Why morals and values are important

It forms the very core of their being and becomes a foundation of their moral beliefs. Those values mold them to become the person you want them to be.

They also reportedly stole petrol from two gas stations. A report in The Guardian in talks about children who have committed petty thievery. Most of them were missing a parent or did not have one at all. There was no adult to guide them and teach them proper values. These are just extreme examples of children who have no concept of right and wrong. Remember, they absorb everything like a sponge.

Until those small mistakes snowball into grand schemes that can send them to prison. When children can tell what is right from wrong, they can also determine the good from the bad.

This helps shape their perception of the world. A child who has a strong moral compass will not just stand idly by when an injustice is happening. They will take action to correct it in whatever way they can. This is a reminder that the values you teach your children today will determine how they will behave when they become adults.

From clothing styles to music choices, peer pressure plays a significant role in these decisions. But according to a Canadian health site , children who feel good about themselves are more able to resist negative peer pressure. Also, kids who grew up with strong moral foundations are more secure in themselves. They rarely feel the need to follow the trend, making them less likely to give in to bad influences.

One of the most pressing concerns that our youth face today is depression. We claim to value being understanding and forgiving but sometimes become nasty and revengeful. We supposedly value hard work but procrastinate. Psychology Today, Nov. There are many moral decisions made by each of us every day and always new moral dilemmas to resolve, mostly on our own without help. Perhaps because many people equate values and religion yet, I hope it is obvious to you that a person can have very high values--honesty, loving, giving--without having any religious beliefs in God or salvation at all , a discussion of our values may be considered an invasion of our privacy and our personal religious beliefs.

The place inside where we store our values and our conscience is a scary place to which we invite few people, resenting those who intrude and question our values or preach to us.

Perhaps, values are a touchy topic because our own guilty conscience, when aroused, can hurt us. It is true that many people loosely "expect" their religion to keep them moral, but, on the other hand, insist that religion shouldn't get too deeply involved in their "private" behavior or challenge their rationalizations for selfish, immoral behavior.

Most importantly, I think we avoid discussing our values because we are unsure of them and afraid our self-serving denials and illusions will be revealed by an open airing of our beliefs. From my teaching, I have an illustration of how the human mind protects its beliefs: I have indicated many times in many ways to my students that I have doubts about God.

Although thousands have come to ask me about other concerns, not one student has ever approached me to find out more about my reasons for doubting God or my explanation of peoples' beliefs in God. Quite a few have come to "save" me, but they only wanted to talk, not listen. When was the last time you heard of a church inviting an atheist or agnostic to join them in discussing the existence of God? We maintain many of our beliefs by avoiding questions and doubts, by closing our minds.

Perhaps closed-mindedness is a good coping mechanism in terms of religious beliefs, but I doubt if a locked mind is the best processor of ideas to guide our lives. It is hard to even help yourself, if you have a mind that is afraid to think. A leading researcher of values, Milton Rokeach , believes that it is often necessary to become dissatisfied with yourself before you will change your behavior, attitudes, or values. That makes sense, but it means one has to a create a problem self-dissatisfaction in order to b solve a problem of morals e.

Naturally, we will be tempted to take the easy way out and avoid dealing with both "problems," but this chapter will try to stimulate and confront our thinking in such a way that each of us can arrive at a consistent, meaningful, just, and motivating set of values to live by, day by day.

If we are successful, however, each of us will surely feel some uneasiness during the process of clarifying our values. That is to be expected.

As you know, there is a bewildering assortment of values thrust upon each of us, e. And, many people and groups take their beliefs and values very seriously.

They are certain they are right. If you reject their beliefs, you may encounter serious, real threats, e. Sometimes, especially when the other person's values and purposes have not been clearly revealed to you early in the relationship, their moral judgments, rejection, and threats can be very powerful. I will not deceive you about my beliefs nor will I attack your beliefs. I want you to know that I have doubts about the existence of a God, but there are certain values I believe in, especially the Golden Rule or caring for others a central theme of most religions.

I offer no threats if you don't believe as I do, instead I offer my understanding because philosophies are hard decisions I can not even assure you that I am certain about my own ideas regarding values, but as Mahatma Gandhi said about his beliefs, "they appear to be absolutely correct, and seem for the time being to be final.

For if they were not, I should base no action on them. Your beliefs are always your choice so long as they don't hurt others. Study 1 used an app-based experience sampling approach to solicit from participants carrying out their daily lives their views on the importance of various moral behaviors and details on whom if anyone they were with.

Study 2 consisted of a large-scale preregistered online survey with a novel set of moral measures designed to provide convergent validity to the initial findings and to obtain a more precise estimate of observed effects.

Study 4A consisted of a preregistered experiment in which we attempted to manipulate moral importance via a manipulation of social closeness. In Studies 4B and 4C, we successfully manipulated moral importance by randomly assigning people to imagine they were in the presence of a close versus distant other. Overall, we find evidence that people consider binding values more important when in the presence of close others. We report all primary and preregistered analyses, all data exclusions, and all conditions across all studies.

We employed this approach because past research has shown that experience-sampling strategies can provide insights into moral thinking and behavior that could not be achieved through other methodologies 51 , 52 , We then tested whether moral importance varied according to relational context.

Overall, we collected 13, evaluations of moral behavior at different timepoints. Of these, No participants were excluded from the analysis. First, we tested whether overall moral importance depended on relational context by performing a mixed-model analysis of variance ANOVA with relationship type as the primary predictor and moral importance as the dependent variable, controlling for age, gender, time of day, and day of the week incidental variables , and setting participant as a random intercept.

We examined the association between the average moral importance elicited in the original sample by each social context and the average closeness scores obtained from Sample 2 for that relationship. The model was a hierarchical linear model controlling for all incidental variables, with closeness as the primary predictor and moral importance as the dependent variables, and with participant and relationship type set as random effects.

To generate a simplified understanding of these results, we computed an estimated moral importance associated with each relationship by adding the model intercept to the corresponding beta weight for each relationship and plotted it against the social closeness of that relationship obtained from Sample 2.

B The relationship between average social closeness and moral importance of binding and individualizing values, with both value sets centered on their respective means. Source data are provided as a Source data file. Finally, we sought to test whether the relationship between social closeness and moral importance varied according to value type binding versus individualizing. Thus it appears that, while being in the presence of close others is associated with increases in the importance of both value types, this relationship is stronger for binding than individualizing values.

Study 2 consisted of a large preregistered online sample that would allow us to determine with greater precision the relationship between social closeness and moral importance.

We recruited a total of participants and asked them to indicate whom, if anyone, they were with. We then asked them two sets of questions pertaining to the importance of moral values.

We also collected information on political orientation in order to help rule the possibility that this was associated with the observed effects. In addition, we collected two measures of social closeness: one from an external sample; the other from participants themselves. In this way we sought to show that the relationship between binding importance and social closeness held across measures of morality and for both internal and external ratings of social closeness.

The study was preregistered at AsPredicted. The sample had a mean political orientation of 2. We sought to test the relationship between the moral importance of individualizing versus binding values and social closeness. There were two ways of doing this.

The first was to examine the relationship between moral importance and the estimated closeness ratings obtained from the separate sample; the second to examine the relationship between moral importance and the self-rated closeness of each relationship.

We report the results of each of these analyses in turn. In accordance with the preregistration, we also examined the main effects of social context being alone versus being with others on the overall importance of moral behavior and values i.

This appears to be driven by the negative relationship between social closeness and individualizing values, possible explanations for which are discussed below. The right two panels show the associations between moral importance and how close participants themselves felt to whomever they were currently with. The upper two panels reflect ratings of the importance of moral behaviors; the lower panels the importance of moral values.

Alone participants were coded as having a social closeness of 0. Ribbons indicate SEM, and dots reflect individual ratings of moral importance, with sizes scaled to reflect multiple values on the same point. Next, we tested whether moral importance varied according to value type binding versus individualizing and relational context.

To do this, we conducted a two-way ANOVA with relationship type, value type, and their interaction as the primary predictors and moral importance as the dependent variable, controlling for gender, age, political orientation, and mood incidental variables.

We repeated the analysis for both moral behavio r and moral values. Next, we tested the overall effect of social closeness estimated and self-rated on the overall importance of moral behaviors and values i.

These mixed results, which are likely due to variations in the relative impact of binding versus individualizing value sets, further support the idea that these different value types are best considered separately i.

Study 3 consisted of a laboratory investigation that tested whether moral values changed in importance depending on manipulated social context. As a secondary analysis, we also asked participants how close they felt to their partner, in order to investigate whether the effects were moderated by perceived partner closeness. We also assessed and controlled for political ideology and current affective state in order to address the possibility that these factors accounted for the observations.

We then tested the data for the same pattern of effects as that observed in Studies 1 and 2. The average political orientation was 2. The mean level of partner closeness was 2. Next we tested the effect of condition on binding versus individualizing values. Thus this study did not yield robust evidence that being in the presence of another person versus being alone causes an increase in the importance of binding values.

Because we did not obtain the results we had predicted, we conducted a series of exploratory analyses to further understand the phenomenon. We first examined the frequency distribution of the closeness measure.

Given that our predictions suggested only people who felt close to their interaction partner would show an increase in the importance of binding values, we reasoned that the low number of participants in the former category might explain the absence of the predicted effect. To test this possibility, we re-analyzed the results with a focus on the people who felt close to their partner. We note this approach cannot provide causal evidence as participants were categorized according to closeness ratings they provided.

As seen in Fig. This interaction effect remained significant even when additionally controlling for the effects of social desirability i. Binding values were rated more important when participants were with a partner they rated as close than when they were alone.

The results of the three previous studies were correlational. To obtain causal evidence for our effect, in Study 4A we recruited participants who said they were in the presence of another person.

After the manipulation, participants responded to a manipulation check that asked them how close they felt to whomever they were with and finally responded to a series of questions regarding the importance they afforded various moral values. We reasoned that, by creating a sense of social closeness or distance to whomever participants were currently with, we would observe a corresponding shift in the importance of binding values. The primary hypothesis consisted of a linear regression with condition as the primary independent variable and binding importance as the dependent variable, controlling for mood.

Thus our preregistered hypothesis was not confirmed. In exploratory analysis, we examined whether self-rated closeness was associated with individualizing versus binding importance, controlling for age, gender, and mood.

In Study 4B, we developed an alternative manipulation of social distance to provide causal evidence for the effect of social closeness on binding versus individualizing values. To do this, we created an exercise that prompted participants to imagine they were in the presence of a close versus distant other, after which we solicited their views on moral importance on the same 0— scale that we used in Studies 1 and 2.

This imagination exercise has the potential advantage of not eliciting a strong affective reaction to the close versus distant conditions, thereby prohibiting mood from overcoming the effects, as well as holding all situational elements constant by manipulating only the identity of the imagined interaction partner. As indicated in the preregistration, the primary hypothesis consisted of a linear regression with condition as the primary independent variable and binding importance as the dependent variable, controlling for mood.

Next we examined whether condition had an effect on individualizing importance, controlling for mood. One possible concern with this study is that it relies on specific targets stranger and romantic partner to obtain its effect.

While we see no a priori reason to imagine that these particular targets would yield the observed results in a different way than any other close versus distant other, a more generalized test of the hypotheses that does not rely on these specifics would lend credibility and generalizability to the results. For this reason, we conducted a final experiment 4C to determine whether the mere imagined presence of any close other is sufficient to change the importance of binding values.

Centuries of thought in moral philosophy suggest that the purpose of moral values is to regulate social behavior 2 , However, the psychology underlying this process remains underspecified. Here we show that the mere presence of close others increases the importance people afford binding moral values. By contrast, individualizing values are not reliably associated with relational context. In other words, people appear to selectively activate those moral values most relevant to their current social situation.

Our results are consistent with the view that different values play different functional roles in social life. Past research contrasts the values that encourage cohesion in groups and relationships with those that emphasize individual rights and freedoms Because violations to individualizing values may be considered wrong regardless of where and when they occur, the importance people ascribe to them may be unaffected by who they are with.

By contrast, because binding values concern the moral duties conferred by specific social relationships, they may be particularly subject to social influence. Our findings converge with work highlighting the practical contexts where binding values are pitted against individualizing ones. For example, research shows that prompting people to take a detached versus immersed perspective on their own actions renders them more likely to apply impartial principles in punishing close others for moral transgressions Our work highlights a psychological process that might help to explain these patterns of behavior: people are more prone to act according to binding values when they are with close others precisely because that relational context activates those values in the mind.

For example, this work has found that situational cues which increase the mental accessibility of moral identity can subsequently increase prosocial behavior Our work builds on this by suggesting that one type of situation that may activate certain moral concepts is the presence of close others.

Another finding from this literature is that people with highly self-important moral identity demonstrate a more expansive circle of moral regard toward out-group members Building on this research, it would be fruitful in future research to test whether moral self-identity moderates the effects we observed: perhaps people with such a self-concept are less susceptible to the influence of close others because they feel an extended sense of moral duty toward all humans.

This research adds to a growing body of work on how relational context impacts the activation and application of moral principles 5. Other research in this area has shown, for instance, how judgments of different moral foundation violations vary across relational contexts 58 , and how relationships may confer different moral obligations More generally, scholars have recently emphasized the importance of considering social context when investigating the psychology of moral judgment and evaluation 60 , The current research adds to this work by showing just how sensitive moral evaluation can be to how close people are to whomever they are with at the time.

Another implication of these results concerns the malleability and consistency of moral values. Psychologists often treat moral values as classic individual traits that consistently affect behavior across many situations, and that change only slowly over the course of a life span 10 , However, recent research on the contextual sensitivity of moral judgment and behavior has called this character-based approach to morality into question 63 , Readers will note negative relationship between individualizing values and social closeness in Study 2.

This stands in contrast to the results of Study 1, which showed a positive relationship between these factors. This pattern is especially puzzling for the questions concerning moral behavior, which were worded almost identically to those of Study 1. We are constantly examining morals and beliefs, justifying them if we make decisions based on them. Humans many times accept the norms.

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