Milton Rokeach The Nature Of Human Values 1973 Guide

These are your life goals—the final destinations you want to reach. Do you want a world at peace? A life of wisdom? Salvation? Family security? A sense of accomplishment? Examples: True Friendship, Inner Harmony, Mature Love, Self-Respect, Social Recognition. 2. Instrumental Values (The “Means”) These are your behavioral codes—the moral and competence-based rules you live by to reach those terminal destinations. Are you honest? Ambitious? Forgiving? Logical? Clean? Examples: Ambition, Honesty, Responsibility, Courage, Politeness, Independence. The genius is in the interaction. If your top Terminal Value is “A Comfortable Life,” you’ll likely prioritize Instrumental Values like “Ambition” and “Logic.” If your top Terminal Value is “Salvation,” you might prioritize “Forgiveness” and “Helpfulness.” The Famous “Value Survey” Rokeach created a simple but diabolical tool: the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) .

Why ranking? Because Rokeach understood that values are comparative. You can’t truly know what you value most until you are forced to choose. Do you value “Freedom” over “Equality”? “Self-Respect” over “Social Recognition”? The ranking reveals your true hierarchy. 1. The Stability Paradox Rokeach found that while instrumental values (like being polite or clean) could change with social pressure, terminal values (like salvation or self-respect) were remarkably stable across adulthood. Your destination changes slowly; your daily driving habits might shift more often. milton rokeach the nature of human values 1973

We love to talk about what we believe—politics, religion, lifestyle. But how often do we stop to examine how we believe? What is the actual architecture of a human value? These are your life goals—the final destinations you

He gave people a list of 18 Terminal Values and 18 Instrumental Values. Then he asked them to —not rate them on a scale, but literally rank them from 1 to 18. Salvation

Rokeach didn’t just ask, “What do people value?” He asked a deeper question: How do values actually work as a system? Rokeach’s core argument is simple yet profound: A value is an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally preferable to its opposite.

When Rokeach administered his survey across the U.S., he found a fascinating split. The top Terminal Value was often “Family Security,” while “Freedom” ranked highly but “Equality” ranked surprisingly low (often #7–12). Meanwhile, the top Instrumental Value was almost always “Honest,” followed by “Ambitious.”