by Values can be a controversial topic. In the political arena, the parties battle over who has the high ground on the values question. Supporters claim they are with the party of so-called family values, a vaguely defined catch-all promoting the importance of the nuclear family.
I’m not writing about that. My exploration of values is looking at how individuals (labeled consumers in the business world for which most of my work is done) decide what is important to them and how that in turn guides their decision-making and subsequent behavior. And most important from my perspective as a futurist, are there in patterns in how that process is changing over time?
So, the definition I’m using for values is: An individual view about what is most important in life that in turn guides decision-making and behavior. Thus, values are key decision-making criteria—what an individual falls back upon when making important life decisions. Not every decision and action that a person takes invokes their values; they operate unconsciously most of the time. It is typically the really important decisions that will consciously invoke thought and discussion of one’s values.
It is worth noting that many definitions of values will also include an individual’s sense of “what is right and wrong.” Fair enough, but the approach here assigns this aspect to virtues, which is often what the political debate centers on – which party is more on the side of right. It doesn’t lend us much insight into where consumers are going, whereas values as defined here talks about priorities and how they are shifting, thus lending us insight into the future.
A final note here in the definitional realm – more will be said about consumers (and how people actually don’t want to be thought of as consumers) in future posts, but let’s say right here that the values changes that will be described are not exclusive to consumers. They apply to clients, customers, students, citizens….or simply, people. Put another way, everyone is a consumer (whether they like it or not).
This post is part of a series supporting the Fall publication of my next book tentatively titled ConsumerShift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape to be published by No Limit Publishing. Andy Hines
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