Theory of emotional relativity. Practical guide to the development of awareness and emotional intelligence. Inna Zakharova
development – a stable negative attitude towards oneself. A high level of personality development is trust, love and self-respect.
Values
All people have values and treasure them very much. But some things are valuable to one person and absolutely indifferent to the other. So why do we assign the value to some things and phenomena, but not to others? Value means importance, significance, benefit. On the one hand, it seems that value is a real characteristic of an object or phenomenon and significance and usefulness are not inherited from nature, but they are our subjective measures. We consider the value important and valuable only if it is involved in our life and we are truly interested in it, and therefore need.
All values can be divided into three groups. It is connected, as you may guess, with the existence of three psychological needs. One group of values satisfies security needs, receiving them, we feel calm and anxiety is releasing. Another list of values satisfies the need for love, receiving which we feel acceptance, we feel a deep connection with the object, we feel beautiful. And the third group of values – values that satisfy the need for respect, having received it, we feel strong, large, significant, cool.
It means that values serve our needs.
The existence of valuable, in our view, things and phenomena in our lives leads to satisfaction, and the absence, on the contrary, causes states of depression and dissatisfaction with life and ourselves. There are a lot of such values in our life; it is a whole system in which there is a hierarchy. We make all our decisions on the basis of this hierarchy of values from buying products in the store to choosing a partner for business or family life.
The hierarchy of values is a system of guidelines in all spheres of human life. Usually, if you ask a person what is important to him, you can hear the answer: family, children, work, travel, etc. These are all spheres of life, contexts in which we satisfy our needs for safety, love and respect.
There is also a hierarchy in the spheres of our life, someone devotes himself completely to work, and someone to the family. The truth is that the more spheres of life which we are realized in, the happier we are. Speaking of values, we, first of all, talk about the quality of life. To understand your values, you need to answer these questions:
What is important for me in my work?
What is important for me in relations with my parents?
What is important for me in relationships
with my partner?
What is important for me in relations with my children?
What does this subjective value depend on? Why does one person, buying a chair, pay attention to its reliability and durability, another to beauty and elegance, and the third one to the price. Moreover, it’s important for someone to buy cheaper to save resources, and for someone more expensive to emphasize their capabilities and significance.
The individual internal hierarchy of psychological needs prioritizes values exactly.
Nominalization
You must have noticed that different people, speaking the same definitions, often mean the different experiences that lie behind them. For example, when you say “I will be soon”, what period of time do you mean? “Soon” – it is when? Is it 5—10 minutes, 1—1.5 hours, immediately? To feel what we are talking about, answer yourself this question, and then ask it to your relatives.
Nominalization means words that do not denote a specific object, their meaning is often subjective and can be interpreted in different ways. Examples: happiness, support, individuality, control – each of these concepts can be understood in different ways by different people.
To estimate your values, you need to be as sincere with yourself as possible, it is 100% individual work, you have to unveil on your own what experience and meaning are behind such words as “love”, “support”, “freedom”, “responsibility”, “respect”, “justice”, etc. Sometimes people say: “I need your support”, but actually they feel the lack of love, presence, the other person’s attention and call all these things “support”.
“Support” as a value which means the need for security, is not only the presence or approval of another person, support implies very often specific actions, assistance in some business, taking on some responsibility. In this case, support will have a broader meaning. Of course, there are situations when it’s enough to be near and just say: “Well done! Everything is Ok! Do as you do.” Such support helps to resolve internal doubts which sound something like this: “Am I on the right way? Am I looking in the right direction? Am I normal? Am I good?” In this case, approval really gives strength, because confirmation from a significant person weakens doubts and self-confidence increases.
“Attention” means the need for love, and when it comes to this, it is enough just the presence of another person nearby. A man can do nothing for you now, but if he looks at you with a keen look, catches your every word, at the very moment you feel loved, special, beautiful internally and externally. There is a message “you are what I need now”, it creates a very favorable state and satisfies the need for communication and acceptance.
In the same way we very often put different concepts into the word “freedom”. The value of “freedom” is more related to the need for respect. Freedom is to do what I want, I decide what I do, no one can limit me in making decisions, in actions, in movements. It is important to understand that such freedom cannot exist without responsibility. If I’m in charge, I make decisions, so I’m responsible for everything. Thus, the need for respect is satisfied and in this case:
However, there is another kind of freedom that satisfies the need for security. In this case, a person feels safe when he is free FROM expectations, FROM responsibility, FROM obligations. We also call such freedom “childish freedom”.
Freedom = Carelessness, the absence of responsibility
How do Values Form and Where do they Come from?
Why is one kind of values important and other kinds are not so significant? Why do different people have different values?
Someone, for example, is ready to shout aloud, give up relations, leave work, remain without means of living in order to prove justice. This behavior will indicate that for a person at the moment the most important is the need for respect.
Another person will remain silent in the same situation, tolerate the fact that nobody listens to his opinion, it will be more important for him that he knows where he will be tomorrow, what he will eat and that somebody will take care of him if such a need arises. This is about the need for security.
And the third case, when the need for love is leading: “My God, it doesn’t matter if I have any justice or work, I can give up it at any time, if my love requires me to go to the world’s end, the main thing is that we are together, together we can cope with anything.”
These examples are a bit exaggerated to demonstrate the difference in the attitude towards life according to the basic psychological needs.
Depending on leading psychological needs, the values
relating to this need are in the limelight.
How do leading needs form? Where do they originate?
First of all, each person has all three psychological needs. As an analogy we can draw your attention to the body needs, which are more obvious and understandable. We have a need to sleep, a need to eat, a need to breathe, all of them are vital. It’s impossible to decide what’s best for you – sleeping or eating, breathing or drinking. It is all necessary for survival. But! Having a certain level of satisfaction, when you cope with