Transcript PSY 300-U - Workforce Universe

Psychology of Personal Decision-Making
 Exercise: Defining Values
 Exercise: Personal Value Mining
 Exercise: Rank Ordering
 Values assessment
▪ Terminal vs. Instrumental
▪ Reiss Motivation Profile
 Value Checklists
 Other ways to get at values
 What is a value?
▪ List as many personal values as you can…more coming
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What is important to your family?
What is important to you?
Could anyone make you change these values?
Pretend you have children, you think they’ll have the
same/similar values as you?
 Values for aliens to live well on our planet
 Who in history do you admire who is now dead?
▪ Why?
 Who in your life do you know and admire?
▪ Why?
 Think of very positive events in your life
▪ Why were these so great?
 Think of very negative events in your life
▪ Why were these so bad?
 Think of tv shows/movies where you would love to be
in the actor/actress’ shoes
▪ Why?
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Rokeach (1973)(1) A value is an enduring belief that
a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is
personally or socially preferable to an opposite…mode
of conduct.
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Terminal Values:
 Desired goals (Ends)
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Instrumental Values:
 How to reach the goals (Means)
Terminal Values
1. A comfortable life
2. An exciting life
3. A sense of accomplishment
4. A world at peace
5. A world of beauty
6. Equality
7. Family security
8. Freedom
9. Happiness
10. Inner harmony
11. Mature love
12. National security
13. Pleasure
14. Salvation
15. Self-respect
16. Social recognition
17. True friendship
18. Wisdom
Instrumental Values
1. Ambitious
2. Broadminded
3. Capable
4. Cheerful
5. Clean
6. Courageous
7. Forgiving
8. Helpful
9. Honest
10. Imaginative
11. Independent
12. Intellectual
13. Logical
14. Loving
15. Obedient
16. Polite
17. Responsible
18. Self-controlled
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Reiss’ Motivational Theory
 Multiple basic desires that are motivational traits.
 Basic desires found in multiple species.
 Basic desires reflect genetically distinct motives.
 Satiation of basic desires produces joy.
Reiss, S. (2004). Multifaceted nature of intrinsic motivation: The Theory of the 16 Basic Desires.
Review of General Psychology, 8 179-193.
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Reiss’ Motivational Theory
 Each desire is a continuum.
▪ People generally seek moderate levels of each desire
 Each person has a different set of priorities among the
desires.
 Motivation = discrepancy between desire and recent
experience.
 Desires organize behavior, attention, feelings, etc.
▪ What we attend to
▪ What we ignore
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Reiss & Havercamp (1994; 1998)
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Developed 300 statements reflecting basic desires
 “I would rather lose my life than my honor”
 “I enjoy learning new skills”
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Tested 2,500 people & Found 15 factors
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Added 16th factor (savings) and confirmed with 500
more people
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Basic Psychometrics
 Very good reliability evidence
 Good validity evidence
 Some cross-cultural generalizability evidence
 Lots of questions! Reiss!
▪ Emotional reactions to this?
▪ Previous?
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Honor
Order
Eating
Physical activity
Independence
Power
Idealism
Social contact
Acceptance
Status
Curiosity
Tranquility
Vengeance
Family
Sex
Saving
(desire to obey a traditional moral code)
(desire to organize & add structure)
(desire to eat)
(desire to exercise muscles)
(desire for autonomy, self-sufficiency)
(desire to influence others)
(desire for social justice)
(desire for friendship, belonging)
(desire for approval)
(desire to be/feel important)
(desire for knowledge, new experiences)
(desire for peace/restfulness)
(desire to get even, compete, win)
(desire to raise own children)
(desire for sex, romance, & beauty)
(desire to collect, be frugal)
Reiss, S. (2004). Multifaceted nature of intrinsic motivation: The Theory of the 16 Basic Desires.
Review of General Psychology, 8 179-193.
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Behavior predicted by patterns (profiles) of needs
 Youth Violence
▪ Vengeance (+), Status (+), Loyalty (-), Aversion (-)
 Religion
▪ Independence (-), Social contact (+), Family (+), Honor (+)
 College Athletes
▪ Physical exercise (+), Social contact (+), Family (+), Vengeance (+), Power (+),
Curiosity (-)
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More general “cores” than alternatives
Can open you up to more possibilities
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List of values (modified from Maslow)
Decision values checklist
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Good for force fit
 Cognitive/Aesthetics – Experiencing beauty,
meaning in life
 Social – Being loved and respected
 Safety – Feeling secure
 Physiological – Free from hunger, thirst, pain
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Stakeholders
Positive and Negative consequences
Present and Future consequences
Tangible and Intangible consequences
Community
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Stakeholders
▪ Envision values from their perspective on your decision
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Positive and Negative consequences
 Tend to overlook the negatives, so a good reality
check
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Present and Future consequences
 Tend to overlook the long term, so a nice wakeup
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Tangible and Intangible consequences
▪ How we or others feel about us afterwards?
▪ Mercedes purchase?
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Community Values
 Group membership
 Part of an intelligently run community
 Shared sense of identity
“When we become
what we value, we
value ourselves and
become happier.”
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Are more pleasant to be around
 Feel more in control
 Feel more like they are making contributions
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Rank ordering:
 What alternative you like least/best? What about it?
▪ The “What about it” piece is a value
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Pros and Cons of alternatives:
 For each: What is best feature? Worst?
▪ The “features” are values
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Best and Worst cases for outcomes:
 What do you like? What do you not like?
▪ The differences are values
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Bring goal distance into focus by breaking
goals into smaller attainable pieces
 EXAMPLES: income, knowledge, skills, social
connections
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Means or end?
 Ask yourself: “Why do I want this?”
▪ If you want it for where it gets you  means
▪ If you want it for the sake of it itself  end
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Completeness
Relevancy
Non-redundancy
Testability/Measurability
Meaningfulness
Value Independence
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Ensuring you’re considering all important
values
Commonly overlook:
 Consequences to others
 Negative consequences
 Long term consequences
 The ways we and others think about ourselves
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Coin flip mental test:
 After listing out values and possible alternatives
▪ Would you let a “weighted” coin flip determine your
decision?
▪ If no, find other values to ADD
▪ If yes, you’re good to proceed
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Rule of thumb: 5-7 values required for
completeness
If you’ve already got that many, use the
relevance test to SUBTRACT values:
 See if you can find a substantial difference
between a group of your values and one other
value
 Use +/-/~ rankings to determine
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Are your values objective enough?
 For testability:
▪ Safeguards against irrationality
▪ Clarifies what you mean, “does income mean profit or
revenue?”
▪ Easier to get information from somewhere else
 For Measurability ask yourself: “Can I assign units
of measure to all of my values?”
▪ E.g. – people, dollars, family time %
▪ Quantify! Even the tricky stuff. <EXERCISE HERE>
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Do the numbers you came up with hold
weight for you?
Could you be measuring things in a more
meaningful way?
 $/hour vs. $/month (COMPENSATION)
 % time on the ice vs. number of attempted shots
(GAME INVOLVEMENT)
 # of expressions of emotional support/month vs.
# acts of kindness per week (MATURE LOVE)
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Make sure you aren’t representing a value
more than once in your decision table
“Quality of Life” / “Social Connections” /
“Partying”
“Tangible results” vs. “Contribution to
society”
Construct a value tree
 Stimulates creative thought  Completeness
 Clarifies relationships among values  Non-
redundancy
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When values are independent, we don’t have
to think about them at the same time.
When they aren’t, we do =(
 Quality and duration of a state
▪ Quality of life AND Length of life
▪ Use quality of life as a value, then use duration to assess
importance
 Quality and probability of a state
▪ Job desirability AND Probability of getting the job
▪ Use desirability as value and use probability for importance
 Fairness in social situations
▪ Create a fairness value to think about:
▪ Consequences to yourself
▪ Consequences to others
▪ Differences between self and other consequences
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Gotta get in the right frame of mind
 Think of comparable cases
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Attributes
Measures
Zero Points
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Weigh costs and benefits over time
Duration of impact is really important
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Use scales with real units
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All about reference points
Sorrow and difficulty lower the bar
 Simple things enable us to better appreciate life
 E.g. – losing a limb
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Good fortune/comfort raises the reference point
 Comforts which used to give us pleasure are needed
to remain neutral or avoid pain
 Cost to pleasure and benefit in pain
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Moving up is NOT as important as moving down