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In a broad sense, “values” refer to what people find important in life. Each of the three main theories of values in the psychology of personality and individual differences proposes a slightly different definition of values. Earliest was Allport (1961; Allport and Vernon 1931), who defined values in motivational terms as interests or dominating forces in life. Second was Rokeach (1973), who defined values in cognitive terms as enduring beliefs that a specific mode of conduct or end state of existence is personally or socially preferable. Most recently, Schwartz (1992) proposed a model that combines both these traditions. He defined values as beliefs (the cognitive element) that differ in their motivational content (the motivational element). More formally, Schwartz (1992) defined values as beliefs about “trans-situational goals, varying in importance, that serve as the guiding principles in the life of a person...
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Cieciuch, J., Schwartz, S.H. (2020). Values. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_1509
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