Why do people give great importance to values? You don’t have to major in psychology in order to know the answer to this question. It is believed that values have a direct correlation to needs. In order to understand the importance of having values, one should first have to know its relationship to needs. Unlike animals that act on instinct, humans have the free will to choose how to respond to a particular situation. And the choices that we make are all based on the values that shaped our lives.
Basically, values are beliefs that we deem essential in life. Their primary function is to help us meet our needs. Abraham Maslow stated that humans have safety, social, physiological, self actualization and esteem needs. Maslow believes that as we attempt to satisfy our basic and high-level needs , these bring us to the dilemma of making a choice. For this reason, people are always faced with dilemmas that will likely affect their future. Remember that the decisions that you make in life will always have a direct effect on your future. That being said, you have to resolve life dilemmas basing on the values you believe in.
Values, in essence, shapes the way we think and respond to things or life circumstances. Every action is guided by one or more values, whether you may be aware of it or not. Maslow, in his studies, revealed that values can be classified in three types — defensive (unhealthy regression), coasting (healthy regression) and growth. People always have the desire to grow, and this is natural. But Maslow believed that we also need homeostatic values to achieve rest, peace and relaxation. Though more mature people typicall give bigger emphasis on growth values, coasting values are just as equally important. Defensive values, meanwhile, protect us from feeling pain, loss, fear and threat, but such type of values can greatly inhibit one’s growth.
In a general sense, values serve as our basis when setting priorities or resolving issues that we encounter as we live life. Our values essentially allow us to justify and explain our actions. That said, without our ability to formulate and act based on our values, living life in a human level is deemed non-existent. The values we learn and live by throughout life become our standard of importance and our voice of reason.
In conclusion, our values help us to make the right choices and come up with the best decisions in life. They are important in human development, since people continuously need to learn and grow, and they also allow us to remain fair and treat people equally without bias or prejudice. Values also help us to communicate more effectively in an honest and upright manner, which is essential for us to have a healthy social life. Most importantly, values give us the freedom to fulfill our responsibilities and make life decisions the way we see fit.