How do my values color what I see?

So far, I have focused mostly on values as the basis for action – how I decide what to do.  But values are more than that.  They are also the lens through which I see the world, coloring my view.   If justice is an important value to me, when I read news reports, the treatment mistreatment of a juvenile offender by the police will probably be more relevant to me than news of the construction of a new highway.  We could call this detecting meaning because I detect what is important to me (the justice issue) in the news broadcast.

Researchers Laura King and Joshua Hicks (2009) did a series of studies in which they investigated meaning detection and another process that they called constructing meaning.  Constructing meaning happens when I try to see the world in my normal way and it doesn’t work so I construct a new way of seeing it.  In other words, if my regular lenses don’t make things clear, I get new glasses.  King and Hicks looked at meaning detection and construction in major positive and negative events.  In one study, they found that people only constructed meaning (new glasses) when major events were negative; if they were positive they detected meaning (regular glasses).  In another study, some participants were asked to write about their most important positive experience and others about their most important negative experience.  Then they were asked it the experience “fit” with their view of the world or if they “struggled” to make sense of it.  All participants were also asked if the event was very meaningful to them. The researchers found that detected meaning was particularly associated with the meaningfulness of positive events and constructed meaning was associated the meaningfulness of negative events. So if a good thing happens to me, I can use my regular glasses to see it.  And if it is a big thing, that will feel meaningful.  If I value fairness and I get a big promotion, it will tend to fit with my sense that the world is fair and I will find it important.  But if I get fired and my value is fairness, I may struggle to make sense of it, finding it unfair.   Perhaps I will only be able to find the meaning it when I get new glasses. 

As we work to articulate and live according to our values, negative experiences are an opportunity to try on a new way of seeing things.  In a recent study conducted in our own research group (Fitzpatrick et al., 2016), we offered a workshop on values clarification and congruence to a group of university employees and interviewed them about their experiences after it was over.   All of the participants indicated that they signed up for the workshop in the context of a challenging issue they were struggling with in their lives.  We had not thought of it that way, but I guess we were helping fit them with new glasses.

References

Fitzpatrick, M., Henson, A., Grumet, R., Poolokasingham, G., Foa, C., Comeau, T., & Predergast, C.  (2016). Challenge, focus, inspiration and support: Processes of values clarification and congruence. Journal of Contextual and Behavioral Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2016.02.001  

King, L. A., & Hicks, J. A. (2009). Detecting and constructing meaning in life events. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(5), 317-330. doi:10.1080/17439760902992316