Individual and Group Values

Because values, defined as generalized criteria of desirability, are deeply involved in all of the specialized areas treated in this volume, much of the needed analysis is implicit in other articles. There remains a need to render explicit the first-order tasks for making data on values a viable part of societal self-awareness and self-direction, in an age of Great Societies. Values are important causal compo nents in individual conduct and in the functioning of social systems. To develop adequate indicators for the needed analysis will require major efforts and much ingenuity. Yet practicable methods already are available for the systematic empirical study of values. Because of the lack in the past of standardized measures and comprehensive reporting, the existing data are scanty, fragmentary, and diffuse. Yet cau tious and imaginative use of existing information has added to our knowledge of distinctive value patterns in the United States, and some illuminating comparisons have been made with other societies. Better data and more explicit analysis of value problems will enhance effectiveness of goal-achievement, widen the scope of awareness in decision-making, and provide enhanced capacities for sensing limits and hazards in current societal trends and policies. That new problems thereby will be created is inevitable, and not undesirable.