Basic Values - Trans-situational Goals, Guiding Principles

     "Schwartz sought to identify a comprehensive set of basic values that are recognized in all societies. He defined basic values as trans-situational goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or group.
     He theorized that basic values are organized into a coherent system that underlies and can help to explain individual decision making, attitudes, and behavior. This coherent structure arises from the social and psychological conflict or congruity between values that people experience when they make everyday decisions.
     values are likely to be universal because they are grounded in one or more of three universal requirements of human existence with which people must cope: needs of individuals as biological organisms, requisites of coordinated social interaction, and survival and welfare needs of groups.
     values ... focus on 
          • attaining personal or social outcomes,
          • promote growth and self-expansion or anxiety-avoidance and self-protection,
          • express openness to change or conservation of the status quo, and
          • promote self-interest or transcendence of self-interest in the service of others."
 
       Schwartz SH, Cieciuch J, Vecchione M, Davidov E, Fischer R, Beierlein C, et al. Refining the theory of basic individual values. Journal of personality and social psychology. 2012;103(4):663-88.

from Schwartz et al 2012 (see text above)

 

How I Feel Affects My Decisions & Patient Care

     "Historically, the prevailing view in medicine is that clinical decisions should be objective and free from contextual affective issues: one could not be objective and rational if emotion entered the reasoning process. Indeed, many of us would consider it a professional virtue to be able to rise above the emotional pull of clinical situations, to deliver cool, clear, analytical judgments. However, despite what we might believe, our feelings (affect) intrude into almost every decision that we make. Our daily interactions with others are influenced by conscious or unconscious social transference phenomena which are affectively polarised in ways that range from subtle to substantial. Similarly, specific clinical situations provoke lesser or greater degrees of affective valence. In fact, our first response to anything is an affective one that governs the future direction of our relations — we tend to trust our first impressions and stick with them. To then understand the role that affective state has in clinical decision making seems important. 

     The best evidence might be degraded when it is unconsciously passed through an affective filter."
       Croskerry P, Abbass AA, Wu AW. How doctors feel: affective issues in patients' safety. Lancet 2008; 372(9645): 1205-6. 


     "Within mindfulness, the busy physician may find a practical place to begin. Through the cultivation of mindfulness, the busy physician can find clues to the self and to the other, as well as to the aspects of inter-being that not only set the intention of the medical encounter but also provide boundless information and the basis for right action."
       Physician, Know Thyself, Michael Krasner, Shambhala Sun, September 2007.

 

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