by Values, along with their accompanying needs and worldviews are universal in the sense that they apply across geographies and cultures. The foundation of the New Dimensions Values Inventory derives from Inglehart’s World Values Survey, which has been tracking values changes since the 1970s has “carried out representative national surveys in 97 societies containing almost 90 percent of the world’s population.” (1)
The question of universals in general is, of course, a larger one. The seminal work in universals was done by Brown (2). He suggests that because universals are universal, they aren’t noticed and are taken for granted. Although the long list of universals he identifies doesn’t explicitly include values, they are suggested by the inclusion of several other components of the new dimension consumer life model (of which values are central), such as cultures and worldviews.
Berlin, however, does include values: “…universal values…are values that a great many human beings in the vast majority of places and situations, at almost all times, do in fact hold in common, whether consciously and explicitly or as expressed in their behavior.(3)”
Finally, Integral Theorist Ken Wilber adds(4): “Evolutionary psychology gives much more interesting and compelling explanations of human behavior than the standard postmodern claim that all behavior is culturally relative and socially constructed. Evolutionary psychology made it clear that there are indeed universals in the human condition. ” Andy Hines
Notes
1. See http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_110
2. Brown, D. (1991). Human Universals. McGraw-Hill, vii, 139.
3. Jahanbegloo, R. (1991). Conversations With Isaiah Berlin. McArthur & Co. Reprinted 2007. Halban Publishers.
4. Wilber, K. (2000). A Theory of Everything. Boston: Shambhala, ix.
[…] of a new universalism. That’s a slippery question. We talked about it a while back in “Are Values Universal,” which provided a definitive “maybe” or “it depends.” J I would be willing to say that […]