If values are just one more thing to worry about, who needs it!

I worry quite a lot but I only about things that are important to me.  The more I pay attention to something and make it important, the more I worry about it.  So if I make my values important (exactly what I am writing this blog to help you to do) won’t that make me even more worried?  Who needs it! 

Some things are important but don’t worry me.  For example, I want to stay healthy so I go to the gym.  But I don’t worry about it - I just go. That's because my ability to go to the gym is not threatened.  So it seems to be a combination of finding something important and not being able to do anything that will worry me.

Researchers Schwartz, Sagiv, and Boehnke (2000) studied how different kinds of worries relate to different values and which values are more worrisome.  Just like me, they reasoned that worries would increase when we pay more attention to values-related goals and when we perceive that those goals are threatened.  They grouped worries into two categories.  Worries about me and things or people that are close to me they called “micro” worries.  Worries about society and the world (those self-transcendent values again!) were named “macro” worries.  As you would expect, giving priority to self-transcendent values like universalism or benevolence was related to higher macro and lower micro-worries.  Prioritizing values that are close to me (power, pleasure and to a lesser extent achievement) was related to higher micro and lower macro-worries.  In other words, what is important is to me will be what I worry about – not surprising.  A more surprising finding was that values predicted almost twice much as variance in macro worries as in micro worries.  Why should having values related to the broader world be almost twice as worrisome as valuing things that are close to me?  This may be because I have less direct experience and less ability to assess threat in the bigger world.  If I feel threatened at the office, there are things I can do.  If I feel threatened by ISIS there is not much I can do. 

I find this troublesome (I told you I was a worrier!).  I would not like to be saying to you that you should not care about the world because it will worry you.  And yet that is what this research might suggest. Rather I hope that what this finding should inspire more focused efforts to help people who care about the world deal with uncertainties.  I think we need to care for the people who want to care about the world.  Psychology needs to offer ways to help them be true to their values and still be well.  I want to be part of that effort.  So I am going to try to find topics for the coming days that address being well as we pursue values. 

Reference

Schwartz, S. H., Sagiv, L., & Boehnke, K. (2000). Worries and values. Journal of Personality, 68(2), 309-346. doi:10.1111/1467-6494.00099