This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (A key feature of groups promoting social change is a claim about what is, or should be, of primary importance to us as people attempting to live well. Social justice movements place the wellbeing and empowerment of all people at centre stage; and environmentalism is a claim that the biosphere is of critical importance. These are essentially claims about values. While human wellbeing and ecological flourishing may seem like the obvious foundation for the good society; many activists, faith leaders and scholars have argued that our current social systems (which are often described as “neo-liberal” or “market-driven”) give primacy to money, materialism and individual achievement (e.g., Davis, 2012; Eisenstein, 2011; Fisher, 2002; Monbiot, 2013; Moore & Nelson, 2013; Pope Francis, 2015). Hence, social movements can be seen as attempts to bring us back to what matters most (see Castells, 2015; Klein, 2014).
While critiques are important in helping describe the sense many of us have that contemporary Western societies are “missing the point”, they run the risk of making advocates for change feel they are unusual in valuing people and the planet more than materialism and status. They can inadvertently become, to use the concept coined by the community psychologist, Julian Rappaport (2000),“tales of terror”; that is, narratives that imply the status-quo is inevitable because, in this case, other people are self-serving and do not care about the common good. Given the importance of hope to maintaining collective action (see Christens, Collura, & Tahir, 2013; Lala et al., 2014; Pettit, 2004; Starhawk, 2002; Taylor, 2007; Zimmerman, 1990), such tales may have debilitating consequences.
In this article we discuss an activity designed to promote an alternative tale, a “tale of joy” (Rappaport, 2000) that suggests other people do care about the common good. In the first instance (Study 1) we developed an exercise for drawing out people’s deepest values, conducted this exercise with thirty groups of people in mostly (but not exclusively) “left-leaning” settings, and also developed a method for displaying these values so that they could be easily conveyed to others. Next (Study 2), we investigated how four further groups of people responded when seeing the display of values constructed from Study 1. We conclude this article by discussing why sharing values is crucial to social transformation, especially in the current era. First we outline the theoretical rationale for our research before describing the values exercise and research studies in more detail.
What Are Values?
While definitions of values differ, for our purposes, values can be described as people’s subjective judgements about “what matters”. Strictly speaking therefore, we are interested in what people consider “of value”, not values in the sense of guiding personal principles. Importantly, we do not assume that people only value that which they consider to directly benefit themselves, people close to them, or groups they identify with. Instead we assume that people are capable of assigning value to entities simply for the sake of the entity itself. For example, people may value an endangered species they have never seen; or a concept such as “justice”, even when they do not feel they have been, or are likely to be, direct recipients of injustice.
Our assumption that people can assign value to entities for their own sake is aligned with the philosophical notion of that which is of “intrinsic” value. While there is debate within philosophy over exactly what it means for something to be intrinsically valuable, such things are generally considered of value for their own sake and to carry moral worth, that is they should be protected (see Agar, 2001; Korsgaard, 1983; O’Neill, 1992). In this sense, things of intrinsic value are top of the values hierarchy. They are “terminal values” or “ultimate end-goals” (Rokeach & Ball-Rokeach, 1989, p. 776). Intrinsically valuable entities are contrasted with instrumentally valuable entities that derive their value from elsewhere. So an individual person may be considered intrinsically valuable in this sense, but an aspirin only of instrumental value. The person has moral worth, the aspirin’s worth is derived from its capacity to reduce physical pain.
Psychology has also taken up the notion of intrinsic values and contrasted these with extrinsic values (or "goals" see Grouzet et al., 2005; Kasser & Ryan, 1996). Much of this work is based on Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2002). From a Self-Determination Theory perspective, intrinsic values/goals are assumed to come from what people need to flourish, this being relatedness, autonomy and competence (Kasser, 2002; Ryan & Deci, 2002). Personal growth, self-acceptance, relationships, helpfulness and community feeling are examples of intrinsic values (Kasser & Ryan, 1996). Extrinsic values/goals on the other hand, focus on obtaining a social reward or praise (Grouzet et al., 2005; Kasser & Ryan, 1996). As described by Grouzet et al. (2005) goals linked to extrinsic values, which include financial success, image and popularity, are “typically a means to some other end or compensate for problems in need satisfaction, they are less likely to be inherently satisfying” (p. 801). In other words intrinsic values/goals are consistent with our fundamental nature as people and directly improve our wellbeing whereas extrinsic values/goals are attempts to gain wellbeing by an indirect means.
Studies with a variety of populations have found support for the intrinsic/extrinsic division (Grouzet et al., 2005; Hirschi, 2010; Kasser & Ryan, 1996; Twenge, Campbell, Hoffman, & Lance, 2010; Weinstein, Przybylski, & Ryan, 2009). Studies have also shown that an emphasis on intrinsic values/goals is associated with increased personal wellbeing and an emphasis on extrinsic values/goals is associated with decreased personal wellbeing (Brown & Kasser, 2005; Kasser, 2011b; Kasser & Ryan, 1996).
Furthermore, a similar relationship with wellbeing and pro-social orientation has been found at the collective level. For example, a national emphasis on “self-enhancement” values (which are akin to extrinsic values) has been linked to children’s ill-being and greater carbon emissions (Kasser, 2011a); and a relative emphasis on intrinsic versus extrinsic values associated with both ecologically responsible behaviour (Brown & Kasser, 2005; Sheldon & McGregor, 2000) and a preference for environmental protection over economic growth (Ku & Zaroff, 2014).
Our project drew on both the philosophical and psychological perspectives of intrinsic and instrumental/extrinsic values we have outlined. We call the former “infinite” values and the latter “finite” values. (See the method section for further discussion of the rationale for this terminology.) In relation to infinite values, the core of our definition is that which people feel to be of value “for its own sake”. The use of “feel” is deliberate: that which is of infinite value is that which people are deeply or intuitively attracted to when given an open-ended prompt. As noted previously, we assume that people are capable of valuing things for their own sake that do not benefit them directly. Nevertheless, we suggest that people will be particularly attracted to that which indicates and facilitates human thriving, as this is what they will have the most experience with and thus “feel” the most readily (people who work closely with plants or animals or who live in, or regularly visit, natural settings may be exceptions).
Notably, while theoretically that which people value for its own sake and that which people value because it promotes their own thriving are potentially different, in practice they may be almost synonymous. That is because of the relationship between personal, collective and ecological thriving (see Prilleltensky, 2012; Riemer & Harré, 2016). Generally speaking, people do not thrive when maximising “self-interest” and most people will have learnt this; despite neo-liberal, free market rhetoric to the contrary. They thrive instead when they are in relationship (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Brown & Kasser, 2005; Harré, Tepavac, & Bullen, 2009; Kasser, 2011b; Kasser & Ryan, 1996; Sheldon, 2004). In other words, people’s attraction towards, and desire to protect, that which is outside them is held in place by a certain “rightness” they are likely to feel when acting on this outward orientation.
Our definition of finite values is that which people recognise as valuable because of what it signifies or enables within their social context. This definition allows for that which facilitates infinite values (i.e., instrumental values), but also that which substitutes for these values (i.e., extrinsic values as used by Self-Determination Theory). Our first research question therefore was: “What do our participants name as of infinite value and of finite value?”
Why Is it Important to Establish a Shared Reality in Relation to Values?
The overall purpose of our project was not to simply elicit values, but to provide an experience through which people (and in particular advocates for social change) are shown that their valuing of collective human and ecological flourishing is widely shared. As noted previously, we wanted to offer a tale of joy which challenged the currently prevalent assumption that self-interest is our essential nature.
Several lines of research suggest that, in order to act for the common good, it is crucial that people not only value collective wellbeing, but also believe others’ value it too. For example, research from evolutionary psychology suggests that most people are “conditional co-operators” (De Cremer & Stouten, 2003; Emonds, Declerck, Boone, Seurinck, & Achten, 2014; Fischbacher, Gachter, & Fehr, 2001; Van Lange, 2000). This means they will initially act for the good of all parties when presented with a social dilemma, but if this is not reciprocated will then act in their immediate self-interest. Other research has found that people who believe (or are primed to believe) that others endorse values consistent with the common good are more likely to vote in a general election (Common Cause Foundation, 2016) and favour pro-environmental policies (Sheldon, Nichols, & Kasser, 2011). People are also inclined to trust public institutions (Sponarski, Vaske, Bath, & Musiani, 2014) and nations (Garcia-Retamero, Müller, & Rousseau, 2012) that they consider share their values. These studies suggest that participants need to trust that others are not just “out for themselves” in order to consider participation in the public realm meaningful.
So our second research question was: “What thoughts and feelings do people experience when they sense their infinite values are shared?” From there we consider if these thoughts and feelings are consistent with action for the common good.
Research Context and Approach
We are located at The University of Auckland in New Zealand. The research discussed here is based on an exercise embedded within an Infinite Game workshop developed by the first author (see Harré, in press; Harré & Madden, in press).The workshop takes a game-like approach and involves an exploration of life as an “infinite game” with “finite games” embedded within it (or, potentially, outside it). These metaphors are based on a seminal work by the philosopher James Carse (1986) and a more recent book by the first author of this article (Harré, in press). The portion of the workshop that is of interest here is when participants are asked to generate “infinite” and “finite” values, as will be described in more detail below. The first author ran over ninety Infinite Game workshops from 2012 – 2017. In most cases these were in response to an invitation to deliver a talk or workshop in a community or educational setting. While the workshops have involved teenagers and adults and been conducted in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the UK, Germany and The Netherlands, only a portion of workshops run with New Zealand adults were part of the research project and are reported here. The project was approved by The University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee.
The workshops differed in size and duration. This resulted in variations in the amount of data collected from individuals and workshops. It is important to note that this variation was due to conducting research in a real-world context in which we considered it crucial to provide a direct benefit to the participants, and to work within the logistical constraints of each setting. This is, in itself a values-based position, in which the practice of research is as important as its scholarly contribution (Dalton & Wolfe, 2012; Nelson, Poland, Murray, & Maticka-Tyndale, 2004; Reason & Bradbury, 2006). The workshop format was fine-tuned over time in order to improve participants’ experience.
We did not follow a pre-set formula in the analysis of the data, but instead developed processes that seemed the most appropriate given the nature of the data and our research questions (see Chamberlain, 2000). This included drawing on an exercise conducted in some workshops in which participants were invited to reflect on the values they generated, and using our own understanding of the cultural context as will be elaborated further.
Study 1
Method
This study drew on a pair of exercises that asked participants to generate things of “infinite” and then “finite” value. The exercise on infinite values always came before the one on finite values, although the location of the exercises varied slightly between workshops depending on numbers, the time available and the version in play. As can be seen on Table 1, the exercise on finite values was only added after the first four workshops and one later group also only provided infinite values due to time constraints.
The two exercises had the same structure. They each began with a definition of the value type in question. These definitions were identical in all workshops. Things of infinite value were defined as: “Sacred, precious, special. Of value for its own sake. That which makes the world truly alive. In any dimension, an emotion, relationship, part of the natural world, a quality or an object.” This definition was designed to encourage people to consider, as deeply and freely as possible, what they consider to be of value for its own sake. The words “sacred”, “precious”, or “special”, as well as the notion that these make “the world truly alive” were deliberately emotive in order to encourage people to “feel” their response. We also wanted people to know that other people had similarly “felt” their response. This was crucial, as for people to trust that others share their reality they must trust the process by which the shared reality was generated; and such trust is more likely if they feel others are revealing their inner state (see Echterhoff, Higgins, & Levine, 2009). We also did not want to restrain people to physical entities in their response, hence the invitation that these values could be in any dimension.
Things of finite value were defined as: “Of value because of what it signifies or enables. Of value because a group of people deem it so. In any dimension, an emotion, relationship, part of the natural world, a quality or an object.” This definition was designed to capture both the notion of instrumental values in the philosophical sense, and extrinsic values in the psychological sense. The line between these is necessarily blurred; as what is of instrumental value, because it is “useful”; can also readily become a marker of social status and hence of extrinsic value. It was clear that people found this concept less intuitive than the notion of infinite values, so when necessary they were also told that these “did not necessarily need to be what they personally valued, but what they sensed was valued in the society around them”.
After being given the relevant definition, participants were asked to generate examples of the value in question. In most workshops, they were asked to contribute three examples; variations are noted on Table 1. Participants were asked to come up with their responses alone, although they were given the opportunity to privately ask me (the first author) questions.
In workshops that were conducted in a circle (these were generally under 30 participants and at least 45 minutes in duration), participants were asked to write each value on a separate “card”, which was a piece of coloured paper, about 10cm x 10cm. Once everyone had finished writing they then stood up in turn, read out what was written on their cards and, in the infinite value exercise, placed them on a cloth in the middle of the circle. In the finite value exercise they placed their cards on the outside of the cloth. In larger workshops, they were asked to write their values on a single sheet of paper, and then read out just one value in turn. They handed in their sheet of paper at the end of each exercise.
In 12 of the workshops in which people laid their values cards down so they were clearly visible, participants broke into groups of two or three immediately after each set of cards had been laid. They discussed their observations of the values, recording these on a game sheet that was later handed in and used to assist with the analysis of the values provided. These groups are indicated on Table 1.
Eleven of these groups, and five other groups were also allowed to add a card if they felt something was missing (see Table 1). These cards were indistinguishable from the other cards and so were included in the analysis. It also needs to be noted that people did not always offer as many values as requested and sometimes offered more. This slight “rule breaking” was allowed, often created laughter and appeared to contribute to the overall sense of being in a community. At the end of the exercise, participants were shown either a series of diagrams that displayed the values of that type contributed by previous groups (i.e., one diagram per group) or an early version of the word clouds (see Figures 1 and 2Figure 2) which combined data from several groups (the construction process for the word clouds is described in the results section).
Participants
In order to give readers some sense of the groups involved, but preserve their identity, a brief description of each group is given on Table 1.
Table 1
Group Type, Gender, and Number of Values Contributed
| Group # | Group type | Participants (N = 1085) | Women participants (%c) | Number of values requesteda |
Values provided (% of total)
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infinite | Finite | Infinite (n = 2536) | Finite (n = 2150) | ||||
| 1 | Community group | 14 | 57.1 | 3 | 0 | 2.3 | 0.0 |
| 2 | University staff | 4 | 25.0 | 3 | 0 | 0.6 | 0.0 |
| 3 | Staff of sustainability organisation | 7 | 71.4 | 3 | 0 | 1.1 | 0.0 |
| 4 | Sustainability event | 200 | - | 1 | 0 | 7.5 | 0.0 |
| 5 | University students | 45 | - | 3 | 3 | 4.9 | 5.1 |
| 6 | Sustainability business conference | 23 | - | 3 | 3 | 2.6 | 2.8 |
| 7 | Community group | 20 | - | 3 | 3 | 1.6 | 2.0 |
| 8 | Community group | 9 | 77.8 | 3a | 3a | 1.3 | 1.4 |
| 9 | Sustainability eventb | 21 | - | 3a | 3a | 3.2 | 2.9 |
| 10 | University staff and studentsb | 10 | 50.0 | 3a | 3a | 1.3 | 1.6 |
| 11 | Mixed community & university groupb | 19 | 47.4 | 3a | 3a | 2.3 | 3.3 |
| 12 | Environmental education conferenceb | 33 | 84.8 | 2 | 2 | 3.0 | 3.0 |
| 13 | Sustainability business conference | 90 | - | 1 | 0 | 3.6 | 0.0 |
| 14 | Community groupb | 15 | 86.7 | 3a | 3a | 1.7 | 2.3 |
| 15 | Community groupb | 28 | 60.7 | 2a | 2a | 2.3 | 3.1 |
| 16 | Invited conference | 26 | 26.9 | 2 | 2 | 2.2 | 2.4 |
| 17 | Environmental conferenceb | 38 | 78.9 | 2a | 2a | 3.4 | 4.0 |
| 18 | Business and community groupb | 12 | 41.7 | 3a | 3a | 1.7 | 1.9 |
| 19 | Mixed community and university groupb | 18 | 55.6 | 3a | 3a | 2.5 | 2.8 |
| 20 | Environmental workshopb | 37 | 70.3 | 2a | 2a | 4.0 | 4.2 |
| 21 | Environmental workshopb | 38 | 50.0 | 2a | 2a | 3.5 | 4.1 |
| 22 | University studentsb | 26 | 50.0 | 2a | 2a | 2.2 | 2.7 |
| 23 | Workshop for social entrepreneurs | 20 | 55.0 | 3a | 3 | 2.3 | 3.2 |
| 24 | School teachers | 28 | 60.7 | 3 | 3 | 3.5 | 3.9 |
| 25 | University staff | 32 | 96.9 | 3a | 3a | 3.8 | 5.2 |
| 26 | University staff | 33 | 100.0 | 3a | 3a | 3.8 | 4.9 |
| 27 | University sustainability staff | 35 | 68.6 | 3 | 3 | 4.0 | 5.1 |
| 28 | Community group | 17 | 52.9 | 3a | 3a | 2.6 | 3.2 |
| 29 | Social issues conference | 77 | - | 3 | 3 | 9.2 | 11.1 |
| 30 | School teachers | 110 | - | 3 | 3 | 12.0 | 13.8 |
aIndicates that small discussion groups were able to contribute one extra value of this type. bIndicates that small discussion groups made written notes about their observations of the values offered. cA total of 65.7% was calculated from those groups where gender was recorded.
They included existing community groups (e.g., environmental, climate change, political, youth and community development groups), participants at a conference or event (often with a sustainability focus and in business or educational settings), university students and staff, and staff from a single high school. Table 1 also shows the number of participants and the percentage of women (65.7%). The percentage of women was based on an informal count conducted by the first author and was not done for all groups. It is important to note that the entire workshop was based on stepping outside the usual markers of social location and status, and finding the common humanity in others. It would have threatened the coherence of the workshop to at some point collect demographic data on gender, ethnicity, age, occupation, political affiliation and so on for research purposes (see Harré & Madden, in press for an extended discussion on why the collection of individual demographic data would have threatened the integrity of the workshop). Table 1 also shows the proportion of values contributed by each group. The most one group contributed was 13.8% of the finite values and 12% of the infinite values.
Results
Participants’ Observations of the Values Contributed in Their Workshop
As noted previously, participants in 12 workshops discussed their observations of the values and made written comments that were handed in. We considered these a rich source of “on the spot” analysis that helped tease out the characteristics of each set of values. In order to utilize this information, the second author typed out the written observations and she and the first author read and discussed them. Given that they were often just lists of words or short phrases, we decided to use a word counter (www.wordcounter.com) to identify the most common 50 words (excluding small words such as “the”). Next, the first author noted and grouped some of the common words after looking at how they were being used in the participants’ observations (e.g., “natural”, “nature” and “environ”), to form categories. She also re-read the observations to see if there were any other strong themes not captured by this process. This was the case only for the final category in the list to follow for finite values. She then noted if each of the 12 groups made observations that could be coded within each category. Both the validity of the categories and whether or not they were present in the observations of each group was verified by the third author. Below we first name the categories (shown in italics) given to the observations of infinite values, and the number of groups that referred to each. We also provide illustrative quotations, with the source group indicated (e.g., G9 = Group 9).
Every group observed that Emotions were frequently present in the values generated, and many commented on the positive nature of these, for example, “positive emotions” (G9). All groups also made observations related to Connection/Relationship, some of which were direct (e.g., “relationships – broad and connected” G18), and others that reflected this more subtly (e.g., “bridge between world and people”, G11). Nature was also noted by 11 of the 12 groups (e.g., “nature-based”, G14). References to Human/people (11/12 groups) included that the values were “people-oriented” (G12) but also that they captured something essential about the human experience (e.g., “what it means to be human, the meaning of life, universal human values/qualities”, G19). Eleven groups also noted the Intangible/unmeasurable nature of the values, often evoking the existence of a dimension that is beyond current social arrangements, for example, “unmeasurable, intangible, inherent respect for life” (G15) or “primaeval – always been there, not owned” (G12). Related to their “unbounded” (G20) nature there were references to these values being, as one observation expressed, “abundantly available” (G21). Ten groups commented on the Positive quality of the values, as noted previously, this was often in relation to the emotions offered; and eight groups commented on the popularity of Love as an infinite value offering.
In relation to the finite values, the observation that these concerned Material possessions was extremely common and present in all groups. Usually this was said directly as material “possessions” (G9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21) or “things” (G10, 11, 12, 15, 17, 19, 20, 22) or “goods” (G12, 17, 19). Eleven groups referred to Competition/self-focus, concepts that were often entwined, hence this combined category, (e.g., “survival of the fittest – competition all about the self”, G15). A category Society/social (found in 11 groups) covered references to these being, to quote one observation, “human constructions” (G21). This category was distinct from a Systems/structure category, present in eight groups, that stressed the extent to which the finite values generated referred to specific social structures, for example, “Order, hierarchy, control. Structure for society.” (G15). Status was noted by 10 groups, with nine using the word directly and one referring to “social standing” (G22). Nine groups commented on the Negative quality of the values, and mirrored the infinite values in sometimes pairing these with emotions (e.g., “emotions – negative, stress”, G11). However, while five groups referred to the presence of Emotions, it was much more common to note that emotions were largely absent. The popularity of Money was noted by 10 groups.
Overall Analysis of the Infinite and Finite Values Contributed
The primary aim of this part of the analysis was to create a meaningful picture of what the participants as a whole considered to be of infinite and finite value. The process was the same for each type of value, but they were analysed separately. First, the second author entered all the values offered by participants in alphabetical order on a spreadsheet. When two or more participants had used an identical word or set of words she only entered this word or set of words once and noted how many times it was offered. Next, the first and second authors independently devised categories and sub-categories that seemed to capture the data. They then met and co-constructed working categories and sub-categories. Both the authors’ independent category construction and their discussions were informed by the observations made by participants discussed in the last section.
The first author then attempted to place the individual contributions into the categories and sub-categories created. In doing so she considered the popular contexts for particular words and phrases, her experience as a member of New Zealand society, and what the contribution was likely to represent given the definitions of the values provided. The first author had also run all the workshops and so was able to observe the participants’ tone of voice, the reaction of others to their offerings and general discussions of the values that had been contributed. The second author then categorised all the contributions using the adjusted categories/sub-categories and definitions that the first author had constructed. Again, when necessary she used her judgement on the meaning behind the value. The two authors then met, compared their categorisations and agreed to both final categories and the placement of each value within them. When a contribution clearly belonged in two categories it was placed in both, although we attempted to keep the number of double coded values to a minimum. The major categories, sub-categories and number of values in each can be seen on Tables 2 (infinite) and 3 (finite).
Table 2
Infinite Values
| Category | Number in category | Subcategory (if applicable) | Number in sub-category | Keywords (number in brackets) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Social Connections | 847 | Family | 225 | Family (170), my children (23), parenting (22), my partner (10) |
| Community ideals | 209 | Respect (40), inclusion (32), freedom (27), peace (27), community (24), civil society (23), fairness (20), equality (16) | ||
| Contribution to others | 152 | Empathy (43), compassion (41), helping others (38), kindness (30) | ||
| Social exchange | 93 | Trust (33), communication (22), sharing (16), cooperation (12) | ||
| Friends | 70 | Friendship (70) | ||
| Social connections general | 56 | Relationships (29), human connection (26) | ||
| Belonging | 42 | Belonging (28), human warmth (14) | ||
| Human Expression | 484 | Emotions | 119 | Happiness (75), joy (33), emotions (11) |
| Laugher, smiles, humour | 80 | Laughter (48), humour (18), smiles (14) | ||
| Knowledge & learning | 69 | Learning (27), knowledge (21), curiosity (12), truth (10) | ||
| Aspirations & passion | 64 | Hope (31), vision (18), passion (16) | ||
| Creativity | 54 | Creativity (55) | ||
| Experience & activities | 49 | Fun (18), action (11), Delicious food (10), Special experiences (10) | ||
| Art | 46 | Music (25), artistic expression (21) | ||
| Nature | 401 | Landscapes | 133 | The ocean (53), landscapes (31), mountains & rivers (14), the land (14), wilderness (11), the universe (10) |
| Sustainable habitat | 107 | Healthy environments (40), water (37), biodiversity (20), clean air (10) | ||
| Nature general | 66 | Nature (66) | ||
| Living | 55 | Animals & plants (23), trees (21), pets (11) | ||
| Beauty of nature | 40 | Beauty of nature (40) | ||
| Connection | 343 | Love (286), connection (43), care (14) | ||
| Personal Qualities | 191 | 191 | Honesty (41), personal strengths (39), openness (31), integrity (27), tolerance (17), Commitment (14), self-acceptance (12), authenticity (10) | |
| Vitality | 138 | Human life | 44 | Children (26) people (18) |
| Health & wellbeing | 42 | Health & vitality (32), wellbeing (10) | ||
| Vitality general | 29 | Life (29) | ||
| Beauty | 23 | Beauty (23) | ||
| Spirituality & Transcendence | 120 | 120 | Life force (25), appreciation & wonder (20), solitude & silence (17), spirituality & transcendence (16),purpose (14), connection to the whole (12), faith (10) | |
| Safety & Survival | 28 | 28 | Safety & survival (28) | |
| Time | 20 | 20 | Time (20) | |
| Uncategorised | 55 | - | - | - |
| Totala | 2627 |
aNote that of these 91 were included in more than one category.
Table 3
Finite Values
| Category | Number in category | Subcategory | Number in Sub-category | Keywords (number in brackets) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Systems, Regulation & Limitations | 396 | Rules | 119 | Rules (31), conventions (26), bureaucracy (22), law (21), authority (19) |
| Limitations | 94 | Limits (32), structure (15), expectations (15), control (12), exclusivity (10), beliefs (10) | ||
| Institutions | 66 | Religion (30), politics (25), transport (11) | ||
| Economic | 57 | Economic systems (43), currency (14) | ||
| Discrimination & social breakdown | 37 | Social categories (16), inequality (11), conflict & isolation (10) | ||
| Communication & exchange | 23 | Communication (13), social media (10) | ||
| Status & Success | 380 | Status & success general | 190 | Status (111), success (33), achievement (18), prestige (14), prizes (14) |
| Recognised social roles | 74 | Social position (41), marriage (20), celebrity (13) | ||
| Appearance | 69 | Appearance (40), fashion (19), beauty (10) | ||
| Qualifications | 47 | Qualifications (33), university degrees (14) | ||
| Money | 379 | 379 | Money (293), wealth (50), gold (24), assets & profit (12) | |
| Ownership | 305 | Possessions | 175 | Possessions (69), cars (36), jewellery (17), status symbols (17), stuff (13), technology (13), precious objects (10) |
| House & territory | 106 | Houses (65), property (28), territory (13) | ||
| Ownership general | 24 | Consumerism (14), ownership (10) | ||
| Domination | 180 | Domination general | 92 | Power (63), domination (18), war (11) |
| Competition | 88 | Competition (45), winning (43) | ||
| Personal Qualities | 154 | Positive attributes | 52 | Ability (30), personal strengths (22) |
| Negative emotions or attributes | 49 | Negative emotions (24), greed (13), pride & ambition (12) | ||
| Self-gratification | 53 | Pleasure-seeking & ego (27), sports (16), junk food (10) | ||
| Natural Systems & Resources | 127 | Life or nature | 65 | Life stages (27), natural phenomena (21), a single life (17) |
| Natural resources | 62 | Oil (23), fossil fuels (16), natural resources (13), ecological demands (10) | ||
| Survival & Security | 73 | Survival & security general | 40 | Food (22), wellbeing needs (18) |
| Employment | 33 | A job (21), employment (12) | ||
| Knowledge | 50 | 50 | Education (30), knowledge (20) | |
| Time | 25 | 25 | Time (25) | |
| Uncategorised | 100 | - | - | - |
| Totala | 2169 |
aNote that of these 19 were included in more than one category.
The next process involved constructing keywords to represent the responses within each sub-category. These were constructed in order to create a visual representation of the values that would convey the results in an easily recognisable medium. This was essential to a key purpose of our research which was to meaningfully convey the values people share. This was a highly iterative process that involved the first, second and fourth authors. It took several attempts to accurately portray the data but also be visually powerful. For simplicity we describe only the process directly leading to the final word clouds shown in Figures 1 and 2.
Figure 1
The infinite word cloud.
First, keywords were constructed from the raw data within each sub-category. Ideally, these were a word some participants had actually used. Each keyword also had to adequately correspond to at least 10 individual responses, as it was found that this was the minimum count necessary for the word to be easily seen on the final word cloud. So, for example, within the sub-category “art” the word “music” was mentioned 19 times and closely affiliated words (e.g., “heartfelt singing”) were mentioned six times, therefore a keyword “music” was created with a count of 25. On the other hand, “dance” was mentioned seven times and “poetry” four times, so they were combined with 10 counts of artistically-related terms into a category of “artistic expression”.
The word clouds were produced using the R package "Wordcloud". The sizes of the words in the word cloud represent the number of occurrences of that word in the dataset. The largest word in each word cloud, love or money, is 28 and 29 times larger respectively then the smallest word in each cloud. This was set to reflect the ratio between the largest and smallest number of occurrences. Note that “time” was not included on either word cloud, given the small size of the category.
Figure 2
The finite word cloud.
Additional Analysis of the Infinite Values of Three “Mainstream” Groups Without Participant Self-Selection
Our research design meant that many of the groups who participated in the workshop were oriented around issues commonly associated with the “left”, and that workshop participants in some settings were self-selected (that is they chose to do a workshop, rather than the workshop being simply part of their work or academic day or the only activity scheduled for that time at a conference). In order to provide some sense of whether the infinite values generalise to more mainstream groups where the participants did the workshop as part of their regular work or academic day, we compared the values provided by Group 5 (undergraduate students studying Management within a Business School programme), Group 22 (a combined class of graduate students in Medical Science or Biology) and Group 30 (the staff of an entire high school who participated as part of a professional development day) with the values provided by the other groups.
These three groups (n = 181, 17% of the total) provided 484 infinite values. The percentage of their responses that were coded under each of the main categories was compared with the responses from the remaining 27 groups, who provided 2143 values in total. These were as follows (the percentage from the three mainstream groups is given first): social connections (38% versus 31%), human expression (16% versus 19%), connection (14% versus 13%), personal qualities (14% versus 6%), nature (6% versus 17%), spirituality and transcendence (5% for both), vitality (2% versus 6%), safety and survival (1% for both), time (1% for both), uncategorised (3% versus 2%).
Some slight differences are apparent. Most obviously there was more emphasis on personal qualities and less emphasis on nature in the mainstream groups than in the other groups. However, the overall pattern indicated that these groups understood the concept of infinite values in a very similar way to the other groups. This is further supported by the very small percentage of “uncategorised” values in the mainstream groups. Notably too, the words associated with finite values were largely missing from these groups, for example, no one offered “money”, “status”, or “possessions”. However, “competitiveness”, “success” and two counts of “gold” were amongst the uncategorised values in the mainstream groups. It was not possible to tell if these came from just two, or up to four, separate people.
Discussion
The key research focus of Study 1 was what our participants considered of infinite and finite value. In regard to infinite values, the most-commonly offered words concerned human connections. Values concerned with human expression, including emotions, learning and creativity were also commonly offered; and personal qualities were present including honesty, openness and self-acceptance. These categories align with the intrinsic values associated with human wellbeing in previous psychological research based on Self-Determination Theory such as relationships, helpfulness, community feeling, personal growth and self-acceptance (e.g., Grouzet et al., 2005; Kasser & Ryan, 1996). The dominance of these values suggests that our participants were primarily people-oriented when imagining what is of value for its own sake.
It is of note that these values encompass both the communal/relational and the agentic/independent dimensions to values that are acknowledged across several psychological theories (e.g., Bakan, 1966; Gilligan, 1982/1993; Ryan & Deci, 2002). The large number of relational values, such as those coded within human connections, could in part be due to the social justice or environmental values-base of a number of the groups involved; and the larger proportion of women than men. However, the three mainstream groups actually offered proportionately more values coded as human connections, suggesting that any relational “bias” in our participants goes well beyond members of groups advocating for social change. It is also interesting that the three mainstream groups offered double the proportion of “personal qualities” (which could be considered agentic/independent) than the rest of the groups, although this still only amounted to 14% of the values overall. This suggests a slightly greater emphasis on personal agency amongst these participants; albeit one that may sit in tandem with, rather than compete with, relationality. It also raises questions about whether groups that represented more conservative or right-leaning sectors of the population may have emphasised these values even more; an issue that will be taken up in the general discussion.
While human connections and experiences dominated, there were indications of a more diffuse sense of connection, which was sometimes expressed in spiritual terms (and captured under the category of spirituality and transcendence). This was picked up in the participants’ observations which often noted that the connectedness on display went beyond the human sphere (e.g., “inherent respect for life”), and the first author observed that many people who offered “love” explicitly stated they did not just mean love of humans, but of all living creatures or the planet as a whole. Some values offered also drew attention to the preciousness and beauty of life itself, especially new life; these made up the category of vitality. Nature comprised 6% of the values offered by the mainstream groups and 17% of the values offered by the rest of the groups. Given the environmental or sustainability focus of many of the latter groups, this further supports the notion raised in the introduction, that unless people are embedded within natural settings, values related to these may be overshadowed by people-oriented values.
Looked at overall, the infinite values offered by our participants suggest a strong attraction towards spaces, entities and ideals that are beyond the self. While this claim may seem obvious at one level; given the inter-dependence between individuals, communities and the natural environment (Berto, 2014; Passmore & Howell, 2014; Prilleltensky, 2012; Riemer & Harré, 2016), it is in stark contrast to the neo-liberal dogma that people are self-interested to the core.
In relation to finite values, money was the most common single word, with status and success related words also commonly offered; consistent with the core extrinsic values discussed in psychological research, of financial success, status and image (Kasser & Ryan, 1996). Closely associated with these categories were domination and several personal qualities such as pleasure-seeking and ego. Another large category was one we called systems, regulations and limitations. This concerns the ways in which society channels, organises and labels people. We also found numerous references to possessions, and when natural phenomena were offered they were often resources, such as oil. It is difficult to tease out the instrumental (i.e., useful in a practical sense) versus extrinsic (i.e., status-oriented) value of much of what people offered for this exercise. Money for example, offers both status and the capacity to buy goods and experiences that are of deeper value. Indeed, as Charles Eisenstein (2011) has argued, we have created societies in which money can be exchanged for anything and “when money is exchangeable for any thing, then all people want the same thing: money” (p. 40). Nevertheless, our research strongly suggests that people (or at least the New Zealanders in our study) still know that money is not “of value for its own sake”.
To conclude, people generated a very different set of words when considering infinite versus finite values and this is obvious from the word clouds. It was also clear from both the small group discussions and the first author’s observations that people responded extremely positively to hearing each other’s infinite values and seeing the values generated by other groups. They were highly animated and there was a lot of smiling and spontaneous conversation. In addition, the first author herself found it immensely uplifting to hear people stating these powerful words.
This set the stage for more systematically investigating people’s feelings and thoughts after sharing what they considered of infinite value and being exposed to the infinite values of others.
Study 2
Method
This study involved participants from four Infinite Game workshops conducted after the initial values word clouds had been constructed. These word clouds differed very slightly from those shown here as the analysis was not fully complete at that point. Participants completed the infinite values exercise as described above, and were then shown the infinite values word cloud. They were told the word cloud represented the values contributed by over 900 people and given a sheet of paper which asked them to write, “Your thoughts, feelings, responses, inclinations or anything else that comes to you when you see this word cloud”. They were asked not to talk to anyone before or while they responded. Responses were handed in. Participants were then invited to contribute to a discussion on the word cloud and how they responded to it.
Participants
There were a total of 121 participants. Using the same simplified group descriptions as for Study 1: Group A (n = 40) was from an environmental workshop, Group B (n = 45) was a community group, Group C (n = 15) was from an art workshop, and Group D (n = 21) was from an environmental education conference. Gender was not formally noted, although the groups each had more women than men.
Data Analysis
Author one typed out the responses from each group and numbered them. In the analysis to follow, quotations are attributed to the group (e.g., A) and the participant number (e.g., 1). Authors one and three then independently read through the responses, looking for, and noting down trends in the data. They then discussed their analyses and came up with general themes. Both noted that most people gave “affectively-toned” responses indicated by the wording, punctuation such as exclamation marks, or even small drawings e.g., “Love! Of course in the centre of everything [heart drawing] and art and mountains next to each other [smiley face drawing]” (B37). We considered it particularly important to capture the degree to which the word cloud was emotionally arousing as we considered this a signal that participants felt a sense of shared inner reality with others. Therefore, we created seven “affectively-toned” categories as will be outlined in the results section. We had a further category for “observations”, which were comments that appeared affectively neutral e.g., “The words all indicate that people from different walks of life have basically the same moral values and concerns for others and nature.” (D3). The two authors then coded each comment as to the category or categories that best captured it. When necessary, different phrases within the comment were placed within different categories. The authors discussed their allocations until they reached agreement. All responses were able to be categorised using this process.
Results and Discussion
Responses to the Infinite Values Word Cloud
The seven “affective” categories are described below, along with the percentage of responses that were fully or partly placed within each category. The first five of these are positive in valence and the last two mixed or negative. The observations category is not discussed in detail. Only 15.5% of responses had only observations with an objective tone.
A sense of belonging to a human community with shared values
This category (which appeared in 35.3% of responses) included comments on feelings of community, communality, interconnection, or a sense of shared humanity, e.g., “The values and feelings we have as human beings are universal!!” (A3). Responses often involved inclusive language e.g., “we all want the same thing” (italics added, A32). Explicit feelings of connection were reported such as “more connected to the people in the room with me” (B13), or “makes me feel part of a larger tribe” (D6). A number of responses implied that this sense of unity affirmed their own values or orientation to life. For example: “How connected and consistent people’s “infinite values” are. Affirmed and validated in my approach to life.” (D16). The feeling of being “affirmed” will be picked up again in theme two. As will be further discussed in relation to theme three, this sense of unity was also linked by some to hopefulness.
Feeling safe and reassured as if others could be trusted
We created this category to cover responses that indicated feelings of rightness, safety, trust, or peace. It was used for 25% of responses. They seemed to reflect an inner calmness. Here is one participant: “Felt good like a caress as we said our words consecutively. Feeling warm and positive.” (B44). Another described this as feeling “warm and safe, like being at home” (B38), with the word “warm”, “warmth” or “warmness” being used by seven other participants across groups A, B and D. Other words used included “soft” (A7), “caring” (A8, A20), “acceptance” (A8), “relief, silence” (A18), “safety” (A28), “calm” (A37), “soothing” (B11), “relaxed” (B33), “comforting” (D6). We also included in this category the four responses that mentioned feeling “affirmed”, as again this seemed to suggest an inward reassurance. While the word “trust” did not appear, the overall tone was of generalised trust that others accepted and would care for them as they are. As noted under the first theme, this was sometimes explicitly connected to realising the commonality of these values.
Being uplifted and filled with hope
A total of 15.5% of participants made comments related to being uplifted or filled with hope (the word “hope” or “hopeful” was used eight times and “uplifted” twice). The undertone of these comments was looking to the future with a sense of possibility and inspiration. For example, “I felt uplifted and encouraged” (A9). As noted in relation to the first theme, many respondents linked their hopefulness to the sense of shared humanity the values evoked in them. For example A33, after writing “Makes me feel like there’s a lot of people out there like me”, then wrote “What I want to see a lot more of in the world. Makes me hope for the future.” B36 commented “Hopeful – that we humans are inherently good and that we aspire for the same things. That we really can ‘save the world’.” Other words that conveyed the possibility that characterised this theme included “optimism” or “optimistic” (A8, A25, B12), “encouraging” or “encouraged” (A9, A22, C9, C12) and “inspired” (B6).
The centrality of love
As can be seen on Figure 1, the word “love” is large and in the centre of the word cloud. A total of 22.4% of respondents commented on this in the context of an affective response. For example, “Wonderful to see how much ‘LOVE’ is treasured so highly.” (D10). Sometimes this was connected with responses of belonging, hope or reassurance as discussed in the first three themes. For example, here C6 comments on how similar people’s values are and that love captures this: “It is so interesting that everyone comes up with different words – yet they are all so similar! Love really is all there is!” In the following quotation A22 links all three earlier themes to love: “Very encouraging and reassuring to see love so prominent and so collectively valued”.
General comments on “positivity” or “happiness”
Responses coded here (19% of respondents), mentioned general feelings of happiness or positivity or noted that the words on the cloud were themselves positive. The word “positive” or “positives” or “positivity” was used 11 times across groups A, B and C. For example A9 wrote, “The word cloud is really positive. I would like one in every room of my house.” Other words that were placed in this category included “happy” or “happiness” which was used six times across groups A, B and D; and “joy” or “joyous” (A13, A30, B1).
Critique
This theme (12.1% of responses), represented the most common way in which participants generally hopeful, reassuring, positive or aesthetic responses were tempered: with comments about the current social situation not reflecting the values shown on the word cloud. For example “we can still relate to these shared emotions, desires and feelings despite being surrounded by Capitalist misery!” (A4) or “I feel we live in a state of constant irony.” (C7). Responses allocated to this theme included puzzlement. As A1 put it “So why can’t we find common ground?” or B24 “Confused as these don’t come across strongly in our current society.” Frustration was evident in some responses. For example, “‘Love’ could solve so many of the world’s problems. No possessions! Yet possessions cause so many of the world’s problems!!” (D8). Commonly there was a sense of both longing and doubt in these responses. For example A23 here blends a statement of hope with doubt that we can live by these values: “Positivity. Hope. It would be nice if we could all have this… it would be nice if this is where the world is headed… I hope that this is what we will achieve.”
A sense of failure at not meeting up to the challenge of these values
A small but notable theme was of personal failure. This was expressed in just two (1.7%) of the responses, both from Group B. One said: “Disappointed with how disconnected I have become: alienated, lonely” (B16) and the other “I feel a failure! So much to aspire to.” (B40).
Additional Analysis on the Perceived Trustworthiness of the Word Cloud
Overall, people had a deeply positive reaction to the word cloud, underpinned by feelings of commonality, community, trust, and hope. Some participants also recognised that these values appeared discordant with social life as they experienced or interpreted it. However, this disquiet about the visibility of infinite values in society at large did not seem to translate to a perception that the word cloud was not representative of “people”, and therefore untrustworthy. In order to check for perceived trustworthiness of the word cloud, we re-read the responses for any signs that people felt it may be unrepresentative. There were five such responses. Three of these, from Group B, appeared to question the generalisability of the word cloud, implying or stating that these values may be confined to like-minded people: “Makes me wonder who participated in the survey” (B23), “Affirming in a way, but I wonder about/worry about whether it is all the same 'type' of people answering this (people that went to something like this?) so it is a skewed sample” (B25), “There is a universality of values – would this be true from a totally randomly chosen group of people?” (B31). Two other responses, both from Group D, questioned whether similar values would be found in different cultural settings: “This wordle doesn’t surprise me. I wonder if it is similar in different cultural settings? Or are these infinite values more universal?” (D7). “Wonderful to see how much “LOVE” is treasured so highly. How would this change if the audience was not “first world?” (D10).
General Discussion
A widespread “tale of terror” amongst people wanting to create a world more aligned to human and ecological flourishing is that our society has become plagued by a focus on materialism, individual success and status. Our research showed that while these values may be salient in the public sphere, it is possible to create a coexisting “tale of joy” that suggests individual people, when offered an opportunity to feel and reflect, are deeply drawn to that which helps us live in community with each other and the natural environment. When asked to name three things that they consider of “infinite” value (that which is of value for its own sake and makes the world truly alive), not one of our participants said money or status. Instead they predominantly offered words associated with connection, expression, nature, personal strengths, vitality, and spirituality. Such values have been widely associated with individual (Brown & Kasser, 2005; Kasser, 2011b; Kasser & Ryan, 1996) and collective (Brown & Kasser, 2005; Kasser, 2011a; Ku & Zaroff, 2014; Sheldon & McGregor, 2000) wellbeing in the psychological literature. They are also, in various forms, at the core of social movements aimed at promoting human and ecological flourishing.
When asked what is of “finite” value (of value because of what it signifies or enables, or because a group of people deem it so) participants predominantly offered words associated with systems and regulations, success and status, money, ownership and domination. Overall, therefore, our data strongly suggest that our participants readily distinguished between what is intrinsically valuable and what is of instrumental value or a signifier of social status. In other words, we as a society may have elevated finite values to centre stage, but this does not necessary mean individual people have also done so.
We not only aimed to elicit people’s values, but also to construct an exercise that allowed people to see that their values were shared. We wanted our participants to trust that they were experiencing others “inner reality” (see Echterhoff et al., 2009). We did this in three ways. First, by asking people to write down their values alone, so these did not appear to be influenced by the responses of others; second, by asking everyone at each workshop to read one or more of their values aloud so participants literally heard these resonnate through the room; and third, by constructing a word cloud that conveyed the values offered by hundreds of others. This sense of trustworthiness was probably critical to the impact of the infinite word cloud on participants in Study 2, who, when shown it and told it represented the values of over 900 people, mostly reported powerful and affectively positive reactions including a sense of belonging, reassurance and hope. These reactions suggest the word cloud acted as a “tale of joy” and an invitation to the “collective hope” central to social movements. As others have argued, without a sense of trust in humanity and the possibility of change it is meaningless to take collective action (see Christens et al., 2013; Lala et al., 2014; Pettit, 2004; Starhawk, 2002; Taylor, 2007; Zimmerman, 1990). When the dominant narrative claims that people are fundamentally self-oriented it erodes this hope, and helps maintain itself.
We note, however, that while our participants were told that the word cloud represents the values of hundreds of others (which was true) we did not elaborate to them that those who contributed to the word cloud were largely from “left-leaning” organisations. We acknowledge that had our participants approached the word cloud with its possible bias at the front of their minds, they would be unlikely to have responded as positively as they did. Indeed, the exercise may have strengthened the dominant narrative for some participants, by seeming to imply that “we”, the people who care about the common good, are different from “them”, the people who do not. Furthermore, to offer an adequately nuanced protrayal of the characteristics of those who contributed to the word cloud would have been to ask the participants to remove themselves from the values generation and sharing exercise they were immersed in, and into an academic mind-set. Were we somehow “dishonest” in not elaborating the sampling limitations of our word cloud data to the participants before we asked them to respond to it? We think not. The values-sharing exercise was designed to provoke an alternative possibility to the “self-oriented individual” who is so often placed at the centre of social life in public discourse. Open-ended discussions always followed the exercise in which participants were invited to raise any issues, including questions on the construction of the word cloud.
There was great diversity in the values offered. A secondary analysis that compared the infinite values offered by participants in three mainstream and not self-selected groups (about 17% of participants) with those from the remaining groups (that were from left-leaning organisations or involved participants who actively selected to do an Infinite Game workshop), hinted at possible differences in the emphasis given to particular values by people in different social locations. For example, the former groups offered more values related to personal qualities than the latter groups, suggesting greater salience of agentic or independence-related values (Bakan, 1966; Gilligan, 1982/1993; Ryan & Deci, 2002). The mainstream groups also offered relatively few values related to the natural world.
Indeed, follow-up studies could fruitfully examine the relative salience of different types of infinite values across different types of groups. Some participants in Study 2 wondered if the word cloud would look different with people from different cultures. It is also possible that groups largely composed of men would emphasise different values (e.g., more independence-related values, Gilligan, 1982/1993) and socio-economic status may also have an impact. Groups at the heart of corporate capitalism would be of great interest, particularly as they are viewed as the dominant drivers of the rhetoric that places self-interest at the heart of the good society.
While acknowleding it is an open empirical question as to how groups outside New Zealand and largely left-leaning settings would respond to the values-prompts we offered, it seems extraordinarily unlikely they would offer a dramatically different set of values to our participants; placing for example, “money” at the centre of what they considered of value for its own sake. To do this, would imply an inability to distinguish current social devices from more fundamental “goods”. It is much more likely that they would differ instead in the relative salience of particular infinite values, as we found when comparing more mainstream groups with the rest of our participants.
It is also important to note that reactions to the word cloud implied a sensed commonality beyond the specific values offered. As one participant wrote on seeing the infinite word cloud, “It is so interesting that everyone comes up with different words – yet they are all so similar!” (C6). This further suggests that, even if the balance of values were to differ, the overall impact of the resulting word cloud may still be to disrupt the tale of terror that everyone is out for themselves, and suggest a tale of joy in its place.
Limitations
Our novel method for drawing out participants values, and ensuring that participants’ experience was not compromised for the sake of the research, produced limitations. First, participants were told they could offer values in “any dimension”, and that they could be an emotion, relationship, part of the natural world, a quality or an object”. While this was intended to open participants’ thinking, it will also have served to direct it somewhat. However, despite this instruction being identical for both types of values, there were clear differences in the extent to which participants used the individual descriptors in relation to each type. For example, relationships were much more commonly offered as of infinite value than of finite value and the reverse was the case for objects.
Second, our process of categorising values and producing key words meant a great deal of the poetry and nuance present in the workshops was lost in the word clouds. For example, we turned “mischief” into “creativity” and “number of Facebook friends” into “popularity”. The data analysis was not easy, and was necessarily subjective, aided by the insights of participants, our knowledge of the cultural context and, in the case of the first author, by being present when the values were offered. Nevertheless, we do not feel our data gathering and analysis process suffered from the “problems” of subjectivity any more than is usual when research attempts to linguistically and mathematically represent the psychological space people inhabit. Asking people, for example, to rate how much they value a pre-determined list of goals, as is the case with most research using a Self-Determination Theory approach (e.g., Grouzet et al., 2005; Kasser & Ryan, 1996) also suffers from obvious researcher “bias”. Such lists require participants to respond to only these pre-determined goals, and may miss other goals that are as central, or more central, to people’s lives.
Third, people were asked to offer only up to three values, sometimes fewer. Asking people to provide more values, as with including more diverse participant groups, would likely change the relative distribution shown on Tables 2 and 3Table 3 and the word clouds. Despite this restriction, the process did elicit great breadth of coverage. Additionally, as people were asked to state their values out loud, participants may have chosen values they considered socially acceptable. However, in the largest workshops, people were told they would only read out one value of their choice. This meant they were aware that their other values, written on a sheet of paper that was then folded and put in a collection box, would be both private and anonymous. If reading aloud had inhibited people’s more honest responses, then we would have expected to see a significant number of anomalous, potentially “self-interested” values in the dataset. This was not the case.
Fourth, we did not have a control condition for Study 2. All participants were shown the infinite word cloud after they had offered their own infinite values and asked for their response. As a consequence, Study 2 was unable to compare responses to the infinite word cloud with responses to a different word cloud. To further explore this question we have gathered preliminary data as part of a teaching exercise with stage one psychology students. The teaching exercise involved participants generating their own infinite values and then being shown either the infinite word cloud or the finite word cloud and being told in both cases that the word cloud represented infinite values of over 1000 other people. A third group were shown no word cloud. All groups were then asked for their response using a similar prompt as used in Study 2. (Further details are available from the authors on request.)
Most of the limitations discussed above are related to this research taking place in a real world context into which the first author was invited. It would be difficult to overcome them without compromising the strengths of our process, including giving space for participants to use their own voices, and providing an uplifting experience that generated the emotions that underpin collective hope. For example, while we would like to gather values from more divergent groups including right-leaning groups, we would need to think very carefully about how to approach such groups. To date, the sense that we are working in spaces to which we were invited has been an important ethic that we would like to maintain.
To What Extent Do Values Align With Action?
We are aware that holding infinite values and even realising that other people hold these too, does not automatically translate to acting in accordance with them. There are numerous conditions that may enhance or detract from living infinite values. For example a sense of threat has been suggested to push people towards basic survival needs (see Winston, Maher, & Easvaradoss, 2017); although in one recent study, people of lower socio-economic status whose security is likely to be relatively precarious, were more generous, charitable, trusting and helpful than participants of higher socio-economic status (Piff, Kraus, Cȏté, Cheng, & Keltner, 2010). So it may be that threat only tends to turn people toward personal aquisition when it is accompanied by an ideology that suggests this is an appropriate reaction. After all, people’s wellbeing is highly dependent on their inclusion within a viable community. Perhaps people who are less successful within, and therefore less emamored with free-market ideology, understand this better than those who are further up the economic hierarchy.
More broadly then, what social circumstances do encourage people to live out (particular) infinite values? Related to this, we are interested in exploring the nature of resistance: where and how are people holding and advocating for infinite values despite normative pressure to do otherwise? How do we work with those cracks in the system where infinite and finite values are in conflict and expose these conflicts to stimulate social change? What role can values-sharing, through our exercise or other means, play in supporting such resistance?
Concluding Comments
In conclusion, we suggest that those involved in social movements may wish to be wary of repeating the market-driven tale of terror, that people are essentially self-interested and competitive, or at least making sure it is seen as a tale, rather than a demon that has taken over people’s deepest yearnings. By drawing attention to people’s infinite values, this tale is undermined, as it suggests we share a sense of what enables life to thrive and this is what we value most deeply, for its own sake. Knowing this does not make change easy, but it makes it thinkable, and may shift our conversations toward the hope that is critical to all social movements.