Tag: Values

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08. Values

Values

Values are beliefs about what is important to us individually, or to society as a whole. That is, what we believe to be “good” or “bad”. When values are shared by a group of people, they form a part of that group’s culture. They play a significant part in motivating our behaviour. Each comes with a set of norms, i.e., what we believe to be good or bad behaviour. Values are also information, and so, they can be true to reality or erroneous. If the latter, they may not be good for us individually or for society.

We are not born with values. Rather, we merely have an innate drive to satisfy our personal needs as efficiently and effectively as we can. For example, a young child will cry in distress when it is hungry, thirsty, or experiences any other form of discomfort. Freud referred to this aspect of our personality as the “Id”, and it remains at the core of our being throughout our lives.

Humans have an unusually long childhood compared with other animals of similar body mass. This is thought to be related to the number of neurons in our brains, and thus, the time it takes to become mentally capable of independence. Our long childhood creates a significant overlap with older generations. Throughout it, most learn that we must often co-operate with others to satisfy our needs. Values that enable us to co-operate in this way are passed on to us by our parents and other adults with whom we interact. However, depending on the nature of our upbringing, we may either internalise such values or not. That is, make them an integral part of our psyche. If they are internalised, they tend to remain with us throughout our lives and act as our conscience, which Freud referred to as the “super-ego”.

However, there are some who do not internalise such values. This may be due to random mutations in the variable genome that make it difficult to do so. Alternatively, it may be that early mutations making internalisation possible have not been inherited. However, another very significant factor is childhood upbringing. Parents may not have passed on such values, or may even have passed on contradictory ones such as “looking after number one” or “the end justifies the means”. Unsurprisingly, therefore, such children grow up with little more than an inherited self-interest. In extreme cases, this can take the form of psychopathy, narcissism, or dark empathy, and will be discussed in future articles.

According to Freud, another aspect of our personality, the “ego”, uses reason to balance the demands of the id and super-ego, thereby optimising our behaviour in our best interests. It enables a balance to be struck between the two extremes of immediate self-interest and our longer-term interest gained through co-operation with others.

We are attracted to groups that we feel will enable us to satisfy our needs. These needs are not only our normal ones of survival and existence, relatedness to others, and personal growth and development. Unfortunately, it can also include anti-social needs such as the need for dominance, greed, sex, etc.

Values vary from group to group. To be accepted as a member of a group, we must accept its values. However, this can lead to internal conflicts. Our internalised values or lack of them may not match those of the group. Thus, to gain the benefits of group membership, we have learnt to put on a mask. That is to overtly display values that we do not necessarily hold. This may be an inherited trait that is more dominant in some than in others. So, for example, if one wishes to join a group to gain power and dominance, then one will at first disguise this motivation and express group values in order to gain followers. However, Carl Rogers believed that the internal stress of the mask can ultimately lead to mental ill health. Certainly, it is difficult to sustain in the longer term. So, if someone seeking power has held a mask in order to gain it, then they will drop it as soon as they have sufficient power to coerce their followers. I am sure that you can think of examples from present day politics.

This ability to wear a mask and present a false impression of our values and beliefs is, of course, the foundation of our ability to lie and provide misinformation. In turn, such misinformation and the variety of values are the reason why society is so complex and difficult to predict. This will be discussed further in the next article.

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06. Emotions and Decision Making

Emotions and Decision Making

For the following discussion, I will define a “positive situation” as one in which a need is addressed by a latent, precarious, or entrenched satisfier, and contra-satisfiers are absent. A “negative situation”, on the other hand, is one in which a need is not addressed by a satisfier or there is a latent, precarious, or entrenched contra-satisfier.

If a need is important to us, then negative situations cause negative feelings, for example, dis-satisfaction, frustration, anxiety, and fear. Conversely, positive situations cause positive emotions, for example, satisfaction, pleasure, and exhilaration. However, the latter are only felt when positive situations are first attained, and they last for a limited time. To motivate our behaviour, we must have satisfiers to seek and contra-satisfiers to avoid. Without these we would be inactive. The short duration of positive emotions ensures, therefore, that we attend to other needs once more pressing ones have been satisfied and secured. We can, therefore, only feel fully satisfied for a relatively short time.

Positive emotions do however reinforce our desire to behave or act in a way that generates that emotion. Conversely, negative emotions make us less likely to do so.

Knowledge has a part to play in our emotional state. What we perceive to be positive or negative situations are based on unconscious attitudes and beliefs. Many of these attitudes and beliefs are gained from our society, peers, advertising, etc., and we may not be consciously aware of them.

The feedback loop which causes us to be conscious has a part to play in our decisions and behaviour. For example, our unconscious mind may conclude that saying something potentially hurtful to another person will satisfy our needs. If so, then before acting we may consciously attempt to predict that person’s reaction via empathy or our knowledge of them. This may have an emotional effect on us which might cause us to reject or modify our unconscious mind’s conclusion.

What we perceive as satisfiers or contra-satisfiers, and thus, what we perceive as positive or negative situations, has a bearing on our level of stress. Stress has an emotional component, which can be positive or negative, and a biological component. The emotional component is negative when we experience feelings of frustration, anxiety, or fear, in a negative situation. It is positive when, for example, we experience exhilaration on first acquiring a satisfier. The biological component of stress is arousal, or a heightening of the physical ability to seize opportunities and avoid threats. It will occur when a situation is significant.

What we perceive as satisfiers and contra-satisfiers, and the value that we place on them, are important in valuing social institutions. Satisfiers and contra-satisfiers have a value to the individual, and the value that society places on its institutions is the aggregate of the value that each individual places on them. For example, the UK’s National Health Service has a very high social value because it is a satisfier of the existence and procreation needs of so many. This will be explored further when I discuss politics.

The value that we place on satisfiers and contra-satisfiers also has a bearing on what we hold to be good or bad, our morals, and ethics. For example, the aggregate impact of our behaviour on others, in terms of the satisfiers and contra-satisfiers that it invokes, forms the basis of utilitarianism. This will be explored further when I discuss ethics.

In the next article, I will describe how place a value on satisfiers and contra-satisfiers and in the following article how we use this to make our decisions.

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04. The Acquisition of Knowledge

The Acquisition of Knowledge

The French philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592) remarked on our inability to find a satisfactory criterion for knowledge. I will, therefore, define it as information held in peoples’ minds, which may be considered true or false, and which includes our beliefs and attitudes. “Knowledge”, “beliefs” and “attitudes” are essentially different words used to describe mental information in different contexts. This information, in combination with our reasoning processes and our needs, determines our behaviour.

Nurture

The knowledge of an individual is acquired in two main ways: from observation of the world around us and by receipt from others. All children are born with inherited predispositions but no knowledge. If a child had to work out for itself how to survive in its environment, then it would frequently make mistakes and might come to an unhappy end. Parents and other members of a child’s community will therefore provide an initial education which gives the child a working understanding of its environment.

Our early schemata are established in this way. However, as explained in the previous blog, information provided by others may have been distorted by their “effort after meaning”, contain errors of reasoning, and may even be lies. We accept as true any information which does not contradict our existing schemata. Failing that, we would acquire no new knowledge. Much of the information that young children receive from others falls into that category. Once established, the early schemata of the child will be resistant to change. As Aristotle famously said, “Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man”. Change can occur, however, if sufficient contradictions accumulate. Thus, our schemata alter in fits and starts. There is a period of rapid change followed by a period of quiescence in which the schema is resistant to change. In cases involving a significant change of worldview, this can be accompanied by an emotional crisis similar to grief at the loss of a loved one. Such crises can last for several years while the young adult goes through the stages of denial/isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally, acceptance. The importance of providing children with reliable knowledge cannot be understated, therefore.

Socialisation and Social Learning

Social rules are necessary if society is to co-operate successfully for the benefit of its members. If we follow them then we will function successfully in our society, contribute to its success and, thus, prosper personally. Again, it is difficult for the child to work out these social rules for itself and, thus, parents and other teachers will provide an initial working education based on the culture of the society, i.e., its norms, values, beliefs and symbols.

Socialisation is the process whereby others reward us for compliance with their culture and punish us for non-compliance.

During the 1950s psychologists developed the theory that we now know as Social Learning Theory. In summary, this theory states that some beliefs and strategies are formed in the following way:

  1. Identification with role models. Role models are usually parents, teachers, peers or people like oneself, and people seen as having advantages such as popularity, wealth, or fame.
  2. This identification leads to imitation behaviour and/or learning through observation. In the latter, behaviours may not necessarily be imitated immediately but may simply be remembered as strategies which can be used in later life. Seeing that a strategy adopted by another person successfully satisfies their needs will provide what is known as vicarious reinforcement and will condition a strategy even when it is not being performed by the person learning it. For example, if a colleague at the office always works through their lunch break and ultimately receives a promotion, then you may unconsciously adopt the same strategy in your next job.
  3. Imitation behaviour is either positively or negatively reinforced by other members of society depending on their beliefs about what is acceptable or unacceptable. These beliefs about social behaviour are referred to as norms. It may, for example, be the norm in your office to work through the lunch break. Through conditioning, norms become internalised or accepted as one’s own, and can be held unconsciously. Thus, the strategies underlying behaviour become conditioned or extinguished through social reinforcement. Highly conditioned beliefs about social behaviour form the conscience, a set of beliefs governing behaviour which cause psychological distress when our behaviour is contrary to them. For example, a socialised person will feel guilty if he steals.

In my next post, I will return to schemata, paradigms, and memes and describe the features that they have in common.