You Don't Choose Your Values. You Embody Them

All behavior supports what we care about.

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As anyone who has read this substack knows, I like to talk about Values. In large part, this focus on Values stems from my introduction to and subsequent ongoing studies into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and the underlying philosophies of Relational Frame Theory (RFT), behaviorism, and functional contextualism that support it. From those philosophies and informed by studies in a few notable others, I’ve developed a framework that I use both as a personal philosophy and in my work as a mental health therapist and mentor.

For the first in a series of articles that details the basic tenets of what I refer to as Relational-ACT, the link below can start you off.

If you don’t want to read all of that right now, the following definition of Values is what I work from:

Values are the cognitive flip-side of an emotional state, the socially embedded verbalized meaning we share.

There are two things here concerning Values that are important to understand and will be helpful then in seeing why I have disagreements with how the term is often used by others.

One, Values are a cognitive label, an evaluative tool for identifying why you’re having an emotional reaction to something. With this is the recognition that we do not have an emotional response, itself an evaluation, to something we don’t care about or are apathetic about. We cannot share our internal emotional reactions except through tools of shared meaning.

Let’s be extra clear here. Nobody has access to your internal world except for you, and even that is curtailed by the fact that you don’t have access to the neurological mechanisms that underlie what gives you your thoughts/emotions. The only way for you to share your emotions and/or thoughts with others is to do so through the medium of behavior in some form. Admittedly, this can be a problem since other people don’t have access to your inner world, their interpretation of your behavior (bodily or verbal) is their own, based on their internal world. This is why dialogue and skeptical inquiry is so important, as being critical is the only way to increasingly get better at sharing one’s internal world with others in a way that is mutually understood.

Two, Values are verbal tools for sharing meaning in a social context. Because communication is socially embedded, the definitions and associated behaviors to support those Values are not always agreed upon; hence, again, there is a need for critical dialogue.

From these two principles, there are a couple effects:

One, all behavior is based on supporting Values, as defined by the person within a social context. This goes to the heart of understanding why people do what they do. People’s actions are instrumental in that all behavior serves the purpose of highlighting to themselves and others what they find important and how they want such to appear in the world.

If you want to know what a person cares about, look at their behavior.

If you disagree with their behavior, the misalignment from Values to behavior is not in the other person but in yourself. Either you aren’t identifying accurately what the person cared about to support their behavior, or you disagree with the actions that support what they care about. An easy example is the Value of family, where a person can care about family but do so through all sorts of behaviors that others will disagree with. The debate to be had isn’t in the Value of family, which everyone agrees is important, but how each person defines family and its connection to broader worldviews or ideologies that support those definitions and associated behavior.

Two, we are always juggling how to support what we care about, given the inherent limitations of the world we live in and the bodies we have. For example: a person can care about honesty, a Value, and yet lie to save the life of someone because the Value of life, also a Value, is at that moment considered more important. Another example: a person can care about health, a Value, and yet eat unhealthy foods because at that moment, pleasure, also a Value, was personally more important.

The disconnect between a particular behavior and a Value is not a sign that the person doesn’t care about it but that another Value is more important at that moment. This doesn’t mean the behavior is ultimately correct, as that concerns broader ethical considerations, but at no time is the person acting contrary to what they care about, e.g., their Values.

Values Confusion

With that structure in place, we can start to see where a lot of confusion can happen when discussing Values, particularly if the starting definition is different.

For a different perspective, and one that I disagree with, we can turn to an article by Dr. Jeff Perron:

Are You Living Your Own Values - or Someone Else's?

Importantly, Dr. Perron defines Values as “things you care about deeply. They’re often core to your identity.” What constitutes those things is left entirely vague, posing problems later. Adding identity here is needlessly confusing, not only because nobody has only one, but using the qualifier “often” results in further questions, as in what criteria determine whether a Value is or isn’t attached to an identity, that are never answered. This definition seems to see Values as if they are directional road signs, directing attention to a destination. However, even this analogy doesn’t work, as road signs are defined in particular ways, which is likely why “intrinsic” and “instrumental” are added in an attempt to help with clarity.

But, it can be hard to figure out which of your values are intrinsic rather than instrumental, so let me clarify:

An intrinsic value is something you value for its own sake. You care about your intrinsic values even when they get you nothing else.

An instrumental value is something you value because it gets you something else. It is a means to an end.

For example, most people have their own happiness as one of their intrinsic values – they care about feeling happy, even if that happiness doesn’t create any additional benefits. On the other hand, people value money only instrumentally. If they couldn’t use that money to get something else, it would have no value to them. (Perron)

Unfortunately, adding “intrinsic” and “instrumental” isn’t as helpful as desired. If a value is simply a stand-in term for something someone cares about, then the question to ask is: why does the person care about it? Or, what purpose does caring about this value serve? With that in mind, everything a person values is instrumental in that valuing it serves a purpose. The only thing that changes is the direction in which the purpose, Value, directs one’s behavior.

The examples provided only add to the confusion. According to Dr. Perron, for happiness to be intrinsic, it must serve no purpose other than to exist. However, happiness isn’t some floating entity we connect with; it’s a physiological appraisal concerning one’s personal context to which we apply an emotional label. People are happy for reasons, and not always healthy ones, but that’s a separate issue. As an appraisal, happiness does, in fact, serve a purpose as an evaluation of one’s state of mind. People are, in other words, happy to be happy. People pursue happiness because experiencing it serves as a way to say that what they’ve done or who they believe themselves to be is good. This is easily noted by asking “Why are you happy?” and hearing all the person’s actions, or self-appraisal, that led them to this result.

As well, the usage of money and happiness is a peculiar comparison as the two are as different as apples and walnuts. Money is, by definition, a socially created tool and, therefore, is intrinsically instrumental. Nobody values money for its own sake. Doing so is impossible by the very nature of what money is. Using happiness and money as examples of comparison only further obscures what Value means.

Values as Directing Behavior?

To attempt to make sense of the confusion, rather than “intrinsic” and “instrumental,” what could be said is that Values are directional tools for guiding behavior, either inward or outward, corresponding then to “intrinsic” and “instrumental.”

Viewed this way, where Values are directional labels for appraising behavior, helps to possibly make sense of another point Dr. Perron makes:

Parts of the cultural milieu, including social media and targeted advertising, might influence us to desire things that don’t necessarily align with our values. (Perron)

However, with this, we get into an odd situation where advertising, in its power to influence behavior, somehow removes the individual as the decision-maker. This is where such statements from people like “That wasn’t the real me” or “I got taken over by my feelings” are entirely false. At no time are you ever not yourself, though the actions you do may not be in alignment with the self-deceived image you have of yourself now or who you want to be in the future.

The thing is, nobody exists cut off from influences of variable effect. The question that seems to be avoided here is: why is the person influenced? Or, what is important to them, i.e. a Value, that, to use the example of advertising, directs their attention to in a particular way? Health, social connections, achievement, social status - all these things are Values supported behaviorally in different ways. Advertising is just a medium through which a particular behavior is encouraged to be performed in connection to something someone cares about. The result may not align with a particular Value, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t in alignment with another. For instance, buying an expensive item aligns with the Value of social status, but it may be contrary to the Value of financial security. The disparity is an issue of ethics, not whether a person is acting on their Values.

This disparity and the associated ethical issues is where Dr. Perron seems to draw attention to next:

A trap that people fall into sometimes is pursuing their instrumental values even when doing so doesn’t do a good job of producing what they intrinsically value. (Perron)

We’ve already noted that all Values, connected as they are to behavior, are instrumental, so what seems to be at issue here is a disconnect between a person’s desired or stated goal and the actual outcome of their behavior. Again, that’s an issue of ethics and our capacity for self-deception.

Values Clarity Leads to Flexibility

The problem being explored isn’t simply one of languaging but concern about how people think of themselves and whether such increases their flexible ability to pursue new directions in life. Everything we do is for a purpose. That purpose may be based on ignorance, foolishness, or be poorly aligned with other goals, but at no time are we ever removed from the connection between what matters to us (Values) and the behavior we do to support those things. Nefarious forces like advertising are not taking us over, nor are we ever not being ourselves.

The desired outcome when discussing Values is increasing self-awareness and responsibility based on a consistent structure for understanding our decision-making processes.

In a broad sense, we are never acting contrary to our Values. Yes, specific behavior may not support a specific one in the best way possible, or we may be supporting a different Value than what we’re verbally stating to others or even ourselves. However, self-deception and social influence about what is and isn’t acceptable help influence the stories we make up about ourselves. For instance, it’s socially frowned upon to declare a desire for power/influence, yet that’s precisely a Value we often support in our actions.

Rather than second-guessing our Values, we can acknowledge that we want different things at different times and sometimes more than one thing at a time. Taking responsibility for our actions is about noting the difficulty we face in making ethical decisions in the face of multiple possible behavioral choices and that the consequences of our actions are not always something we have control over.

Instead of considering whether we’re aligned with a Value, we should ask whether the actions we commit to in support of them will help lead to the outcome we want. This encourages spending less time thinking of our thoughts as magic and more time reflecting on the concreteness of our behavioral effects.

Meaning and purpose in life, tied as it is to well-being, is not simply a matter of getting right with your “core,” “central,” base” or some other qualifier of Values, it’s about connecting behavior with outcomes, of seeing what we do as having an effect. Values are simply a way of connecting us to one another through shared socially constructed meaning. In that, they are a powerful tool to begin a dialogue, particularly when the behavior in support of them is disagreed with. However, it’s at the level of ethics, the worldview that supports it, and our behavior's effects on the environment, of which we and everything else we care about is included, where meaning and purpose get fleshed out and struggled with.

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