Values and Value-Orientations 409 generalizing his own view of his own environment;
he constantly imposes on this environment his own
To the extent to which the functional prerequisites constructions and meanings; these constructions
are indeed “constants,” they are also inevitable foci, and meanings [are] characteristic of one culture, as
on the sociocultural level, for value judgments. It over against another.” 34 There is a “philosophy” be-
should be noted, however, that any listing of “in- hind the way of life of every individual and of every
variant points of reference” is done from the stan- relatively homogeneous group at any given point 17
dpoint of a detached analyst. From the standpoint in their histories. This gives, with varying degrees
of the actor it is the meaningful congruence of the of explicitness or implicitness, some sense of cohe-
symbolically learned cultural values that counts. We rence or unity to living both in cognitive and affec-
must, in any case, ultimately go beyond such lists tive dimensions.
and construct schemes that can be useful cross-cul-
turally in describing the manner of solution of such Each personality gives to this “philosophy” an idiosy-
constant problems and the way in which a given ncratic coloring, and creative individuals will mar-
group creates, elaborates, or suppresses certain va- kedly reshape it. However, the main outlines of the
lues and thus comes to sustain a unique value sys- fundamental values, existential assumptions, and
tem. In the construction of such schemes, we must basic abstractions have only exceptionally been crea-
be aware of the dangers of elevating into general and ted out of the stuff of unique biological heredity and
scientific conceptual schemes our own culture’s re- peculiar life experience. The underlying principles
presentations of the desirable. In some measure, the arise out of, or are limited by, the givens of biological
universe of value discourse of one individual or of human nature and the universalities of social inte-
one culture is probably never fully translatable into raction. The specific formulation is ordinarily a cul-
that of another. For that reason, it is all the more tural product. In the immediate sense, it is from the
important to understand clearly the principles one life-ways which constitute the designs for living of
uses for constructing schemes in terms of which to their community or tribe or region or socioeconomic
compare value systems. It is necessary to experi- class or nation or civilization that most individuals
ment with various conceptual schemes relative to the derive most of their “mental-feeling outlook.”
same value phenomena. 33 “Cultural Determinants of Personality,” in Per-
Experimentation is also necessary to test whether sonality and the Behavior Disorders, edited hy J.
imputed implicit values are in fact held and whether Hunt (1944), p723.
an inferred hierarchy of values is really so ordered. 410 The Theory and Its Application
In general, the conceptual model of the value system If we return to the five groups in the Southwest faced
of an individual or a group, constructed with the aid with drought, we find a subtle problem. On the one
of any or all of the methods sketched above, can be hand, one can argue that the different reactions are
validated rigorously only by controlled tests of the based upon “is” rather than “ought” propositions. It
assistance it gives in making successful predictions. is true that each response is related to each culture’s
VALUE-ORIENTATIONS concephon of the workings of the physical universe.
It is convenient to use the term value-orientation for On the other hand, every conception includes both
those value notions which are (a) general, (b) organi- the conviction that human effort counts and that the
zed, and (c) include definitely existential judgments. course of events can be inf luenced by supernatural
A value-orientation is a set of linked propositions agencies. The relative weightings so far as action
embracing both value and existential elements. is concerned ref lect value judgments concerning
appropriateness.
Gregory Bateson has remarked that “the human in-
 It should be possible to construct in general terms group concerned. This approach can be applied, for
the views of a given group regarding the structure example, to a study of the Mormon system of reli-
of the universe, the relations of man to the universe gious thought. The theological tenets of the Church
(both natural and supernatural), and the relations of of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints define human
man to man. These views will represent the group’s life as a period in which man, through his experience
own definition of the ultimate meaning of human in a mortal environment, advances toward greater
life (including its rationalization of frustration, disa- mastery over gross matter. Learning and experience
18 ppointment, and calamity). Such a “definition of the are the means through which this increasing mas-
life sitna Lion” for the group contains more than nor- tery is developed. From these basic postulates, it
mative and aesthetic propositions; it contains also was inferred that Mormon attitudes on a behavio-
existential propositions about the nature of “what ral level would include a high evaluation of educa-
is.” The relationship between existential and nor- tion and work. Investigation has amply supported
mative propositions may be thought of as two-way: this hypothesis. Another instance may be seen in
on the one hand, the normative judgments must be the Mormon doctrines that man is not a depraved
based on the group’s notion of what in fact exists; on creature, but rather is of the same race as God and,
the other hand, the group’s conception of the uni- moreover, was made that he might have joy. From
verse (of “what is” and “what is natural or obvious”) this view of human nature it may be inferred that
will presumably be based partly on prior normative Mormons will place considerable emphasis upon the
orientations and on interests. What “must be done” importance of recreation. Furthermore, from the
is usually closely related to what is believed to be the fact that the basic Mormon view of life is a serious
“nature of things”; however, beliefs about “what is” one, it follows that even joy and recreation will be
are often disguised assumptions of “what ought to approached as serious matters. That this is the case
be.” Moreover, the values of the group, when insti- can be easily confirmed from the literature on Mor-
tutionalized and internalized, have for members of mon social organization.35
the group a practical kind of existential reality. The Since value elements and existential premises are
fact that one cannot f ly through Harvard Square in almost inextricably blended in the over-all picture
an automobile is an existential proposition. That one of experience that characterizes an individual or a
cannot go through Harvard Square in an automobile group, it seems well to call this over-all view a “va-
at sixty-five miles per hour is a normative proposi- lue-orientation,” symbolizing the fact that affective.
tion, and one that will be enforced by police action. cognitive (value) and strictly cognitive (orientation)
To the driver of the car, however, both of these have a elements are blended. More formally, a value-orien-
great, though perhaps not equal, degree of “reality.” tation may be defined as a generalized and organi-
Without~entenng into a discussion of ontology, it may zed conception, inf luencing behavior, of nature, of
be suggested that both define the “nature of things” man’s place in it, of man’s relation to man, and of
for the driver of the car. With more fundamental the desirable and nondesirable a~ they may rela-
norms, it should hold even more consistently that te to man-environment and interhuman relations.
“what is right” is of equal importance with “what is” Such value-orientations may be held by individuals
in defining the context of action. By institutionali- or, in the abstract-typical form, by groups. Like va-
zation value is part of the situation. lues, they vary on the continuum from the explicit
411 Values and Value-Orientations to the implicit.
This statement of a given group’s definition of the Florence Kluckhohn has noted that “all societies
meaning of life, a statement comprising both exis- find a phraseology within a range of possible phra-
tential and normative postulates, will provide the seologies of basic human problems.” 36 The present
student with the general value-orientation of the concept is essentially the same, except (a) the term
value-orientation (as opposed to simple orientation) total action complex. The distinctive quality of each
calls explicit attention to the union of normative with culture and the selective trends that characterize it
existential assumptions; and (b) there is no limitation rest fundamentally upon its system of value-orien-
to “cultural” orientations; value-orientation is equally tations. As Bougle’ has pointed out, it is primarily
applicable to individuals and to groups. This is in- by the transmission of their values that cultures per-
deed an area where investigations of thematic prin- petuate themselves. It should be emphasized that
ciples in personalities and in cultures may usefully cultural distinctiveness rests not merely–or even
come together. Henry Murray speaks of the “unity mainly–on value content but on the configuratio- 19
thema” and “major and minor themas” of persona- nal nature of the value system, including emphases.
lity. Anthropologists speak of the “ethos” (i.e., uni- Cultures dif fer, for example, in relative emphasis
ty thema) and the themes of cultures. The ideas of on degree of patterning of expressional, cognitive,
structure in the two cases are basically similar, and and moral values.
the overlap in content is considerable. To a greater or TOWARD A CLASSIFICATION OF VALUES AND VA-
lesser extent, such patterns are thought to pervade LUE-ORIENTATIONS
the totality of a personality or the totality of a culture
and, by their unique combination, to give personality L..J. Henderson, the well-known biochemist, used
or culture some degree of coherence, imbue it with to remark that in science any classification is better
distinctive character and outlook, and make indivi- than no classification–even though, as Whitehead
duals unique or make the carriers of a culture distin- says, a classification is only a half-way house.Much
guishable from the representatives of other groups. of the confusion in discussion about values undoub-
tedly arises from the fact that one speaker has the
35 This paragraph, written hy Thomas O’Dea, is taken general category in mind, another a particular limi-
from an unpuhushed memorandum without essen- ted type of value, still another a different specific
tial change. Appreciation is expressed to Mr. O’Dea type. We have not discovered any comprehensive
for his permission to use this statement, which fits classification of values. Golightly has distinguished
so well with the general argument of this paper. essential and operational values; 37 C. I. Lewis in-
36 “Dominant and Suhstitute Profiles of Cultu- trinsic, extrinsic, inherent, and instrumental values.
ral Orientations: Their Significance for the Analy- The Cornell group speaks of asserted and Operating
sis of Social Stratification,” Social Forces, XXVIII values. Perry has discriminated values according to
(1950), 376393. modalities of interest: positive-negative, progressi-
412 The Theory and Its Application ve-recurrent, potential.actual, and so on. There are
various content classifications such as: hedonic, aes-
Evaluation, the individual’s active behavior in terms thetic, religious, economic, ethical, and logical. The
of his value-orientations, is a more complex process best known of the content groupings is Spranger’s
than that behavior which is dominantly cathection (used in the Ailport-Vernon test of values) : theore-
or dominantly cognition. To paraphrase the General tical, economic, aesthetic, social, political, and reli-
Statement of Part I: The cognitive-cathectic and eva- gious. The objection to these content classifications
luative orientations are connected by the “effort” of is that they are culturebound. Ralph White has dis-
the actor. In accordance with a value standard and/ tinguished one hundred “general values” and twen-
or an expectation (based upon existential proposi- ty-five “political values,” all with special references
tions), the actor through effort manipulates his own to Western culture.
resources, including his body, his voice, et cetera, in
order to facilitate the direct or indirect approxima- 37 C. Golightly, “Social Science and Normative
tion to a certain valued goal object or state. Ethics,” Journal of Philosophy, XLIV (1948), 505-516.

Value-orientation is a distinct modal aspect of any Values and Value-Orientations 413

 It seems useful to make a tentative analysis of va- conceptualizations more congenial to the thinking
lues in terms of “dimensions,” as suggested in an characteristic of some non-Western cultures.
unpublished memorandum by Professor John W. M. Dimension of generality. Some values are specific to
Whiting. The word dimension has here the funda- certain situations or to certain content areas. Navaho
mental meaning it has in mathematics, as defined in Indians, for example, should not have ceremonials at
Webster’s Dictionary: “The degree of manifoldness of the time of an eclipse of the moon. A particular type
a magnitude or aggregate as fixed by the number of of the specific value is the role value–values appro-
20 co5rdinates necessary and sufficient to distinguish priate only in certain roles.
any one of its elements from all others.” Certain of
these dimensions (modality and content) have alre- Navaho ceremonial practitioners ought not to have
ady been discussed above and will be listed here only sexual relations with any person they have sung over.
for completeness of the grouping thus far arrived at. Other values are thematic–applying to a wide variety
of situations and to diverse areas of culture content.
Dimension of modality: Positive and negative va- Such a (negative) value in Navaho culture is fear of
lues. closure. The coils of a pot or basket must never be
Dimension of content: Aesthetic,35 cognitive, and brought end to end. A “spirit outlet” is always left
moral values.39 in any design on silver or in a rug or sandpainting.
Dimension of intent. The values relating to an appro- A ceremonialist never teaches an apprentice quite the
ved or preferred style or manner in which an act is whole of his knowledge. A husband and wife or two
to be carried out or an object made can be termed intimate friends must invariably take care to “hold
mode values. These are similar to what have some- something back.”
times been called “expressive values.” Instrumental 38 “Expressional” may he preferable to “aesthetic.”
values are those which actors and groups conceive
as means to further ends. Goal values are “the aims 39 That the process of valuation is in crucial respects
and virtues which societies and individuals make for the same is indicated by the practice of speaking of
themselves.”The distinction between these two types “good” and “had” ideas, pictures, music, and the like.
is comparable to that made by some authors between 414 The Theory and Its Application
“operational” and “intrinsic” or “ultimate” values. The
Dimension of intensity. The strength of value may be
distinction between instrumental and goal values,
determined by observing the sanctions applied in-
however, is a slippery one, depending in part, as
ternally and externally and by measuring the degree
has been pointed out, on time perspective. It is also
of striving toward attaining or maintaining states,
essential to discriminate explicitly and consistent-
objects, or events. Repetition of behaviors judged to
ly between the viewpoints of actor and of observer.
have been inf luenced by values is another measure
The relationship between instrumental and goal va-
of intensity. The method of paired comparisons is
lues is clearly one of complete interdependence, not
particularly applicable in determining the strength
of mere sequence. The utilization of certain means
of a value. This does not necessarily imply a linear
will, under specified conditions, inevitably defeat
hierarchy. Some value systems tend to be circular, as
the ends sought.
McCulloch has suggested. Perhaps therefore, on se-
Finally, it should be noted that the means-end dicho- mantic grounds, this dimension ought to be termed
tomy is not as clear-cut in the category systems of all “incidence” rather than “intensity.”
cultures as it is in Western culture. It may well be
All cultures have their categorical values, their
that by elevating this contrast into a general scheme
“musts” and “must nots,” violations of which are at-
we shall get comparative analyses of value systems
tended by severe sanctions. Respect for the property
that differ considerably from analyses based upon
of others is such a value in Western society. “Achie-
vement,” however, is a preferential value (though a fuse variation with deviation. Most cultures have
strong one) in American culture. Those who “achie- patterned choice ranges for those in different age,
ve” are rewarded materially and in prestige terms. sex, class, occupational, and other groups. Personal
There are convenient cultural rationalizations for values are ordinarily variants of group values, but
those who fail to achieve, though all are urged to the permitted range is often large–insofar as both
do so. In many cultures, though not in all, there are intensity and sheer selection of values is concerned.
utopian values which inf luence the direction of be- Every culture permits, and must permit, a sizable
havior but which are considered beyond immediate range of alternatives. 21
attainment. Literal conformity to the conceptions of From this point of view a meaningful classification
the desirable set forth in the Sermon on the Mount along the dimension of intensity is suggested by re-
evokes amazement or suspicion of queerness, and cent work of Florence Kluckhohn. She suggests that
nonconformity is unpunished. These are genuine all culture patterns may be grouped as dominant,
values but of a different order from that of regard variant, or deviant. This corresponds roughly to our
for human life (categorical value) or achievement statement that values deal with prescriptions, per-
(preferential value) in our culture. Of course, the missions, and prohibitions. Dominant values are
utopian values of one historical epoch sometimes those held by a majority of a group or by the most
become the preferential or even categorical values powerful elite. Conformance to dominant values
of a later period. brings the highest approval and reward. Adherence
Utopian values may also be regarded as a subclass to variant values brings low-level approval, or at any
of what may be termed hypothetical values–that is, rate, toleration rather than punishment. Deviant
values to which some “lip service” is given but whose values, whether idiosyncratic or characteristic of a
inf luence upon action is relatively slight. segmental or distributive minority, are disallowed
The other subclass of hypothetical values are tradi- by sanctions.40
tionalistic values. These are values of historic as- Dimension of explicitness. This is, of course, a con-
sociations in the culture but which have lost most tinuum without sharp breaks. In general, an expli-
of their operative force because of changes in other cit value is one which is stated verbally by actors,
aspects of the culture or in situation. One may ins- whereas an implicit value is one which is inferred
tance the time-bound values relating to the aristo- by observers from recurrent trends in behavior, in-
cracy in contemporary England. In many formal cluding verbal behavior. But a group value may be
and verbal respects the medieval conceptions are ordinarily implicit and yet have been stated one or
still manifested, but the value strength is primarily more times by one or more individuals. An implicit
a historic residue. These values might also be called value is a tacit conception which is inferred to un-
passive or ritualistic values; the feeling for content is derlie a behavioral sequence because the given train
largely gone; only the form persists. of events is interpretable only if this tacit concep-
Finally–and this extends into the realm of the orga- tion is assumed to be one of the factors determining
nization of values–one can contrast central and pe- selective behavior. Such behavior sequences must
ripheral values according to the number and variety involve acts in which “choice” is possible within the
of behaviors inf luenced and the extent to which a physical and biological dimensions of the environing
group or individual would be markedly different if situation and in which the “choices” made are not
the value disappeared. random but patterned.

Values and Value-Orientations 415 Such choices are presumed to be based upon uns-
tated “ought” or “desirability” categories. The ob-
In estimating the intensity of values and the con- server needs the concept of implicit value to give an
formity to them, one must be careful not to con- organized interpretation of behavior, in particular
 to explain the continuity between symbolic elements of concrete variation. The abstraction is meaningful
of observed behavior. The Televant patterning is, of and useful, but one must never lose sight of the fact
course, only that attributable to abstract standards that it is an abstraction at a high level.
of the aesthetically or morally desirable. The selec- The convergence between personal values and group
tion of steel rather than copper to build a bridge is values will be found to vary; it will be greater on the
primarily a decision based upon scientific or utili- part of representative or conforming individuals in
tarian grounds, not upon value grounds. However, relatively homogeneous cultures or subcultures. A
22 the changing lengths of women’s skirts in the same value may be defined in psychological terms as that
climate and where materials are about as available aspect of motivation which is determined by codes or
one year as the next ref lect certain implicit values. standards as opposed to immediate situation. If the
40 The possibilities of this threefold classification standards are those carefully abstracted to represent
for analysis of socio cultural process are far more modalities more or less characteristic of some social
intriguing and complex than can he indicated here. unit, the value may be spoken of as a group value.
They will be developed in subsequent puMications If the reference is to the private form of a code that
of F. Kluckhohn. inf luences motivation in an individual, one speaks
416 The Theory and Its Application of a personal value. Gordon AlIport has said that
Dimension of extent. The spread of a value may ran- “shared value” constitutes a contradiction in terms.
ge from a single individual to the whole of humanity. This is doubtless true at the very concrete level. But
An idiosyncratic value is one held by only one person analytically, it is possible and useful to describe the
in the group under consideration. This is, of course, central tendencies abstractly and to impute them to
one of the ways in which new group values evolve. the group rather than the individual.42
New values come into being as a result of individual 41 Clearly, personal values do not consist merely in
variability and new situations, though it should be conceptions of “what I ought to do.” They include
added that new values are invariably created against equally con~eptions of what women ought to do, of
a background of pree~xisting values.A personal va- what fathers ought to do, of what others who hear
lue is the private form of a group value or a universal a specified relation to “me” ought to do to me under
value.41 It is not entirely unique to one personality certain conditions.
hut has its own special shadings, emphases, and in- 42 While values are by no means completely cultu-
terpretations. Just as a social system may be said rally relative, positive and negative affect, except in
to have functional prerequisites, so any adult indivi- situations of extreme physiological need, can hardly
dual with a functioning consciousness is confronted be understood apart from group standards. In gene-
by problems of meaning and integration. ral, Geiger is right in saying “Man finds his happiness
Each people, it is true, has a distinctive set of values. in the activities the mores celebrate.” Moreover, he
However, no two individuals within the same society continues, the transmutation of pleasure into value
share identical values. Each individual adds a little must he carried out by a group even though, in some
here, subtracts a little there, makes this emphasis a instances, the group is expressing a universal rather
bit stronger than most of his neighbors and makes than a culturally limited value. “Hedonic tones (not
that emphasis a little less strong. some substantialized Laetitia) are immediate expe-
More-over, every culture has to make some pro- riences which have to be taken into account. They
vision, however limited, for the variety of human are not automatically values. Values, like truth, are
temperaments that is the consequence of biological names given to processes, to happenings, to choices
variability. Indeed, the group value system is an abs- men make” (Value, pp. 32~329).
traction, a statement of central tendencies in a range Values and Value-Orientations 417
Personal and idiosyncratic values, Parsons and Shils the gamut of cultural variability has been explored.
suggest, tend to be organized primarily around the We too often forget the extent of consensus concer-
individual’s motivational problems, such as control ning the satisfactions for individuals which any good
of aggression, restrictions on gratification, self-per- social order ought to make possible or provide. Ca-
missiveness. Group values, on the other hand, are reful study of the public utterances of Robert Taft
mainly organized around the problems of selection and Joseph Stalin will show that many of the things
between types of normative patterns governing in- that they say they ultimately want for people are
terpersonal relations, exploitation of the environ- identical. As Lundberg has reminded us: 23
ment, and attitudes and behavior toward the super- 43 For a discussion of the values of some subsystems
natural. This is an arresting formulation, but it may of our society, see David Aberle, “Shared Values in
be overschematic. Personal values would also seem Complex Societies,” American Sociological Review,
to be organized about problems of interpersonal re- XV (1950), 495-502.
lations, attitudes toward the supernatural, and the
like. There is a personal selection of limited cultural 44 Their universality is, of course, from the obser-
possibilities, which are, in turn, a selection from a ver’s point of view. The meaning of such universal
limited number of universal possibilities. values to the individual cultural carriers in each
distant culture will vary in detail and must be de-
A group value is distinctive of some plurality of indi- termined in cultural context and in part–at least at
viduals, whether this be a family, clique, association, present by Verstehung.
tribe, nation, or civilization. Group values consist in
socially sanctioned ends and socially approved mo- 418 The Theory and rt5 Application
des and means. They are values which define the There is general agreement by the masses of men
common elements in the situations in which the ac- on the large and broad goals of life as evidenced by
tors repeatedly find themselves, and they must make man’s behavior. Everywhere he tries to keep alive
some kind of functional sense in terms of a group’s as best he knows how, he tries to enjoy association
special history, present social structure, and envi- with his fellow creatures, and he tries to achieve
ronmental situation. communion with them and with his universe, in-
The term group value is selected rather than cultural cluding his own imaginative creations. The sharp
value for two reasons. First, the group may, at most, dif ferences of opinion arise about the means, the
have only a subculture or be distinguished from a costs, and the consequences of dif ferent possible
larger entity by only a few cultural properties.48 Se- courses of action.45
cond, universal values are also cultural values in the Contrary to the statements of Ruth Benedict and
sense that they are socially learned and transmitted. other exponents of extreme cultural relativity, stan-
Most of the values described in anthropological and dards and values are not completely relative to the
sociological literature are purely cultural. Indeed cultures from which they derive.46 Some values are
they, like the phenomena of linguistics, are cultu- as much givens in human life as the fact that bodies
re at its purest, because they involve the maximum of certain densities fall under specified conditions.
element of convention, of arbitrary selection and These are founded, in part, upon the fundamental
emphasis. However, it seems increasingly clear and biological similarities of all human beings. They ari-
increasingly important that some values, perhaps se also out of the circumstance that human existence
entirely of a broad and general sort, transcend cul- is invariably a social existence. No society has ever
tural dif ferences, if one extricates the conceptual approved suf fering as a good thing in itself. As a
core from the superficial cultural trimmings. These means to an end (purification or self.discipline), yes;
universal values 44 have not yet been examined by as punishment–as a means to the ends of society,
social scientists in the same detailed way in which yess. But for itself–no. No culture fails to put a ne-
 gative valuation upon killing, indiscriminate lying, immediate pleasure is one of vast significance. To
and stealing within the in-group. There are impor- the extent that such categorical imperatives are uni-
tant variations, to be sure, in the conception of the versal in distribution and identical or highly simi-
extent of the in-group and in the limits of toleration lar in content, they afford the basis for agreement
of lying and stealing under certain conditions. But among the peoples of the world.48The word univer-
the core notion of the desirable and nondesirable is sal is preferable to absolute because whether or not
constant across all cultures. Nor need we dispute a value is universal can be determined empirically.
24 the universality of the conception that rape or any Some values may indeed be absolute because of the
achievement of sexuality by violent means is disa- unchanging nature of man or the inevitable con-
pproved.47 This is a fact of observation as much as ditions of human life. On the other hand, such an
the fact that different materials have different spe- adjective is dangerous because culture transcends
cific gravities. nature in at least some respects and because pro-
Conceptions of “the mentally normal” have common positions about values are subject to revision like all
elements–as well as some disparate ones–throu- scientific judgments. New knowledge or radically
ghout all known cultures. The “normal” individual changed circumstances of man’s existence may alter
must have a certain measure of control over his im- universal values. At best, one might be justified in
pulse life. The person who threatens the lives of his speaking of “conditional absolutes” or “moving ab-
neighbors without socially approved justification is solutes” (in time).
always and everywhere treated either as insane or To speak of “conditional absolutes” does not consti-
as a criminal. This is perhaps oMy a subeategory of tute that naive identification of the “is” with the “ou-
a wider universal conception of the normal: no one ght” which has occasioned justified condemnation of
is fit for social life unless his behavior is predicta- certain work in social science. The suggestion here is
ble within certain limits by his fellows. In all so- rather that if, in spite of their tremendous variations
cieties the individual whose actions are completely in other respects, all cultures have converged on a
unpredictable is necessarily incarcerated (in jail or few broad universals this fact is deeply meaningful.
asylum) or executed. The question is at least raised whether–given the
45 Can Science Save Us? (1947), p.99. relatively unchanging biological nature of man and
certain inevitables of life in a group–societies which
46 Dewey also speaks of values as “definitely and tailed to make these ttenets part of their cultures
completely sociocultural.” For an empirical argu- simply did not survive. In other words, the existen-
ment by a philosopher who shares the position of ce of these universals ref lects a series of categorical
this paper, see F. C. Sharp, Good Will and Ill Will “oughts” only in the sense that these are necessary
(1950), esp. p. 164. conditions–given by nature, invented by man only
47 The occasional instance of ceremonial rape or in their specific formulations–of adjustments and
of ius primae noctis is precisely the exception that survival always and everywhere.
proves the rule. There are probably some personal values or va-
Values and Value-Orientations 419 lue-orientations which tend toward universality in
their distribution. At least we may say that in all or
Reciprocity is another value essential in all societies.
almost all societies of any size one can find one or
Moreover, the fact that truth and beauty (however
more individuals having a bent for one of what Char-
differently defined and expressed in detail) are uni-
les Morris has called Apollonian, Dionysian, Prome-
versal, transcendental values is one of the givens
thean, Buddhistic, and other “’paths of life.” To avoid
of human life–equally with birth and death. The
confusion, these values corresponding to certian
very fact that all cultures have had their categori-
constitutional temperaments widely distributed over
cal imperatives that went beyond mere survival and
the world may be termed temperamental values. of harmony or of conf lict within the system tend to
Dimension of organization. The question of the arise. The elements of a value system have symbolic
extent to which personal or cultural values are hie- and historic connections in addition to their inter-
rarchically organized is a difficult one which can be nal logical relations. One aspect of this problem is
finally settled only by vast empirical research. Cer- the manner in which the system distinguishes and
tainly there is almost always a hierarchical notion to emphasizes general versus specific values and hand-
thinking about values: “more beautiful than,” les conf licts between them. (We suspect that great
internal differentiation can be both an opportunity 25
‘’better ~ ‘’more appropriate than.” One essential for value conf lict and a mode of resolving it.)
quality of value is that of behaving discriminatingly;
this inevitably means discriminating between values The elaboration of the logic of the heart and of the
as well as “objective” situations. To speak of values is head, and their mutual relation, probably varies from
simply to say that behavior is neither random nor so- culture to culture. Consideration of this issue, theo-
lely instinctual or reflexive. Values determine trends retically and empirically, is imperative for a systema-
toward consistency in behavior, whether on the in- tic analysis of value systems and their functioning.
dividual or the group level. Without a hierarchy of Tentatively, we may distinguish isolated values (tho-
values life becomes a sequence of reactions to stimuli se which neither conf lict nor demonstrably support
that are related only in physical or biological terms. other values) and integrated values (those which can
However, there is more to the organization of values be shown to be part of an interlocking–or possibly
than hierarchy. One value is tied to another logica- pyramiding–network.)
lly and meaningfully, and it is this systematic and Group values seem to be organized into dominant
connected quality of values that makes them both and substitute profiles, as Florence Kluckhohn has
interesting and difficult to deal with. At any rate, va- pointed out for her “orientations.”50 This is one as-
lues do appear to occur in clusters rather than alone. pect of the range of variation tolerated in all cultu-
48 A number of psychoanalysts have been developing res–on some matters. Another useful way of thin-
the psychological bases of a universal morality. See, king about the organization of values is presented
for example, R. E. Money-Kyrle, “Towards a Com- in the chapter on “Systems of Value-Orientation” in
mon Aim,” fiTitish Journal of Medical Psychology, Part II of this book.
XX (1944). 105-118. 49 Crucial for the formation of personality and its
420 The Theory and Its Application organization are those priority values of the group
There also seem to be priority values. For the most which prescribe the ideal kind of personality (by sex
part, the more general a value the higher its priority, and role) to which allegiauce shall be given.
because it contributes more to the coherent organi- 50 “Dominant and Suhstitute Profiles of Cultural
zation and functioning of the total system, whether Orientations,” Social Forces, XXVIII (1950), 376-393.
a personality 49 or a culture. However, lacking ex- 421
tensive research, one must be cautious about invo-
king the image of a pyramid of values, a neat and It should be noted–alike in the F. Kluckhohn, Par-
systematic hierarchy. The extent to which an indi- sons and Shils, and the present conceptual sche-
vidual or a group has an affectively congruent or lo- mes–that these are all analyses from an observer’s
gically consistent “value policy” is a special problem point of view and with a minimum of content. ‘Valid
for investigation. analyses of this type can be based upon only the fu-
llest kind of descriptions of cultures. The “feel of the
This issue must not be prejudged on the basis of any culture” obtained from careful reading of classical
one formal system of logic (such as the Aristotelian), ethnographies must not be sacrificed to oversche-
or else exaggerated notions concerning the degree
 matic and premature abstraction. The alternatives of culture. The essence of culture is its selectivity,
posed in pairs or triplets or in fourfold boxes are its arbitrariness from the point of view of action
useful for comparative purposes,51 but one cannot alternatives equally open in the “objective” world
dispense with detailed description of events as ac- and equally adequate in terms of the satisfaction
tually observed or of value systems as they appear of strictly biological or other survival needs. So far
to culture carriers. culture and value are very much alike. All cultural
DIFFERENTIATION FROM RELATED CONCEPTS behavior, like valuative behavior, involves an inhibi-
26 tion of the randomness of trial-and-error response.
In Anthropology. In the only complete, explicit de- In cross-cultural comparisons, at least, any bit of cul-
finition of value I have discovered in anthropologi- tural behavior is selective or preferential behavior.
cal literature, Ralph Linton says: “ A value may be For instance, Americans in England usually continue
defined as any element, common to a series of si- to handle their knives and forks in the American, not
tuations, which is capable of evoking a covert res- the English, manner. Chinese women in this country
ponse in the individual. An attitude may be defined often prefer dresses of Chinese type to those which
as the covert response evoked by such an element.” they buy in our stores. One can think of countless
52 Why the responses are limited to the “covert” is other examples of culturally determined behavior
not specified. This definition is unsatisfactory also which involves felt preferences but not conceptions
because it does not, apart from “common to a series of the desirable as these have been defined above.
of situations,” differentiate value from any concept Value is more than mere preference; it is limited to
other than attitude. those types of preferential behavior based upon con-
In general, anthropologists use “value” vaguely, of- ceptions of the desirable.
ten as more or less synonymous with “strongly held 51 Also, to be sure, for internal dynamic analysis and
belief,” “moral code,” “culturally defined aspirations,” in planning specifically pointed fieldwork.
or even “sanctions.” There is also a tendency, when
one is talking about culture in general and at a high 52 The Cultural Background of Personality (New
level of abstraction, to merge values and culture. It is York, 1945), pp.111-112.
true that the culture carrier who is thoroughly iden- 422 The Theory and Its Application
tified with his culture “values” all or most aspects The relation of values to culture patterns, cultu-
of the culture in the sense that he is not affectively ral premises, configurations, Opler’s “themes,” 53
neutral to them. On the other hand, any culture con- Herskovits’ “focus,” 54 and to similar conceptions
sists only in part of conceptions of the desirable (and deserves comment. It should be noted, first of all,
the nondesirable, for there are also negative values). that these conceptions refer solely to structural as-
It also includes the purely substantive and non-nor- pects of sociocultural systems, whereas values refer
mative aspect of folklore, literature, and music; it alike to individuals, to cultures, and to panhuman
includes technological and other skills. phenomena which cut across all existing cultures.
An earlier, unpublished definition of value by the In the second place, many “themes” are in the al-
present writer was as follows: “ A selective orienta- most purely cognitive realm, defining existential
tion toward experience, characteristic of an indivi- propositions only.
dual and/or of a group, which inf luences the choice Values do include those sanctioned or regulatory
between possible alternatives in behavior.” This is patterns prescribing culturally approved ways of
unsatisfactory because, among other reasons, it fai- doing things and culturally established goals; they
led to set values apart from the totality of culture. also include the implicit cultural premises (“configu-
“ Selective orientation toward experience characte- rations”) governing ends and means and the relation
ristic of a group” would almost serve as a definition between them, insofar as conceptions of the desira-
ble are involved. All cultures, however, include pat- Values and Value-Orientations 423
terns and themes which are not felt by most culture In Sociology. Sociology has consistently been more
carriers as justifiable. Prostitution, for example, is explicitly concerned ‘vith values than either an-
in certain cultures a recognized behavioral pattern thropology or psychology. Hence it has developed
but is not a value. The “success” theme in Ameri- related but distinct concepts to a much lesser ex-
can culture is today questioned in value terms by tent. Durkheim, Weber, Sumner, and other clas-
many Americans. sical sociologists all have treated the problems of
There is unquestionably an overlap in these concep- value. Durkheim showed both that society was a 27
tions. But values constitute a more general category moral phenomenon and that morality was a social
of the theory of action, themes and premises a more phenomenon. He tended to maintain a positivistic
limited one. Some cultural premises, as we have ethic but also to deny the individual’s independen-
said, are certainly values; others are almost exclu- ce in taking a position on values.55 In general, he
sively cognitive or existential. The direction of the failed to segregate the value element in the concrete
enquiry is dif ferent in any case. Themes, cultural social structure.
premises, and the rest are structural concepts, pri- Sumner’s concept of the mores overlaps with the no-
marily intended to map the culture in cognitive ter- tion of value as defined in this paper, but it is so little
ms for the outsider, to help depict the culture as a used today as a strictly technical term that a careful
system. Values always look to action, in particular differentiation seems unnecessary.
to the selections made by individual actors between
different paths, each “objectively” open. Brief mention should be made of some of the more
important recent sociological literature dealing with
53 A postulate or position, declared or implied, and values. In The Polish Peasant, Thomas and Znaniecki
usually controlling behavior or stimulating activi- propound their famous definition: “By a social va-
ty, which is tacitly approved or openly promoted in lue we understand any datum having an empirical
a society” (“Themes as Dynamic Forces in Culture,” content accessible to the members of some social
American Journal 0/ Sociology, LI [1945], 19~205). group and a meaning with regard to which it is or
This is very dose to our definition of “c~tural value.” may be an object of activity.” This they contrast with
54 “Cultural focus designates the tendency of every attitude: “. . . a process of individual consciousness
culture to exhibit greater complexity, greater varia- which determines real or possible activity of the
tion in the institutions of some of its aspects than in individual in the social world.” The contributions
others. So striking is this tendency to develop cer- of Parsons, Mannheim, and Bougl6 to the study of
tain phases of life, while others remain in the bac- values are well known. Radhakanal Mukerjee has
kground, so to speak, that in the shorthand of the recently published The Social Structure of Values
disciplines that study human societies these focal (~949), “a systematic attempt to present sociology
aspects are often used to characterize whole cultu- from the viewpoint of valuation as the primum mo-
res” (Man and His Works [1948], p.542). He elsewhe- bile in the social universe, the nexus of all human
re comments, “A people’s dominant concern may he relations, groups, and institutions.” Howard Bec-
thought of as the focus of their culture: that area of ker has recently published Through Values to Social
activity or belief where the greatest awareness of Interpretation.
form exists, the most discussion of values is heard, In Psychology. Although there are a few famous
the widest difference in structure is to be discerned” examples to the contrary (notably the Allport-Ver-
(“The Processes of Cultural Change,” in The Science non test and Wolfgang Kbhler’s The Place of Value
of Man in the World Crisis, edited by Ralph Linton in a World of Facts), psychologists have dealt with
[19451, pp. 164165). values–under this name–much less frequently than
 sociologists. There are, however, certain important would consider more conveniently handled by other
psychological concepts, such as attitude, which concepts, such as motivation.
cover some of the same territory and hence must The following definition by John W. M. Whiting,
be distinguished. Eleanor llollenberg, and William Lambert is also in
If one follows Allport’s classic definition of attitu- a psychological frame of reference: “A value is the
de–“a mental and neural state of readiness, organi- relationship between an individual or group and
zed through experience, exerting a directive or dy- an event (i.e., any class of objects, actions or inte-
28 namic influence upon the individual’s response to all ractions) such that the individual or group strives
objects and situations with which it is related”–the to achieve, maintain or avoid that event.” They go
principle differences from value are: on to say that a value may be measured by “(a) an
(a) exclusive referability to the individual, and (b) ab- appraising statement, e.g., statements of choice or
sence of imputation of the “desirable.” There would preference (questions of validity and reliability of
be a certain convenience if Woodruff’s definition of both verbal report and behavioral observation must
attitudes as “momentary and temporary states of be taken into account), made by an informant; (b)
rediness to act” were accepted, for then values and an inference by an observer from the overt actions
attitudes would be contrasted in the time dimen- of the individual or group which imply choice or
sion and the inf luence of values on attitudes could preference with respect to the event.” Their memo-
be more readily explored.56 randum continues:

55 See Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Ac- It will be noted that this definition is similar to the
tion, esp. pp.391 ff. Kluckhohn-Vogt definition of value insofar as stri-
ving to achieve, maintain or avoid an event is equi-
424 The Theory and Its Application valent to preference, choice and selection.
If one approaches the explanation of behavior in a The definitions differ in that the Kluckhohn-Vogt de-
psychological framework, it is easy to confuse value finition makes value substantively either a statement
with motivation and related concepts. David Aberle, (explicit value) or a tactt premise” (implicit value),
in an unpublished memorandum, has wisely com- whereas the present definition reserves statements
mented on my earlier “selective orientation” defi- and tacit premises for operations of determining and
nition of value: measuring values. It will be noted that the substan-
Whatever we mean by a value, the area of values is tive definition of the present statement is a relations-
apparently difficult to circumscribe. The examples hip between an individual or group and an event.
ordinarily used have a tendency to fall into one or With respect to the specifications for measure-
another area that is already being successfully ex- ment, the present definition includes the method
ploited under some other head. Descriptions of the of paired comparisons under conditions of equal
values of an individual shade off into, or are readily availability of events as specified by Kluckhohn and
absorbed by, such notions as motivations, conscious Vogt, but does not limit itself to that method alone.
and unconscious goals, goal-orientations; meanings, For example, it would permit us to use the ratings
and the like. If we accept Kluckhohn’s tentative defi- of judges with respect to appraising statements of
nition, expedient behavior, “unconsciously self~des- informants without carrying out the operation of
tructive behavior,” f light from the field, or collapse paired comparison.
in the face of an overwhelming attack of anxiety are
all instances of choices between alternative possi- ,’ A. D. Woodruf f, “Students’ Verhalized Values,”
bilities inf luenced by a selective orientation. Some Religious Education, Septemher 1943, pp.321-324.
of these behaviors we would, in ordinary parlance, For an illuminating discussion of attitude and sen-
wish to consider as value-inf luenced, and some we timent, see H. A. Murray and C. D. Morgan, A Cli-
nical Study of Sentiments (Genetic Psychology Mo- patterned means for the satisfaction of a list of hu-
nogr~phs, Vol.32, 1945), pp.6-7, 2~34. On belief and man needs.” It will be worth while to quote at length
attitude, see Stevenson, esp. p. ii. from her argument:
Values and Value-Orientations 425 The concept of an inventory of basic needs rose to fill
It may, however, be useful for some purposes to the vacuum created when the behaviorists banished
have an alternative definition of value in psycho- the old list of instincts.–Anthropologists borrowed
logical terms: value may be defined as that aspect the principle from psychology, without first testing
it against ethnographic material, so that often, when 29
of motivation which is referable to standards, per-
sonal or cultural, that do not arise solely out of im- the psychologist uses anthropological material, he
mediate tensions or immediate situation. Motives, gets his own back again in new form and receives no
conscious or unconscious, provide instigation. The new insights. There are two assumptions involved
value component in motivation is a factor both in here: (1) the premise that action occurs in answer to a
the instigation to action and in setting the direction need or a lack; and (2) the premise that there is a list.
of the act. The value element may be present alike In recent years, anthropologists, inf luenced by the
in the tension of the actor and in the selection of a new psychology, have often substituted drives or im-
path of behavior. Selection, of course, is not mere- pulses or adjustive responses for the old term needs,
ly a function of motives (including their value ele- but the concept of the list remains with us. We hold
ments) but also of the habit strengths of the various this side by side with the conf licting conception of
alternatives. A given value may have a strength that culture as a totality, of personality as organismic, as
is relatively independent of any particular motive, well as with adherence to psychosomatic principles.
though it remains in some sense a function of the We deplore the presentation of culture as a list of
total motivational system. For example, a given va- traits, yet we are ready to define culture as an answer
lue may be simultaneously reinforced by motives for to a list of needs.
achievement, social approval, security, and the like. 57 Murray and Morgan, pp.22; 11.
Finally, we must return brief ly to the subject of ca- 58 See also “Needs and the Organization of Behavior”
thexis. Murray and Morgan have defined cathexis in Chapter I, Part I.
as “the more or less enduring power of an entity to 426 The Theory and Its Application
evoke relatively intense and frequent reactions, po-
sitive or negative, in a person.” They also make a very This definition of culture has proved a strain on us.
useful clarification: When we found that the original list of basic needs
or drives was inadequate, we, like the psycholo-
The concept of cathexis and the concept of sentiment gists, tried to solve the difficulty by adding on a
are merely two different ways of describing the same list of social and psychic needs; and, from here on,
phenomenon; the first points to the persisting power I use the term need in a broad sense, to cover the
of the object to stimulate the subject, whereas the stimulus~response phrasing of behavior. When the
second points to the disposition of the subject to be list proved faulty, all we had to do was to add to the
stimulated by the object.. Cathexis is the more use- list. We have now such needs as that for novelty,
ful term when attention is to be focused on the object for escape from reality, for security, for emotional
and its attributes, the nature of its appeal or its repe- response. We have primary needs, or drives, and se-
llence, especially when the object has demand-value condary needs, and we have secondary needs playing
or aversion-value for a great number of people.57 the role of primary needs. The endless process of
Values and needs.58 Dorothy Lee has recently ca- adding and correcting is not an adequate improve-
lled for “a re-examination of the premise which so ment; neither does the occasional substitution of a
many of us implicitly hold that culture is a group of “totality of needs” for a “list of needs” get at the root
 of the trouble. vidual integrity and passing on our value of indivi-
Where so much elaboration and revision is neces- dualism to the infant, we create needs for food, for
sary, I suspect that the original unit itself must be security, for emotional response, phrasing these as
at fault; we must have a radical change. distinct and separate.

If needs are inborn and discrete, we should find We force the infant to go hungry, and we see suc-
them as such in the earliest situations of an indivi- kling as merely a matter of nutrition, so that we can
dual’s life. Yet take the Tikopia or the Kwoma infant, then feel free to substitute a bottle for breast and
30 a mechanical bottleholder for the mother’s arms;
held and suckled without demand in the mother’s
encircling arms. He knows no food apart from so- thus we ensure privacy for the mother and teach the
ciety, has no need for emotional response since his child self-dependence. We create needs in the in-
society is emotionally continuous with himself; he fant by withholding affection and then presenting
certainly feels no need for security. He participates it as a series of approvals for an inventory of achie-
in a total situation. Even in our own culture, the rare vements or attributes.
happy child has no need for emotional response or Values and Value-Orientations427
approval or security or escape from reality or novel- On the assumption that there is no emotional conti-
ty. If we say that the reason that he has no need for nuum, we withdraw ourselves, thus forcing the child
these things is that he does have them already, we to strive for emotional response and security. And
would be begging the question. I believe, rather, that thus, through habituation and teaching, the mother
these terms or notions are irrelevant when satisfac- reproduces in the child her own needs, in this case
tion is viewed in terms of positive present value, and the need for privacy which inevitably brings with it
value itself as inherent in a total situation. related needs. Now the child grows up needing time
On the other hand, it is possible to see needs as ari- to himself, a room of his own, freedom of choice,
sing out of the basic value of a culture. In our own freedom to plan his own life. He will brook no in-
culture, the value of individualism is axiomatically terference and no encroachment. He will spend his
assumed. How else would it be possible for us to wealth installing private bathrooms in his house, bu-
pluck twenty infants, newly severed from complete ying a private car, a private yacht, private woods and
unity with their mothers, out of all social and emo- a private beach, which he will then people with his
tional context, and classify them as twenty atoms privately chosen society. The need for privacy is an
on the basis of a similarity of age? On this assump- imperative one in our society, recognized by official
tion of individualism, a mother has need for indivi- bodies such as state welfare groups and the depart-
dual self-expression. She has to have time for and ment of labor. And it is part of a system which stems
by herself; and since she values individualism, the from and expresses our basic value.
mother in our culture usually does have this need In other cultures, we find other systems, maintai-
for private life. ning other values. The Arapesh, with their value of
We must also believe that a newborn infant must socialism, created a wide gap between ownership
become individuated, must be taught physical and and possession, which they could then bridge with a
emotional self-dependence; we assume, in fact, that multitude of human relations. They plant their trees
he has a separate identity which he must be helped in someone else’s hamlet, they rear pigs owned by
to recognize. We believe that he has distinct rights, someone else, they eat yams planted by someone
and sociologists urge us to reconcile the needs of else. The Ontong-Javanese, for whom also the good
the child to those of the adults in the family, on the is social, value the sharing of the details of everyday
assumption, of course, that needs and ends are in- living. They have created a system, very confusing
dividual, not social. Now, in maintaining our indi- to an American student, whereby a man ss a mem-
ber of at least three ownership groups, determined deprivations and gratifications may be relevant to a
along different principles, which are engaged coo- great many values, but do not themselves constitute
peratively in productive activities; and of two large value-phenomena. . . To put it another way, “value”
households, one determined along matrilineal lines, can only become actualized in the context of “need”
one along patrilineal lines. Thus, an Ontong-Javane- but it is not thereby identified with need. (Some
se man spends part of the year with his wife’s sisters members of our group maintain that value might
and their families, sharing with them the intimate profitably be considered as “that which continues to
details of daily life, and the rest of the year on an be desired” after imperious segmental deprivations 31
outlying island, with his brothers and their families. have been removed.)
The poor man is the man who has no share in an out- At the level of highly generalized categories or di-
lying island, who must eat and sleep only in a hou- mensions of need, e.g., “security,” “belonginguess,”
sehold composed of his immediate family and his etc., the same need may be met by widely different
mother’s kin, when unmarried; and who must spend patterns of value; conversely, a generalized “value,”
the whole year with his wife’s kin, when married. e.g. religious salvation, patriotism, etc., may be the
He has the same amount and kind of food to eat as nexus of many specific needs.
his wealthy neighbors, but not as many coconuts to
give away; he has shelter as adequate as that of the Mrs. Lee shows a clear recognition of the necessi-
wealthy, but not as much of the shared living which ty for conceptualizing the alternatives in behavior
is the Ontong-Javanese good. and puts a shrewd finger upon some real f laws in
contemporary anthropological and psychological
In speaking of these other cultures, I have not used thinking. It is certainly true, for example, that how
the term need. I could have said, for example, that a language is learned is one thing and what dif fe-
the Ontong-Javanese needs a large house, to include rence it makes after learning is another. But while
many maternally related families. But I think this she rightly insists upon the importance of symbolic
would have been merely an exercise in analysis. On transmission by a culture (Sorokin’s logico. meanin-
the other hand, when I spoke of our own culture, I gful) the situations which create needs (Sorokin’s
was forced to do it in terms of needs, since I have causal-functional) are equally significant.
been trained to categorize my own experience in the-
se terms. But even here, these are not basic needs, Since a value is a complex proposition involving cog-
but rather part of a system expressing our basic va- nition, approval, selection, and affect, then the rela-
lue; and were we able to break away from our subs- tionship between a value system and a need or goal
tantive or formal basis of categorizing, I think we system is necessarily complex. Values both rise from
should find these to be aspects or stresses or func- and create needs. A value serves several needs par-
tions, without independent existence. Culture is not, tially, inhibits others partially, half meets and half
I think, “a response to the total needs of a society”; block still others.
but rather a system which stems from and expresses Some needs arise from a group’s desire for survival
something bad, the basic values of the society.59 as a group. The need for integration is a require-
59 ‘”Are Basic Needs Ultimate?” Journal of Abnormal ment of the social system but is culturally transmi-
and Social Psychology, XLIII (1948), 43, 391-395. tted and the specific means of meeting the need is
culturally styled. Most peoples, for example, wear
428 The Theory and Its Application clothing not because of the rigors of the environment
The Cornell group express themselves along similar but to preserve group integration and, in some ins-
lines: Although values have this af fective dimen- tances, to provide channels for the self-expression
sion, they are not identical with particular segmen- of individuals.
tal “needs” of the organism; specific physiological Other needs are culturally created without reference
 to underlying conditions of social life but are con- according to them, choosing a course of action.60
ditioned and limited by other aspects of the cultu- There is also the caution expressed by Maslow:
re, including its relative over-all complexity. Why
does an upper-middle class New York woman set Interests are determined by the gratification and
a table for a formal dinner party in a certain way, frustration of needs. The current fashion is to treat
with f lowers, fruit, special glasses, linens, and the attitudes, tastes, interests and indeed values of any
like? She certainly feels a “need” to do so. But this kind as if they had no determinant other than as-
32 fact requires a complicated explication. There must sociative learning, i.e. as if they were determined
be a reference to the value system of upper-midd- wholly by arbitrary extra-organismic forces. It is
le-class New Yorkers in 1950. This value system must necessary to invoke also intrinsic requiredness.61
have been internalized (a psychological rather than He goes on to point out that for the food-starved or
a cultural process). The total pattern is possible only water-starved person only food or water will ulti-
given certain goods and services obtainable in a me- mately serve. In other words, some choices do not
tropolitan area. involve value elements but solely need elements.
If she belonged to another culture or if this culture Values and goals. The concept value cuts across
were at a different time point, her “need” would be goals, drives, conditions, relative to an action se-
different in its specific manifestations, though the quence. Value looks not toward the sequential pro-
“deeper” need to conform and to maintain or elevate cess but toward a component in all aspects of an
status might still be there. Her specific needs are action. The Cornell group again makes a clarifying
both created and made possible of fulfillment by the statement: “Values are not the concrete goals of be-
culture in general. It is probable that in complex, havior, but rather are aspects of these goals. Values
literate societies the “secondary needs” are alike appear as the criteria against which goals are cho-
more burdensome and more inescapable. Also, her sen, and as the implications which these goals have
own presentation still contains too much of the older in the situation.”
rampant cultural relativism. Most of the dilemmas
In brief, a goal represents a cathected objective with
she presents can be transcended in terms of the con-
value elements interpreted as they apply in this con-
ceptual scheme presented earlier in this volume.
crete situation.
Values and Value-Orientations 429
60 Comment on Margaret Mead, “The Comparative
There is undoubtedly a close relation between Study of Culture,” in Science, Philosophy and Reli-
needs and values, but it is important to note that gion, 2nd Symposium (1942), p.77.
the needs satisfied by orienting behavior in terms
61 “Some Theoretical Consequences of Basic
of a value is of an importantly dif ferent sort from
Need-Gratification,” Journal of Personali~, XVI
that obtained from eating a good meal. As Dorothy
(1948), 402-416.
Lee has observed:
430 The Theory and Its Application
There is no such contrast of passive absorption of
values and rational choice of action: . .–the basis of Values, drives, and learning. Values are presumably
choice is neither the passive inability to step out of a learned element in behavior. They can well be re-
one’s ingrained social role, nor the calculating desire garded as components in need-dispositions (“acqui-
to avoid displeasing one’s social contemporaries. It red drives”). Most acquired or derived drives are de-
seems to me that from infancy each social being de- pendent upon group values which the individual has
rives an active satisfaction from participating in the somehow interiorized as part of himself. If he does
values of his society, and that this satisfaction lies at not orient a high proportion of his behavior with at
the basis both of acquiring social values and of acting least some regard to these conceptions of the desi-
rable, he neither respects himself nor is respected by
others. Hull has remarked: inferences about what is advantageous or disadvan-
Within the last twenty years the more important tageous, beneficial or harmful in estimating the re-
basic molar laws whereby organisms come to value, lation between values and consequences. Dewey is
i.e. strive for, certain objects have gradually become right in insisting that values are specially ri~levant
fairly clear. In general, any act which is performed to tensions and conf licting impulses. Values make
shortly before the reduction of a primary need, like their inf luence felt after desiring has occurred and
that concerned with food, water, pain, optimal tem- when there is cognition and/or feeling about desi-
perature, or sex, will be conditioned in such a way rability. But he is only partly right in saying that 33
that when the organism is again in that situation or the value “good” is fixed to whatever will solve the
one resembling it, and suffers from that need or one problem situation, if this be interpreted to mean the
resembling it, that act will tend to be evoked. immediate or short-term problem situation.63

This seems to be the basic molar law of conditio- 62 Learning theory has also tended to overlook the
ning or learning. “intrinsic appropriateness” of the

Reward and punishment as operative in the learning Gestaltists. Cf. W. Koehier.

of values and in determining value strength must 63 Radclif fe-Brown has pointed out that some of
be accepted. However, it is necessary to avoid any his critics mistakenly thought that by “social value”
simpliste reduction to primary drives or to a he- he meant “utHity” (Taboo [1939), p. 47). In the cli-
donic or utilitarian calculus.62 The essential thing mate of BritishAmerican thought during the past
about values is their referability to standards more century and a half “value” tends too insistently to
perduring than immediate or completely “selfish” imply “utility.”
or autistic motivations. One of the severest limita- 431
tions of the classical theory of learning is its neglect
of attachments and attitudes in favor of reward Values and functions. Function is always relative
and punishments. to a given basis of references. In the case of values,
the reference is to an action system – society or a
Values, utility, and consequences. Value should be subsystem thereof, or personality or a subsystem
distinguished from utility because of the arbitrari- thereof. There is invariably a “moral” (i.e., total sys-
ness and psychoTogical character of value. Utility tem) reference, whether the function be social or
normally refers to a strictly rational calculus, often psychological. Hence the functions of values are lar-
from the vantage point of the observer. Utility, in the gely, though not exclusively, at the latent or implicit
direct and contemporaneous sense, is by no means level. A passage in Eliseo Vivas’ recent book points
always present in value judgments, in part becau- out very effectively the danger in naive functional or
se the aesthetic dimension is dominant in many tension-reduction formulas:
value judgments.
The self, or the integration of effective constellations
In the long run “judgments of practice” in terms which for the interest theory define it . . is only one,
of consequences – or what are conceived as conse- and an indeterminate, element in the achievement
quences–are doubtless one of the determinants of of the moral economy. Disruption of the economy
the survival strength of various values and influence does not result merely from frustration of surface
their intensity at given time points. However, a va- interests or from manifest conf licts but from the
lue-choice is more often than not made in terms of manner–about which we are as yet almost entirely
psychologically felt compatibility, rather than by a in the dark–in which the hidden factors of the self
primarily rational evaluation of probable consequen- enter into the selection of values through the inhi-
ces. The observer must be highly self-conscious of bition or encouragement of interests. The value of
time perspective and generally wary about drawing life as lived, which is distinct from the values ack-
 nowledged by the person or even those he espouses, selection: external as well as internal consequences
seems to a very small extent to depend on cognitive follow upon choice. Sanctions and values are inex-
preferences dictated by which Santayana and Perry tricably linked. It is from group values that rules
call “reason.” And even less does it seem to depend are derived and sanctions justified. Why must one
on whether a large or small number of interests de- drive on the right side of the street and be punished
cided on by the four notions of Perry are satisfied or for failing to do so?
not. The preferences operate below, as well as above, Because our culture puts a high value
34 consciousness, and denial of interests is no less ne- upon human life.
cessary than satisfactions to secure the tensions and
tone without which life as it is lived loses its value. We do not yet understand very much about the steps
. . Tension and sometimes the anxiety generated by through which a mere preference (on the part of an
a conf lict may be the essential factors in producing individual or a group) becomes a value (internally felt
the tone and value.64 “oughtness”) and then–in the case of literate socie-
ties–embodied as a law with formal sanctions.
Values and sanctions. If conduct is to conform, even
approximately, to standards, there must–for most of Values and ideals. It appears to be in the nature of
the behavior of most people–be sanctions, organized the human animal to strive af ter ideals as well as
or dif fuse. It may be guessed that the more orga- mere existence. To this extent, the realm of ideals
nized and direct sanctions reinforce either group and values is almost co-extensive. However, the
values that are newer in the culture or subculture or concept of the ideal does not imply the property of
those which restrain imperious biological impulses, “choice” or selection which is a differentia of value.
the free exercise of which endangers the security Moreover, in popular speech at least, the “ideal” ca-
of individuals and the stability of society. Values of rries a connotation of the unattainable as opposed
both of these types must he called constantly to the to the desirable-and-possible. In addition to the
conscious attention, backed by the threat of direct quasi-mystical connotation, there are metaphysical
and organized sanction on the part of at least some overtones from Plato and elsewhere which make the
members of the group in which action takes place. term dubious as a scientific concept. One might say
The sanctions for implicit group values are either that an ideal is an especially valued goal of an indi-
extremely diffuse or are mediated by the sanctions vidual or a group. Thomas O’Dea suggests defining
attached to explicit values subsumed under a more an ideal as “a constructed embodiment of values in a
thematic implicit value. hypothetically concrete situation”; he gives as exam-
64 The Moral Life and the Ethical Life (1950), p.59. ples the scholar-gentleman in Confucian China, the
Vivas also in this bouk introduces the useful dis- independence of India, the building of Zion.
tinction between “espoused” and “recognized” va- Values and beliefs. Values dif fer from ideas and
lues. Had this important hook been available before beliefs by the feeling which attaches to values and
the present chapter was put in “final form,” many by the commitment to action in situations involving
aspects of the chapter’s content and organization possible alternatives. If you are committed to act on
would probably have been significantly different. a belief, then there is a value element involved. The
432 The Theory and Its Application following crude schematization is suggestive: (1) This
is real or possible (belief) 65 (2) this concerns me or us
Of course, anticipation of sanction is not precisely (interest) ; (3) this is good for me or us, this is better
identical with asking, “What ought I to do?” Ne- than something else that is possible (value). Belief
vertheless sanctions and values are linked in the refers primarily to the categories, “true” and “false”;
concrete motivational system of each individual ac- “correct” and “incorrect.” Value refers primarily to
tor. Also, they are involved in the determinism of “good” and “bad”; “right” and “wrong.”
Values and ideology. The term ideology is current- will never be a sound basis for a philosophy of life
ly used in a number of somewhat distinct, though until the experiences of a vast number of different
partially overlapping, senses. It always refers to a types of men and women have been accurately re-
system of ideas, but the system is sometimes cons- ported, assembled, and formulated in general terms.
trued to be based on the special interests of some As things stand now only those who can write well
segmental or distributive minority within the socie- enough to have their works published are in a posi-
ty, sometimes upon a supernatural revelation, some- tion to make their experiences available to others.
times upon any nonempirical, nonscientific norm.66 Since writers are not a representative sample of the 35
In general, ideology has today a somewhat pejora- population, it is necessary that records of experience
tive sense which does not attach to value. Ideology be obtained from other classes of people.67
is also distinguished by explicitness, by systemic The assertion that “what is right is what is right for
quality, and by overt emphasis on cognition (though man’s nature” needs a careful reexamination in the
there is clearly also an implication of commitment light of existing anthropological, psychological, and
to these ideas). It might legitimately be argued that sociological evidence. The above listing enumerates
ideologies determine the choice between alternative only a small part of the unfinished business in the
paths of action, which are equally compatible with field of values.
the underlying values.
65 In popular usage with respect to religion, belief is
sometimes “the desirable” in the sense of the super-
naturally commanded or appruved.
66 Lasswell and Kaplan (Power and Society [1950],
p123) have recently given this definition: “The ideo-
logy is the political myth functioning to preserve
the social structure; the utopia, to supplant it.” The
Communist definition of ideology is, “The integra-
ted total of ‘scientifically’ established ideas.” Cf. K.
A. Wittfogel, “How to Checkmate Stalin in Asia,”
Commentary (1950) pp.334341.
Values and Value-Orientations 433
Nothing could be more evident than the fact that
we have dealt with many topics inadequately and
have failed to touch at all upon others. The source
of values and the sources of sanctions for values have
interesting aspects, both historical and functional.
We have not even approached the problems of what
kinds of value systems are correlated with various
levels of technological and social development; of the
compatibility and incompatibility of various values.
How values are learned, accepted, and diffused de-
serves a long monographic study. Murray and Mor-
gan have well said:
Since there is only one acceptable method of testing
the value of anything and that is by experience, there
36
37
38
39
40