Introduction to
Sociology
Kathy Edwards
Lecture Two/Three
Values
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Ideals of a society
standards of good/bad; right/wrong
the goals we try to attain
what is important in a society
Core American Values
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These are the values shared by
the majority of people in the U.S.
American society is a pluralistic
society, made up of many varying
groups of people.
Core American Values
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Achievement/success,
individualism, activity/work,
efficiency/practicality,
science/technology, progress,
material comfort, humanitarianism,
freedom, democracy, equality,
group superiority, education,
religiosity, love/monogamy
Core American Values
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Physical fitness
self fulfillment
environmentalism
leisure
youth
Core American Values
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People become threatened by
changes of values or creation of
new values, or when values
contradict.
Group superiority threatens the
value of freedom, equality,
democracy.
Values
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Values may be dynamic, in
process and change.
Value contradictions are when
values contradict one another; to
follow one value means to come
into conflict with another value;
value contractions create social
change.
Value Clusters
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Series of inter-related values that
together form a larger whole:
work, education, efficiency,
material comfort, individualism
create the cluster of “success”.
The emergence in the 90’s of
leisure, self-fulfillment, physical
fitness, youth creates a new value
cluster.
Values
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Values do not change without
resistance.
Ideal culture: a society’s ideal
values, glorifies
Real culture: everyday life, the
values we follow daily
Sometimes basic survival prevents
us from meeting our ideal values:
such as death, accidents,
physical/mental illness, loss of job