Values and lifestyle framework for the Indian customer

Abstract

Values. The word evokes a number of different responses of everyone. Politicians talk about the values that they possess and what their opponents don’t in elections. Parents and teachers try to instill the ideal values in their wards. Values also vary from culture to culture. An acceptable value in one country might be entirely unacceptable in another nation. An example being, it would be considered rude if a person forgets to thank his/her host for dinner, while there is nothing more insulting in the Middle East than to thank a host for a meal. People seem to get along better when they share a set of common values. Few things seem clearer than the role of values in social life: Values exert a powerful force on social and political decisions, moral judgments, and self-regulation. But what exactly are values? The contemporary social-psychology literature does not provide a clear answer (Rohan, 2000). Definitions of the values concept vary widely and often seem based more on the subjective opinion of the researcher than on solid empirical or conceptual foundation. Various authors have defined values in different methods: Kluckhohn (1951) argued that “a value is a conception…of the desirable” (p. 395); Schwartz (1994) defined values as “desirable transsituational goals…that serve as guiding principles” (p. 21); Rokeach (1973) claimed that a value is “an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end- state of existence is personally or socially preferable” (p. 5); and Feather (1996) suggested that values are “beliefs about desirable or undesirable ways of behaving…or otherwise of general goals.” (p. 222).1 Another alternate definition for values can be defined “as all the ideals that guide or qualify one’s personal conduct and the interaction with others.”