Values guide our lives.

Companies are increasingly guided by values. Therefore, it is important that the new employee's values ​​also fit into the company culture and the team. But only in recent years there are ways to measure this more scientifically. The research area is difficult and the line between attitudes and other motivational factors is difficult to draw.

Our values ​​determine what we think is important in life, what is "right" and "wrong", "good" or "bad". Although they can be both contradictory and unconscious, values ​​are fundamentally about being a kind of emotional inner conviction that makes us recognize ourselves and thrive - or not.

It is often only when they come into conflict with other values ​​that we become aware of them. Otherwise, we take them for granted and we naturally think that others think the same as us. Genuinely creative people, for example, have no problem with unexpected events at work. They seek independence and freedom but instead react negatively to rules and routines that must be followed. The opposite is also true, some of us with more traditional values ​​want to be able to plan and know roughly what the work week will look like. Similarly, status-motivated people are driven by extrinsic rewards, such as an expensive company car, and earning a lot of money. Others are more focused on helping others and money for its own sake is not an important driving force.

Values ​​motivate us to act and make us strive for certain goals. They are independent of where we are. It doesn't matter if we are at work or spending time with family. Values ​​are inherently hierarchical. We rank them according to how important we think they are. One of those who best tried to create order around the concept is Professor Shalom Schwartz. He defines several basic and universal values. These are independent of culture, religion or where you live

According to Schwartz, all people have, to varying degrees, the following overarching values:

• Openness to change. One seeks freedom, independence, excitement and new challenges in life.

• Enjoyers who seek status, personal success and external rewards. You like to dominate others and have a hierarchical view of the world.

• Conservative and traditional values where security, stability and predictability are sought in life.

• Benevolence and kindness. You are tolerant and strive to help and support different groups of people, you want to improve the world.

Each overall assessment can then be broken down into subgroups. Professor Schwartz believes that values ​​are a way for society or the group to both motivate and control the individual. In part, they serve as a guide when the person must make different decisions about whether they fit in, for example in a company culture. They also help describe socially accepted behaviors for the group.

In Sweden, Professor Bo Ekehammar and his team have also shown that certain values influence how prejudiced we humans are. In English, the theory is called” Social Dominance Orientation”, which has strong links to prejudice.

Prejudiced people tend to see people from a hierarchical perspective. They see their fellow human beings as superior or inferior.

Professor Ekehammar is one of the founders of Psykometrika.  By combining different personality and value factors, together with Professor Jim Sidanius at Harvard University, he has developed a separate test that provides a good forecast for whether people - or organizations - are prejudiced or not. For companies and organizations that work with valuation issues and equality, this should be extremely valuable.

Sources:

Shalom H. Schwartz et.al. (2012). Refining the theory of basic individual values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Vol 103(4), Oct 2012, 663–688.

Akrami, N., Ekehammar, B. (2006). "Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation". Journal of Individual Differences. 27 (3): 117–126.

Ekehammar, B., et.al. (2004). "What matters most to prejudice: Big Five personality, Social Dominance Orientation, or Right-Wing Authoritarianism?". European Journal of Personality. 18 (6): 463–482.

Ekehammar, B. & Akrami, N. (2003). The relation between personality and prejudice. European Journal of Personality, 17, 449-464.