How do personal values affect the subjective perception of reality? Exploring the mechanisms that link values to psychological situation

My aim is to introduce and empirically test a model for explaining how personal values shape people’s perceptions of reality. Personal values are abstract and broad goals that serve as guiding principles in people’s lives. Values have been shown to predict people’s behaviors decisions and perceptions. Yet, links between values and perceptions have been studied only sporadically and with respect to perceptions of specific objects or events. Recent developments in research of situation perceptions point to taxonomies of basic dimensions through which people perceive reality (i.e., dimensions of psychological situations). These dimensions pertain to the main attributes that people notice when making sense of their environments.

In the present studies, I use Schwartz’s theory of personal values and incorporate a recent taxonomy of psychological situations to uncover the role of values in predicting how situations are perceived, and to explore how values and situation perceptions interact in predicting behavior. Specifically, I propose a number of routes through which values influence the psychological situation: (i) values influence the choice of objective situations people enter; (ii) fit between values and the objective situation predicts the evaluative aspects of the situation; (iii) values predispose individuals to notice opportunities for value expression; and (iv) values draw attention to the ways in which situations fall short of meeting value-related expectations. I also propose that optimism-pessimism will determine which of the latter two routes will predominate in the effect of values on the psychological situation. Finally, I propose that values interact with the psychological situation in determining behavior.

To test my predictions, I aim to conduct a series of 11 field studies and experiments. In the field studies I sample undergraduates and the working population to establish the external validity of the framework. In the experiments I use a variety of manipulation for each of the predictors in my model (i.e., values, optimism-pessimism, objective situations and psychological situations), across a variety of university and work contexts.

This research will be the first to systematically test the relationship between values and situation perceptions, through the use of a comprehensive taxonomy of psychological situations. This research will also be the first to test the conflicting effects that values may have on perceptions, by serving as both self-fulfilling motivators and judgmental standards. More generally this project tests the various mechanisms through which values are associated with perceptions. Finally, findings are expected to provide new insights about the manner in which psychological situations shape the relationships between values and behavior.