Values, knowledge and morality

This work addresses a number of current problems in the social psychology of values and morality. Most of its chapters start from Shalom Schwartz’s theory of the universal structure and content of values. The value-related issues examined in this volume include: – What is the location of the value types, rational truth and non-rational truth, in the Schwartz circular model? Are these values related to the way individuals define knowledge, i.e. their epistemological understanding? – How does a non-universal value item, privacy, change its meaning in Finnish national samples during the 25-year period 1991-2015? – How are different values and other components of morality associated with environmentally friendly behaviour in a representative sample of Estonians? – Are the associations of values with empathy, different kinds of guilt, and shame similar or different in Bulgaria, Portugal, and Finland? – How do values and moral reasoning manifest themselves in the problem situations reported by elderly care professionals? The volume also deals with several moral issues, not associated with values, among others: – How are adolescents’ tendencies to feel empathy, guilt and shame related to parental practices? – What types of everyday moral dilemmas do Bulgarian and Finnish university students and elderly care professionals report? – Does training based on the ideas derived from Developmental Work Research lead to advances in moral judgment? – How could we analyse moral decision making as a social – as opposed to individual – process? The authors are former or current teachers, research associates, or international collaborators of the social psychology department. Most of the chapters have been peer-reviewed.