We’ve gotten to know each other pretty well in the last few months, right everyone? And by everyone, I mean me. I’ve gotten to know myself fairly well. I know generally where I lie on the political spectrum. I know how good I am at sorting colors based on slight variations in their hue. I know how fast I can type and what animal I’d be if I were an animal, or if I could, like, get that power from Animorphs to turn into an animal as long as I didn’t stay stuck in its form for too long.
But a question came up during the recent leadership test I was doing: What are my values? Maybe an even better question: How the fuck did I not think to do this sooner?
As with most abstract concepts, I know exactly what values are but no clue how to actually define them. The first thought that came into my head was, no joke, “things that we value.” Yeah. I’m studying for my degree in Advanced Tautology from Obvious State University. In my defense, I think defining “values” fundamentally crosses into philosophical territory, so it’s not quite as plain as just, say, Googling the definition. That said, let’s Google the definition:
In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of some thing or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of different actions.
That’s from Wikipedia. Not a bad definition, I suppose. Weirdly enough, though, I think a better one comes from — and I’m not kidding — the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, and something it produced called “Ethics Unwrapped.” I mean, look at this:
Values are individual beliefs that motivate people to act one way or another. They serve as a guide for human behavior.
Generally, people are predisposed to adopt the values that they are raised with. People also tend to believe that those values are “right” because they are the values of their particular culture.
Bingo. That is a chef’s kiss of a definition. If you looked up the definition of a definition, that’s what you’d find, along with a drawing of a Mobius strip explaining the self-referential nature of all of this. So, values are beliefs that guide us on a day-to-day basis as we navigate life. That’s not so bad. Now, as for what my values are? That’s a tougher nut to crack. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of values out there, from Acceptance to Zeal. How do I even start to define mine?
The same way I do everything these days, of course. Let’s get testing!
Thankfully, values are one of the broader societal concepts. The ambiguity that comes from defining them also comes with a pretty sweet perk: everyone needs help finding their values. The more help people need, the more resources devoted to providing help. I Googled “what are my values quiz” and it came back with 952 million records. By comparison:
Googling “how do I find happiness” has 935 million results
Googling “coolest animals in the universe” has 4.72 million
“Space hippo is it real” has 28,500
“Praying to space hippo” has 3.28 million
“Is space hippo mad at me” has 3.65 million
“Space hippo forgiveness” has 798,000
As you can see, figuring out our values is a pretty hot topic. Nothing on this list of standard search terms comes that close to matching it, save for that outlandish first one. I shouldn’t have to work too hard to find something that helps me define my values, and I might even get something backed by some semblance of science. A boy can dream!
First, let’s go with this offering from Gyfted. It’s promising results in cool chart form, like so:
I kind of appreciate that Conformity and Hedonism have the same importance in this picture. “Young man, in this house we have rules! If you’re going to seek pleasure under my roof, you’re going to do it through exotic animal fights and Opium-laced chocolate, just like your grandfather and his father before him and his … “
Anyway. My instructions are to “Rank the given answers to the questions from most relatable to least relatable.” Easy enough. How did I do?
I think this is the first exploding radial chart I’ve gotten as a result, so hey, that’s a Quiz Pop Achievement™ right there! I’m noticing that the list of values remained the same from the sample picture, though. I have a hard time imagining these 10 things are the only values I align with, but this should at least help establish some broader themes. Case in point: Wow, look at that Benevolence score! What does it mean?
As a person who values benevolence, you embody kindness, charitableness, and compassion. You genuinely care for others' well-being and prioritize their needs. Your desire to make a positive impact is evident in your charitable activities and reputation for honesty, loyalty, and forgiveness.
Well that … that all reads as extremely true. I’ve always had a strong sense of justice, fairness, equality, etc. Perhaps the most scientific proof of all is that even my mom tells me that I was a child who always wanted fairness for everyone. Honesty, Loyalty and Forgiveness are all sort of thrown in at the end there, but they’re all sort of values too. I think all of that falling under the umbrella of “Benevolence” is a nice way to summarize it.
Next up we have a 27 question offering from Talent Transformation. Hit me with the overview:
This quiz will present 27 value-based statements with five choices to indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with each statement. Reading, understanding, and responding to the statements will enable us to provide a helpful report and help you better understand your values and what inspires and discourages you.
Please do not spend too much time on each item. Just select the choice that best represents how you feel. There are no right or wrong answers.
Again, easy enough. Glad to see that knowing how to define “values” is hard but taking a test to find your values is pretty easy. Let’s see what this one gives me:
Alright, nothing too groundbreaking here. Definitely nothing that asks me what video game character I’d be. Like, say, this:
Like a pitcher throwing a perfect game, 27 questions came up and 27 questions went down. I have one pretty big problem with this test, which I’ll get to in a moment. First, the results:
According to this, I value a lot of stuff. Respect, Equality/Justice, Conservation look like the top three, but Achievement and Freedom are pretty high too. Really the only low scorer was Tradition, which makes sense to me. I’m not much of a traditionalist. Sure, I like them when they’re silly and fun, like opening a single present on Christmas Eve. I don’t like them when they’re used to, say, justify doing things the same way without improvement or policing the bodily autonomy of women.
The bigger problem I have is that all the questions sounded awesome. For the most part, they were some variant of “I like it when I feel heard!” “I like a fun and exciting environment!” “I dislike being micromanaged! Grr!” I don’t really feel like there’s much of a real struggle here, is the point. Almost everything in here sounded great in and of itself. I kind of need something that compares them among themselves.
Actually, this gives me an idea. It’s time for a Pairwise Comparison! (!!)
Simply put, a pairwise comparison helps determine voter preference by pitting all candidates against each other in round-robin, A vs. B matchups. In theory, this will help you get to the ultimate ranking of each thing. Let’s say you have four distinct items and you need to know their rankings. For the sake of deliciousness, let’s use candy bars:
Kit Kat
Twix
Snickers
NECCO Wafers
(I was gonna make No. 4 something fake and revolting, like Vomitbar or Urine Bites or Cloaca Crunch, but then I realized I could just plug in NECCO Wafers and get something real and revolting.)
Using a cool pairwise testing tool from our friends at AllOurIdeas, I set up a simple test and started voting. I voted 20 times — admittedly overkill, since a four-item test only really needs six — and established the hierarchy:
This makes total sense because I love Kit Kat, I generally prefer the crunch of a Twix over a Snickers, and NECCO Wafers are a tool Satan uses to punish other demons when they get don’t keep the lava lake hot enough or whatever. Four ideas entered, four ideas ranked.
Now let’s get a little larger and more abstract by creating a test for 200-plus values I cobbled together from various websites. If I do that, and I spend a lot of time clicking and voting, I bet I’ll get a top 10 that separates itself pretty neatly from the rest of the pack. Assuming no redundancy in the values, that is.
Now we’re talking! I’m gonna get to clicking and see what happens. Talk to you guys in a few hours.
[150 Clicks Later]
Alright, a couple hours became a few days because I went out of town for the weekend, so I only got through 150 A/B matchups. The early returns?
Alright, so obviously these numbers are pretty round, since I’ve only considered 150 pairings out of the 1.1205075580064413918282465787428850331618234483620107256641 × 10^426 possibilities. But it’s kind of starting to shape up like I’d expect. Vision, Kindness and Commitment are in the top spots, with Welcoming, Thoughtful, Service, Originality and Individuality not far behind. That tracks with some of the benevolence/lack of conformity/justice results I’ve seen so far. Put more simply, it tells me that I value kindness, fairness, and an egalitarian sort of world more than I do a traditional, hierarchical one where competition and overdrive levels of work are the focus.
I guess that’s probably enough for the time being — especially since Substack is warning me I’m near the email length limit! — but I promise to update this once I’ve clicked 5,000 times. It’s a cliffhanger!