What are social values?

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Societies are not only defined by their institutions, the socioeconomic system that governs them or the government policies that characterize them, but they are also constituted by the social values that guide them.

Human beings not only live in society, we are that society. Each of us is a social being that acts, lives and dies in a social structure that shapes what we are. This fabric guides the way individuals and groups act, live, be and relate. To do this, it is based on certain social values, among other pillars.

A value, on a personal level, can be understood as a set of beliefs and attitudes that a person expresses, based on certain principles considered positive and important, which give meaning and direction to their life. It’s something she would be willing to give her life for or want to continue living for. But, on a social level, what are values? What functions do they have?

Social values

Social values give meaning to our lives.

The values They are qualities that guide actions and provide full meaning to life, when you live in tune with them. In society, values perform the same functions as on a personal level, they give direction to the behaviors of people and groups within the social structure.

We can say that Social values are qualities, attitudes, and standards that individuals and groups use to guide their actions. These values are the foundation for establishing social order within groups. Through them, a society determines what is acceptable and what is not, what should be done or be and what should not, what is desirable and what is not.

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Social values carry with them a set of implicit and explicit conceptions about the desire and action of a subject within the social fabric. So that, They set the tone for social behavior, according to the context and situation. This type of values encourages citizens to align their actions with the character of society.

With the introjection of these values, Societies seek to promote and maintain harmony in the mental world of the individual. By operating as guides, people can know how to act and relate to others in particular situations. Thanks to them, interactions between citizens can be strengthened and good coexistence can be guaranteed.

In relation to social knowledge, values allow the construction of the social world, facilitating the relationship between individuals and reality. Through them each person configures their conceptions about the social world in which they live, and the system disseminates the current regulations of society.

People extract information through interaction with their environment. This information requires organization and classification, so that it can be structured into an understanding of the social environment. To do this, one of the means used are social values, which appear as organizational principles that shape the social world.

Social values not only facilitate the construction and organization of the social world, they also allow the social identification of subjects. Each person develops a bond with those groups that share their own personal value systems. It is precisely this process of adhering to a group that forges the social identity of said person within it.

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If each group and person has its own value system, then we can find as many social values as there are groups. Therefore, we can say that values are not only reduced to society in general, they are also specific to the groups or collectives that have been formed within it.

In each group or society, these values are transmitted from generation to generation through education, through which we seek to legitimize the order that these values have established within the group.

Types of social values

Respect, honesty, love, freedom or justice are examples of social values.

Social values can vary from one group to another, from one society to another, but there are some that can be extended to every society. Let’s see what they are.

I respect: allows a person to recognize, accept, appreciate and value the qualities of others and their rights.Honesty: It is a social value characterized by telling the truth, being decent, modest, respectful and fair.Justice: This value refers to being equitable and giving each person what is rightfully theirs.Tolerance: is respect for the beliefs and practices of other people when they are different from one’s own.Goodness: it is the tendency to do good. It also implies a considerable degree of compassion, of being and suffering with another’s suffering and looking for a way to alleviate it.Freedom: power to act according to one’s own criteria, within the limits established within society.Love: value that drives a person to care, respect and commit to the well-being of others without expecting a benefit in return. It is going out of oneself to meet the other to love them as they are.Tolerance: social value that leads to accepting and respecting the ideas, opinions or attitudes of others, even if one does not agree with them.Education: It is one of the most important values, since within it the other values can be taught. Education is properly the training of people, both intellectually, emotionally and morally.

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In closing, it is necessary to highlight that social values can change; They are not necessarily static. Rather they are dynamic, since society itself is dynamic.