The ends or goals of any man’s actions and the actions themselves are not randomly determined. There is a consistency in them. The framework which provides this consistency is what is known as his value orientation or, very loosely, his philosophy of life.
A man develops this value system in various ways. Regardless of how it develops, it is essentially a mental categorization of ends and means which are evaluated as acceptable or unacceptable in varying degrees.
Members of the same culture and the same groups tend to have similar value systems but the unique experiences of all individuals result in many differences in emphasis which they place on any given end or means. Group action takes place when ends sought are commonly espoused by members and are of relative importance to them. The means used, as well as the ends, must be acceptable to the group as a whole.
Some values held by an individual are instilled in his thought patterns by the culture; they are accepted from the value systems of others. Examples of this are found everywhere. Children receive certain stimuli and in the process of responding, the parent assigns good or bad to alternative response choices. One of the reasons why others have such a disproportionately large influence on the younger child is that the young child is constantly being exposed to completely new stimuli and lacks the experiences from which to make his own interpretations. He is much more susceptible to acceptance of the interpretations of others. In the presence of a parent, each new stimulus is followed immediately by another stimulus, i.e., the suggestion of the parent as to the proper response.
As the individual becomes more experienced and has been exposed to many more stimuli toward which he has responded, he builds up a reservoir of alternatives in his memory. He builds a system of values based upon his own judgments of the relative good and bad of his past experiences. These experiences include the evaluations of others. The degree to which an individual accepts value judgments of others as his own ranges all the way from complete uncritical acceptance of another’s evaluation to complete rejection of outside evaluations. The individual more readily accepts the evaluations of others whom he knows well and respects and with whose values he agrees. When we say that one individual knows another, we’re basically saying that he is relatively aware of the other’s past experiences, his ends and objectives, and accepted techniques for attaining his goals.
It is recognized that because of inherent qualities, individuals have varying abilities to act in given mental and physical ways. This difference in inherited capabilities is only one factor in accounting for differences in human behavior. The experience of the individual is also of great importance in determining how he responds in any situation. The relative importance of these two types of influence in determining individual behavior cannot be stated precisely.
We accumulate experience from the many people with whom we have contact, the groups to which we belong, the reading we do, and from all the stimuli we receive and retain. Each of us has had experiences that are different unique experiences that helped create our individuality.
It has been pointed out that man has values concerning both the goals he wants to attain and the means that are acceptable to him in that goal attainment. Because of our different cultural backgrounds, the different group experiences that we have had, and the unique experiences in which each of us has participated, it is relatively easy to see why there are so many differences among us as individuals. We may have different values – different things are acceptable and important to us. Even if we believe in basically the same things, we may attach varying importance to individual items within our accepted pattern of values. Even if we believe the same basic goals are important, we may not agree on the best, most enjoyable, or even acceptable method or means to attain a given goal.
It is within this broad framework of values with regard to the ends or objectives we want to attain and the acceptable means to attain those ends that we begin to seek answers as to what makes people act – what motivates them – what makes them “tick.” Why does one person seem to drag his feet at every new suggestion? Why does another always seem to have to be the center of group activity? Why is being recognized as a leader so important to another?