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

I value protecting the environment. How can I motivate myself to take more pro-environmental action?

This question is personal for me.  I hear all the news about global warming and it seems important.  Sure I recycle.  And I recently helped to vote out a government that seemed positively anti-environment and vote in a government I hope will do more.  But I still drive my car to work.  I think I should do more but the sense that the problem is big and I am small tends to stifle action.  Do I need a different kind of motivation?

To get people to adopt pro-environmental behaviour, it seems smart to show them how it is in their own interest.  For example, the US Environmental Protection Agency often mentions the financial savings associated with the actions it recommends http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/.  But does this work?  Laurel Evans and her colleagues (2012) did two experiments to find out what kinds of messages caused people to increase values-related behaviours.  Some people have values that make them to want to help others (self-transcendent) and others have values that are more self-interested (see the February xx post for more information).  The researchers gave people who were in the self-transcendent group environmental information about car-sharing, people who were in the self-interested group got financial information about car-sharing, and neutral information about transportation was given to a control group.  Then they measured their recycling behaviours. They found that only the self-transcendent group recycled more than the neutral or control group.  In a second experiment, participants in the self-transcendent and the self-interested groups were given both the environmental and the financial reasons to car-share. Again, that only those in the self-transcendent group recycled more than the neutral group, although the self-interested group did increase their recycling a little. Finally they put pooled all the data together and found that the effects of self-transcending reasons were consistently strong whereas the effects of the other reasons were minimal.  In other words, only self-transcending reasons for car-sharing spilled over into recycling actions.

So what is the practical implication of this research?  The results suggest that focusing on self-transcendent rationales for engaging in pro-environmental behaviours is the potent strategy.  If I am environmentally motivated, giving me financial reasons will not work.  If I want to help myself act more in line with my environmental values, I need to expose myself to things that will remind me of what I care about.  I need to start a car-pool with a like-minded person, join organizations or turn out for activities in support of the environment, read websites or books about environmental issues, or talk to people who support environmental causes.  Exposure to things that are in-line with my values will be what helps me to take more action