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- Info
How changes in the economy are reshaping American values
| Author: |
Yankelovich, Daniel |
| Date: |
1994 |
| Periodical: |
In: Aaron, Henery J.; Mann, Thomas E.; Taylor, Timothy, eds. Values and Public Policy. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institute |
| Abstract: |
The impact of affluence on peoples' values has proved powerful but curiously indirect. Economic changes do not by themselves transform values; what does is people's perceptions of their own, and their nation's, affluence (referred to throughout this paper as "the affluence effect"). There is, of course, a link between perceptions and reality. But the link is distorted. People often feel poor when they are objectively well-off, and well-off when they are actually growing poorer. In some nations, people who are relatively well-off feel poorer than their neighbors in other nations, and vice versa. Except at the extremes of the economic spectrum among the very rich and the very poor, value changes are mediated by people's interpretations of their own economic condition and its future prospects, interpretations that lag behind objective economic reality as an economist might describe it. To explore the impact on values of the affluence effect, this paper is organized into three parts. The "Overview" develops the hypothesis that the affluence effect is a powerful driver of changing cultural values, especially when seen in the context of America's most stable and enduring values. "Truth and Relevance" discusses how the hypothesis of the affluence effect bears on the purpose of this book, namely, to consider whether formal economic analysis ought to expand its scope to take values into account in its search for solutions to America's social and economic problems. "Major Changes in Values" draws on the large body of survey research findings to identify six areas of value changes influenced by the affluence effect: greater tolerance and acceptance of pluralism; sweeping changes in family related values; the changing meaning of success; a new relationship between work and leisure; changes in social morality; and new values in relation to health and physical well-being. |
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