Influencing value priorities and increasing well-being: The effects of reflecting on intrinsic values

Abstract

Abstract A four-week experimental study (N = 113) examined the effects of reflecting on intrinsic values. In the experimental group, participants learned about the distinction between intrinsic (e.g. having close relationships) and extrinsic (e.g. being popular) values, wrote about two personal intrinsic values, and then reflected on these values weekly for four weeks. In the control group, participants completed parallel exercises related to the daily details of their lives. Results revealed that participants in the intrinsic values group experienced greater well-being immediately following the written reflection than participants in the control group. Four weeks later, the more engaged participants felt in the reflection exercises, the more they prioritized intrinsic over extrinsic values and the greater their well-being. These effects occurred only for participants in the intrinsic values condition. The implications for changing value priorities and improving well-being are discussed. Keywords: intrinsic and extrinsic valuesvalue changevalues interventionwell-being Acknowledgements This study was supported by graduate fellowship grants from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to the first and fifth authors, as well as grants from SSHRC and the Fonds Quebecois de Recherche sur la Societe et la Culture to the fourth author. Notes Notes 1. The term engagement was used to capture a subjective assessment of how deeply participants in the experimental group reflected on their values and how involved participants in the control group were in thinking about their life details. 2. Hypotheses 2 and 3 were also tested using the measures of engagement that we used to examine the concurrent validity of self-reported engagement: number of words and coded depth of engagement. These analyses were not significant, indicating that it was a subjective sense of feeling engaged that was important in experiencing greater well-being and influencing value priorities among the experimental participants.