Journal 2 – Values… Values… What are they?

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, values are the basic notion of what is right or wrong and are fairly stable over time. Also it is a principle, standard, quality, considered to be desirable.

This marks my 2^nd blog for our graduate school requirement under Business Ethics. I must say that writing (blogging) is not my forte as compared to verbal communication in which I have various professional trainings and seminars before. Over the weekend, I just realized that this is the reason why I enrolled in graduate studies. It’s difficult but it is a necessary thing to breakout from the norm to enhance and develop skills which I am weak or I do not currently possess.

In our last class, our professor discussed “Values” and had us do a group exercise with regards to Rokeach Value Survey (RVS). This is for us to know what our values are and where are we similar and different from the rest in our group and in the class. Just to give a little background as to what the RVS is, according to Wikipedia it is a classification system of values developed by social psychologist Milton Rokeach. It has two sets of values called terminal values and instrumental values. Each is composed of 18 individual value items.

Terminal values are the goals that we work towards and view as most desirable. These values are desirable states of existence. They are the goals that we would like to achieve during our lifetime. Shown below is the list of 18 terminal values developed by Rokeach.

Terminal Values

A comfortable life (a Prosperous life)	Inner harmony (freedom from inner conflict)
An exciting life (a stimulating active life)	Mature love (sexual and spiritual intimacy)
A sense of accomplishment (lasting contribution)	National security (protection from attack)
A world at peace (free of war and conflict)	Pleasure (an enjoyable, leisurely life)
A world of beauty (beauty of nature and the arts)	Salvation (saved, eternal life)
Equality (brotherhood and equality opportunity for all)	Self-respect (self-esteem)
Family security (taking care of love ones)	Social recognition (respect and admiration)
Freedom (independence, free of choice)	True friendship (close companionship)
Happiness (contendness)	Wisdom (a mature understanding life)

Instrumental values are the preferred methods of behaviour. These values are not an end goal, but rather provide the means by which an end goal is accomplished. Character traits and personal characteristics, such as being imaginative and independent, make up most of the instrumental values. Shown below is the list of 18 instrumental values developed by Rokeach.

Instrumental values

Ambitious (hardworking, aspiring)	Imaginative (daring and creative)
Broad-minded (open-minded)	Independent (self-reliant, self-sufficient)
Capable (competent, effective)	Intellectual (intelligent, reflective)
Cheerful (light-hearted, joyful)	Logical (consistent, rational)
Clean (neat, tidy)	Loving (affectionate, tender)
Courageous (standing up for your beliefs)	Obedient (dutiful, respectful)
Forgiving (willing to pardon others)	Polite (courteous, well-mannered)
Helpful (working for the welfare of others)	Responsible (dependable, reliable)
Honest (sincere, truthful)	Self-controlled (restrained, self-disciplined)

Our task is to arrange the 18 values in each set according to our preference. It is really surprising that for terminal values we rank “a comfortable life” and “Family security” as the highest. During the discussion, we came to realize the reason that we do so is because it is a common Filipino/Asian trait to be concerned for the family’s well-being. Also, since we are mostly with the same age bracket and amount of working experience, we are all the same on striving to have a comfortable life in the future.

On the other hand, for instrumental values, we all rank being “ambitious” as our number one. This is because we could have spent the time being in this class on other things like having leisurely time with our family and friends, however, we chose to put in the effort and sacrifice to attain a graduate degree which we can use to leverage ourselves from the competition.

The most surprising realization for me in this activity is that among the three of us, both of us who are the firstborn in the family did not rank salvation in our top five. This is in spite of us being educated from Christian institutions throughout our primary to tertiary education. In this regard, I came to really understand that our values are not only affected by our culture, religion, race but also our personal life experiences. Should I have done this survey before when my father was still alive, I would have ranked “salvation” as my top most, however, since I am so focused on looking out for my mother and four siblings I did not really noticed that “salvation” is in the list not until I have already chosen nine other values.   

Understanding further the result of the survey, I found out that I am ambitious to have a prosperous life and to secure my family’s future. This made me realize that I have to give myself some slack and not to be too hard on myself. Most importantly, in pursuit of my goals and objectives, I needed to re-emphasize God in all things that I do. This is to have more meaning in my life as it may seem that even though I am Christian, lately I’ve been paying more emphasis to personal goals over spiritual goals.