2.1 Values and behaviour

Your work on Activities 1 and 2 might have got you thinking about how values could influence your behaviour and actions in the following areas:

• where you work or volunteer
• who your friends are
• how you interact with others
• why you might have been in conflict with another person, your team or your manager (if you have one).

You can build on this by thinking about statements such as ‘I like volunteering for the local hospital’. This is considered to be an ‘attitude’ rather than a value and stems from a desire to do some social good. Other factors may also influence actions: in this example, choosing to volunteer may also be about filling spare time or gaining useful skills for obtaining paid work. Therefore, theorists argue that values are the bedrock for attitudes, which guide people’s actions (see Figure 3). A caveat to this statement is that people do not always act in a rational way: human nature can be inconsistent and contradictory.

Figure 3 How values drive our actions

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This figure has three columns and three rows. From left to right, the first column shows two upward pointing arrows and the rows (reading from the bottom upwards) are labelled values, attitudes and actions. The next two columns are labelled definition and example. The bottom row of values, under definition, says ‘What is important to me?’; then under example, it says ‘I think it is important to look after people in need’. The next row up of attitudes, under definition, says ‘What are my feelings towards the issue? (Could be negative and/or positive.)’ and under example says ‘I think voluntary organisations do a good job in looking after people in need’. The top row of actions, under definition says ‘What am I doing about the issue?’ and under example says ‘I volunteer for the Citizens Advice Bureau’.

Figure 3 How values drive our actions

Thinking about how values and attitudes influence or drive your behaviour can be important in a work context. Imagine you are asked to carry out a task that does not fit with your values. Would this result in conflict?

For some people in the workplace, there is such a mismatch between their own individual values and what they are asked to do (or something they have witnessed), that they are driven to the practice of ‘whistle-blowing’. This means reporting an organisation to the media. There have been many high-profile examples of this in the health service (poor care, abuse and neglect in Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust) and in technological scandals (Julian Assange and Edward Snowden). Legislation now exists in many countries to protect whistle-blowers and in the UK a charity, Public Concern at Work, provides support.