Values
Values are at the heart of ethics. A value is a personal belief about the worth of a given idea, attitude, custom, or object that sets standards that influence behaviour. An individual's values reflect cultural and social influences, relationships, and personal needs.
For Example, in Canadian society we value individual freedom, health, fairness, honesty, and integrity. We see evidence of these values in our laws, or country's Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and our individual and collective actions and behaviours.
Value Formation
People acquire values in many ways. Throughout childhood and adolescence, people learn to distinguish right from wrong and to form values on which to base their actions. This is known as moral development.
Family experiences strongly influence value formation. In some families, children are strictly disciplined and expected to conform to the parent's standards of right and wrong. In other families, children receive little discipline or limitations. These variations in child rearing create variations in values and in both children and adult behaviours.
Values are also learned outside the family. People's culture, ethnic, and religious communities strongly influence their values, as do schools, peer groups and work environments. Cultural values are learned within the context of a person's community. Over time, the individuals acquire their values by choosing some values that are strongly held in the community and discarding or transforming others according to what they believe to be true.
Individual experience also influences one's values. For example, a person who suffers much in life may have very different values from someone whose life has been free of suffering.
Values can be divided into four categories:
Personal Values
Personal values are principles that define you as an individual. Personal values, such as honesty, reliability, and trust, determine how you will face the world and relate with people.
Cultural Values
Cultural values, like the practice of your faith and customs, are principles that sustain connections with your cultural roots. They help you feel connected to a larger community of people with similar backgrounds.
Social Values
Social values are principles that indicate how you relate meaningfully to others in social situations, including those involving family, friends, and co-workers.
Work Values
Work values are principles that guide your behaviour in professional contexts. They define how you work and how you relate to your co-workers, supervisors, and clients. They also reveal your potential for advancement.
Values Clarification
Values can be an important way for a person to see the world. They influence how a person interprets confusing or conflicting information. As people mature and experience new situations, their values change. They may reorder their values or replace old values with new ones. To adopt new values, a person must be aware of his or her existing values and how they affect behaviour.
Values clarification is the process of appraising one's personal values. It is not a set of rules, nor does it suggest that certain values should be accepted by all people. Rather, it is a process of personal reflection. People who clarify their values are more likely to make careful choices. The results of values clarification is a greater self-awareness and personal insight.
By understanding their personal values, child care providers can better understand the values of the children, their families and co-workers. "Value conflict" is when personal values are at odds with those of a client, colleague, or institution. Values clarification plays a major role in resolving these dilemmas.
