Notes from the Future

Values shift over time, within individuals to some extent but more so their distribution in society. The popular culture’s view of this phenomenon is tied to the ideas of generations, which is like a horoscope that lasts 15-20 years and is about as useful1. As a more robust framework, ConsumerShift takes the data from the World Values Survey, mixes it with some of the concepts from Spiral Dynamics, and pairs it with a theory of change. The idea is that economic development takes people in a given location further up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and they start to focus on things further and further abstracted from the basic needs of survival, like whether they feel successful, or whether they’re making a difference in the world. The values sets Hines identifies are:

• Traditional (following the authoritative path, corresponding to the Beige, Purple, Red, and Blue stages in Spiral Dynamics)
• Modern (striving for economic and social achievement, corresponding to Orange)
• Postmodern (creating meaning and a sense of belonging, corresponding to Green), and
• Integral (pragmatic use of values to improve overall systems, corresponding to Yellow and Turquoise; this stage is interesting because it’s associated with no longer seeing seeing any of the stages as “best”)

So over time, we should expect more individuals to have values more aligned with the latter sets, and for this to slightly lag economic development. For a different view, including a discussion about manufactured value sets, see this conversation I had with Jim Dator, especially questions 2 and 3.