Global Socio- Cultural Values - Interesting studies

Over the past week, I came across a couple of interesting sites with studies on how social values vary across different cultures and nations. These studies provide a good conceptual framework for understanding the clash of values/ viewpoints; and have helped me understand to a degree the underlying motivation and 'why' of my past posts on this blog (why the outsider's view may be so different). Going forward, I intend to apply some of the learnings from these frameworks and surveys in future posts, but this post aims only to provide the background and list relevant sources.

According to American Environics, social values are:
"
- A person's mental posture or fundamental world view. Shapes definition of "self- interest."
- Formed early in life, usually fixed by one's mid-teens.
- Evolved slowly over time through education and life experiences.
- Major events - wars, depressions, etc - can trigger society- wide values shift.
- NOT fads.
- NOT "moral values" or "core values."
"

And here is a sample socio-cultural map:



(Source URL: http://www.americanenvironics.com/cgi-bin/slides.cgi?slide=13)

Much more detailed work on global values has been done by (World Values Survey), which claims, or at least, aims to be the "world's most comprehensive survey of political and sociocultural change."

The surveys were "designed to provide a comprehensive measurement of all major areas of human concern, from religion to politics to economic and social life and two dimensions dominate the picture: (1) Traditional/ Secular-rational and (2) Survival/Self-expression values. These two dimensions explain more than 70 percent of the cross-national variance in a factor analysis of ten indicators-and each of these dimensions is strongly correlated with scores of other important orientations."

The Traditional/Secular-rational values dimension reflects the contrast between societies. 'Traditional' values, as can be guessed, emphasise religion, deference to authority, family values, national pride and nationalistic outlook; and reject divorce, abortion, euthanasia, and suicide.

The second major dimension reflects the "transition from industrial society to post-industrial societies-which brings a polarization between Survival and Self-expression values". The 'Self- Expression' value cluster emphasises "subjective well-being, self-expression and quality of life" along with environmental protection, tolerance of diversity (including foreigners, gays and lesbians, gender equality), and interpersonal trust.

The above-mentioned findings and correlations are visualized on the following Inglehart-Welzel cultural map of the World.



(Source URL: http://margaux.grandvinum.se/SebTest/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_54)

Let us see in later posts as to what extent we agree or disagree with the above values map and where our individual values lie.



Some related documents:
- American Environics' Evolution of Global Values (pdf)
- World Values Survey's presentation on changes in cultural values between 1981 and 2006: Human Development View on Value Change (zipped powerpoint)