Gender Differences in Values: Implications of the Expectancy-Value Model

Abstract

For a number of years now, I have been interested in the conceptual analysis and investigation of human values. I began a program of research that commenced in the late 1960s and has continued ever since. In this program, I have looked at a wide range of topics that include the measurement of values and value systems, similarities and differences in value priorities across different segments of Australian society and across different cultures, the comparison of value systems between parents and their children, the value priorities of special groups such as juvenile offenders and student activists, the relationship between attitudes and values, and the consequences for the person of discrepancies between personal value systems and the value systems that defined environments such as the school or the work situation are perceived to promote. The results of the first phase of my work in this area were brought together in Values in Education and Society (Feather, 1975), a book that was particularly concerned with studies that mapped values in different groups and with studies that investigated the effects of person-environment discrepancies in value systems. The program of research has continued to be an active one. Since the 1975 book, I have built on the foundations laid down in that volume and have also followed some new directions.