According to Hitlin, values are mental structures because they involve a focus on criteria or standards of preference (Hitlin 2004, 362) . Values serve as structures of individuals’ experiences and do away with limitations for “acceptable” behaviors (Hitlin 2004, 363) . Compared with attitudes, values have positivity, unlike attitudes which have both negativity and positivity (Hitlin 2004, 363) . It is through this that measurement concerns arise due to discrimination among values. It is imperfect to measure values, just like other social concepts. It is because of standardization which lacks empirical and theoretical research (Hitlin 2004, 365) . As evidence, many researchers analyze beliefs and attitudes and group them in the same category as values. Where do values originate? Hitlin says values come from within individuals, this can either be biological or through ethnicity or race (Hitlin 2004, 368) , social structure and family characteristics (Hitlin 2004, 372) .
Values are desirable and comprise of the ultimate goals an individual aims to achieve. As Hitlin outlines, it has been “demonstrated that values important to the self-have impacts on behavioral decisions.” (Hitlin 2004, 383) However, this may lead to individuals producing little variation in terms of ratings on desirable items. Individuals who feel that values are necessary form a negative correlation, while those that rate values encourage a positive correlation (Hitlin 2004, 367) . Hitlin cites Schwartz by saying that he “has developed empirically a schematic representation of what he finds to be an almost universal structure of human values.” (Hitlin 2004, 363) . This system has “openness to change versus conservation, and self-enhancement versus self-transcendence” as the two high-value dimensions.
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There are a good number of sociologists who believe that, for the progress of science, it is prudent to study values. However, the consensus has not been agreed upon as there are weaknesses to the current state of value concept. The failure of some sociologists to deal with validation of values has led to a deficit of clarifying the concept of values. As Hutcheon puts it, scholars such as Robin Williams have failed to “identify the corresponding assumptions of the other value theorists whose work he surveys, thereby overlooking a major cause of the conceptual confusion which he documents.” (Hutcheon 1972, 174) It is has been proved that values depict an individual’s behavior in the society, however, the inclination to suppose the society precedes the individual has made it difficult to get an agreement on the value concept.
The confusion around the concept of value is another reason why it is a challenge finding a clear meaning of values. For years, values have been grouped in the same category as norms. However, it is prudent to note that not all values are norms, it only depends on the field the values are being applied. Nonetheless, social scientists are still doing in-depth research in a bid to “ clarify the relationship between attitudes and values.” (Hutcheon 1972, 174) Values have been grouped with cultural ideals but what is clear is that they are different as they go beyond specific situations and have to do with terminal values (Hutcheon 1972, 174) .
Values have also been understood as beliefs. Hutcheon gives an example of how Milton Albrecht lists American family-life values which appear to be normative values. Besides, Richard Morris is also quoted to define values to be effective and normative beliefs. Values have also been misunderstood to be objects. In his paper, Hutcheon quotes Ralph turner as defining values as, “objects which are regarded favorably or unfavorably”. In that, they affect a man in form of norms generated from a higher level on inclusivity (Hutcheon 1972, 176) . As seen, the various definition of value has made it difficult to get a clear outline of it as a concept.
It is difficult to distinguish norms from values because of a lack of clear criteria. For instance, examples of norms include positive laws, moral norms, and directives while examples of values include intelligence, courage, justice, and fairness among others (Fassio 2013, 196) . Values and norms can be distinguished through lexical differences by expressing them through “distinct families of terms.” (Fassio 2013, 197) Norms and values can be distinguished through conceptual richness by evaluating on attributes that make an individual bad or good. To distinguish between norms and values, one can also use psychological distinctions (Fassio 2013, 198) as values are related to emotions and affection. Norms, unlike values, are not strict on emotions as values. Through this classification, one can get a clear understanding of differences between norms and values.
Conclusion
It is without a doubt that the study of the value concept is necessary. This could be attributed to the various misunderstanding and misinterpretation of what constitutes values. In this paper, a clear definition of values has been given. The paper has clarified that it is difficult to measure values because of its complexity. In addition, it has been able to distinguish values from other social aspects such as norms and objects in the quest to elaborate the value concept.
References
Fassio, D. (2013). How to Distinguish Norms from Values. Phenomenology and Mind , (5), 148-158.
Hitlin, S., & Piliavin, J. A. (2004). Values: Reviving a dormant concept. Annu. Rev. Sociol. , 30 , 359-393.
Hutcheon, P. D. (1972). Value theory: Towards conceptual clarification. The British Journal of Sociology , 23 (2), 172-187.
