Values

Values

A **value** is anything that anyone considers to be important or worthwhile. Values are subjective; they tell us more about the person who holds the value than about what is valued. Values arise from experience and our understanding of that experience.

Act and Experience Values Cycle The **values cycle** models the process by which we form our values and act upon them. As children, we act based on the cosmology of others (Premoral). As we mature morally, our acts reflect our own cosmology (Moral). Our acts construct experiences that we understand in the context of a cosmology. We form individual values and contribute to the values of various collectives (groups). This leads to future acts and the process repeats again and again.
 * Act ** is the process of doing a deed that creates experience. **Experience** refers to living through events that shape us as persons by providing the stuff out of which we form our values. Experiences can be either direct or indirect depending on whether or not the experience is mediated. //Watch the game in person versus on television.// Experiences can be spontaneous or managed //Product placement in the grocery store. // Some experiences lend themselves to being valued or disvalued. **Prepayback** can be overvalued because the best results occur first, then decline with time even when stimulus increases //Addictions.// **Postpayback** can be disvalued because the worst results occur first, then improve even when the stimulus decreases //Learning to r////ead.//