People attach greater importance to compassionate values than we often believe

What is it about?

We tested how accurately people perceive the values of people in their families, cities, and countries. We asked in total over 1700 people from Brazil, Germany, and the UK which values they believe their fellow citizens hold. For example, do people believe that 'compassionate' values such as helpfulness or equality are important to their fellow citizens? Or do they rather think that 'self-interest' values like power or success are important to them? To answer these questions, we compared the perceived values with the responses of representative samples from each country. It turned out that people underestimated the importance their fellow citizens attach to compassionate values and overestimate the importance their fellow citizens attach to self-interest values. The results of the British study are also summarised in detail here: https://valuesandframes.org/values-in-action/greatermanchester

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Why is it important?

Today’s high levels of social polarisation and mistrust could perhaps be improved if people came to understand the depth of importance that most of their fellow citizens actually place on ‘compassionate’ values. For example, around 80% of British people value compassionate values more than self-interest values.

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