Procedia

Social and
Behavioral
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000
Sciences
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 30 (2011) 1390 – 1394
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

WCPCG-2011

Examination of Personal Values System and Its Changes Among

Young People
Mohammad Hassan Asayesha*, Hamid bahramizadeha
a
Department of Psychology, University of Tehran, P. O. Box 14155-6456, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was investigated youth values system and it’s changing in male and female to answer this
question whether a change in values has been created. The results of this study are compared with previous studies. Eighty-seven
(33 male, 54 female) students from Semnan University in Iran were participated in this study. All participants completed the
Personal Values Questionnaire (PVQ). The results showed that there is no significant difference between male and female in
Religious, social, Public, Aesthetic, Economic, Knowledge, Hedonism, Power, Health values. Compared with the previous
studies these findings showed that male and female has changed. In comparison to the previous findings, these findings show that
the male and female’s values have undergone some changes. But there is a significant difference between the two genders
regarding value of family face. These findings work as warring toward the reduction of families’ power in transferring the
appropriate values to each gender. Finally, regarding the key role of family in transferring the values to their children, it is
suggested that parents consult with the experts for having a mental and emotional communication with their children and
internalization cultural values in them.

Keywords: values system, Religious value, social value, Public value, Aesthetic value, Economic value, Knowledge value,
Hedonism value, Power value, Health value.

1. Introduction

Nowadays, science, industry and modernity are increasingly improving, and in line with these changes the
individual life style, social-cultural values, and also individual and family values are changing. Identity and
acquiring acceptable values is one the main challenges of teenagers and adolescents (Triandis, Bontempo, Villarel,
Asia, & Lucca, 1998; Lea, Pulkkinen, Katja Kokko, 2000). While some studies have reported some differences
between two genders in terms of accepting the values, some others have observed similarity between them. Feder
(Khalife, 1999) concluded that female teenagers compare with male ones, take more notice of religious and moral
values such as honesty and integrity. Beutel and Marini (1995) express that male adolescents pay more attention to
values relevant to physical vigour and social dignity, while females have more emphasis on beauty and truthfulness.
In contrast, some studies believe in similarity between two genders regarding these values. Mekernan and Russel
believe in similar values among males and females; in other words, they suggested that both genders emphasize on

*
Mohammad Hassan Asayesh. Tel: +989139678933
E-mail address: [email protected]

1877-0428 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the 2nd World Conference on Psychology, Counselling and Guidance.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.10.270
 Mohammad Hassan AsayeshHassan
Mohammad and Hamid bahramizadeh
Asayesh/ Procedia /–Procedia - Social
Social and and Behavioral
Behavioral Sciences
Sciences 00 30 (2011) 1390 – 1394
(2011) 000–000 1391

freedom, honesty, health, happiness and world peace (Hyland, 2003; Unger, 1995; Rothearam – Borus, Dopkins,
Sabate, lightfoot, 2001).

Family is an important social institute for learning the values. It, in the light of cultural criteria, determines favorable
and unfavorable values for children (Suchulthesis, & Blustein, 1994; Solomontos-Kountouri, & Hurry, 2007). At the
early stages of life, the world of value judgments is, due to lack of a definite referent framework, broad and
unlimited. At the beginning of the life, child is without conscience or a criterion for values, and, as a result, behaves
immorally; at the other hand, his/her moral contract improves in the light of his/her relationships with others, say,
family and friends- being punished or rewarded in response to wrongdoings or well-doings (Kerjcie, Morgan, 1970;
Suchulthesis, & Blustein, 1994). Compare with boys, girls take more notice of religious values such as honesty and
integrity. Also, it was expressed that women respect religious values more than men. Researchers attribute it to the
differences in social role of two genders and expected social behavior of them (Linley, &Joseph, 2004; Rokeach,
1973; Padilla-Walker, 2007).

Manochehr Mohseni (2000), in a research entitled “examination of socio-cultural behaviors, attitudes and
perceptions in Tehran” has examined the behavioral traits, intellectual experiences and social-mental traits of
residents of Tehran in their own views. The results of this research, which was performed on 2320 citizens, were as
followed:

1. Difference in attitudes towards dignity: women take more notice of it.

2. Difference in attitudes towards prestige: men take notice of it more than women, but there is no
significant relation between these two variables.
3. Difference in attitudes towards credit: there is no difference in both genders opinion about credit.
4. Difference in attitudes toward the value of knowledge: there was no statistical difference between
two variables of gender and knowledge; both genders have identical views about the importance of
knowledge.
5. Difference in attitudes towards wealth (economy): there is no statistically significant relation
between these two variables.
6. Difference in attitudes towards health: almost all people put a high value on it and there is no
difference in the attitudes of men and women towards it.

Personal identity of adolescents appears in the form of practical believes. The study of cultural pathology is of such
great importance that negligence of it would result in weakening of individual and cultural identity of nations.
Values are of such importance that Anglehard (1999) observes that “if you want to peacefully revolt in a country, try
to change its values”. Generally, values as a part of our individual and social identity help to our identity
configuration, and in many cases, identity is directly related to individual’s values (Watson, Lysonski, Gillan, &
Raymore, 2002). Values not only help to identity configuration, but also have a key role in resolving identity crisis.
Values lead to both personal and social identities. Successful solution of identity crisis, through adjusting positive
and clear values, will protect teenagers against many social traumas (Ghasemi et al., 2003); so, examination of
values in adolescents is so important. Given to this fact, the main purpose of this study is the examination of value
system and its variation among boys and girls. The results would be compared with previous results in order to make
it known if any change has occurred in values, and how these changes, if any, can be accounted for (Rothearam –
Borus, Dopkins, Sabate, & lightfoot, 2001).

2. Method

2.1. Participants

Given to the descriptive nature of this study, we have chosen menstruation or cross-sectional method for collecting
our data. Our population is all newcomer students of university of Semnan in 2007. The examination was performed
on a sample of 100 people, but 13 people were omitted due to their mistakes on filling the questionnaires, and as a
result the analysis was performed on 87 people (33 boys, 54girls) through voluntary sampling.
1392 Mohammad Hassan Asayesh
Mohammad Hassanand HamidProcedia
Asayesh/ bahramizadeh / Procedia
– Social - Social Sciences
and Behavioral and Behavioral Sciences
00 (2011) 30 (2011) 1390 – 1394
000–000

2.2. Measure

Personal Values Questionnaire (PVQ). Personal values were assessed through Personal Values Questionnaire
(PVQ) (translated by Karami, 1999). This questionnaire consists of 10 sub-scales that are: 1) religious value 2)
social value 3) public value 4) aesthetic value 5) economic value 6) knowledge value 7) pleasure seeking value 8)
power value 9) family credit value 10) health value.
Reliability coefficient for second tests on all values through test- retest method, which were conducted 2months and
11 months after first test respectively, was above 0.53 (Abolfazl Karami, 1999).

2.3. Procedure

At the beginning of a lecture, students were invited to participate in the study. It was emphasized that participation
was not obliged. The students who agreed to participate, filled out an informed consent. Then the questionnaires
were administered in a random order to avoid order effects in the data.

3. Results

The results of this study suggests that regarding religious value, social value, public value, aesthetic value, economic
value, knowledge value, hedonism value, power value, and health value there is no significant difference between
boys and girls that comparing with previous studies indicates that their values has changed; but regarding family
credit there is a significant difference between two genders.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and mean differences by gender

Male Female Male Female

N N M (SD) M (SD)

1.Religious 33 54 13.78 (4.54) 14.59 (3.05)

2. Social value 33 54 7.18 (3.11) 8.16 (2.47)
3. Public 33 54 10.84 (2.81) 11.12 (3.31)
4.Aesthetic 33 54 9.75 (3.20) 11.01 (3.31)
5. Economic 33 54 14.33 (4.12) 12.75 (3.38)
6. Knowledge 33 54 14.03 (2.32) 14.59 (3.08)
7. Hedonism 33 54 15.21 (3.37) 14.77 (2.85)
8. Power value 33 54 11.24 (2.93) 10.62 (2.91)
9. family 33 54 10.93 (2.83) 8.74 (3.23)
10. Health 33 54 10.69 (2.39) 11.53 (2.57)

Table 2. Independent Samples Test (between men and women)

T df sig Mean difference SD

1.Religious -0.98 85 0.32 -0.08 0.81
2. Social value -1.63 85 0.10 0.98 0.21
3. Public -0.48 85 0.63 0.28 0.87
4.Aesthetic -1.74 85 0.08 -1.26 0.17
5. Economic 1.94 85 0.06 1.57 0.31
6. Knowledge 0.90 85 0.37 -0.56 0.67
7. Hedonism 0.64 85 0.52 0.43 1.77
8. Power value 0.94 85 0.34 0.61 1.89
9. family 3.21 85 0.00 2.19 3.58
10. Health -1.1 85 0.133 -0.84 0.26
 Mohammad Hassan Asayesh Hassan
Mohammad and Hamid bahramizadeh
Asayesh/ Procedia /–Procedia - Social
Social and and Behavioral
Behavioral Sciences
Sciences 00 (2011) 30 (2011) 1390 – 1394
000–000 1393

4. Discussion

Previous studies had suggested the importance of family as the main institute for acquiring values, but this study has
concluded a decline in this role of families, and reminds the role of counsellors, educational preceptors,
psychologists, and organizations related to family and adolescents such as education ministry, universities, assembly
of parents and preceptors and … in instructing families, contributing in value transferring, and offering logic and
prejudice-free plans for adolescents. Finally, given to the key role of family in transferring the suitable values to
children, it is offered that families make a functional and counselling relation with experts in order to have positive
notional and emotional relations with their children and internalize suitable values on them.

Previous studies including Feder had reached to this conclusion that interpersonal values between two genders are
different but unlike the previous studies, in the current study it was observed significant difference between values
of two genders. It can be explained referring to the following (Khalife, 2000):

1. The modern world is changing and moving quickly. Recent improvement has led to the same and similar
facilities for all and therefore has increased participation of women in the society and in occupations that was
considered for males only, at a time. So the presence of women in different levels of society has changed some
values.
2. Identical education at school has caused all the persons to receive identical information relatively.
3. Comprehensive and all-round growth of the media in the arena of life and outstanding presence of women
in various media has caused the women with men values and men with women values be familiar that historically
has been considered stereotypical values for each gender. So the same familiar values in the opposite genders have
provided a background for decreasing difference in values. Moreover media depicts identical values and has had a
major role in decreasing differences.

Generally, rapid social change and modern life that has brought women to the presence in different fields has made
them identical with men in production, and social roles have had a very major role in decreasing difference between
values. Also this study has limitations, including it has not considered other efficient factors in values. So it suggests
for feature studies to examine changing in values with the other factors.
Another limitation of this study is using as a cross-sectional method. A background is investigating the changing
values using longitudinal methods.
Beside the theoretical significance of these findings, it promotes our understanding of cultural pathology. Despite theoretically-
relevant findings some important study limitations warrant consideration. First, this study relied on self-report of values. Second,
this study used a cross-sectional design to examine the change in values. Longitudinal research is needed to establish temporal
associations.

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– Social - SocialSciences
and Behavioral and Behavioral Sciences
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