La Trobe University PSY1CFP Research Report: Attitudes and Values

This research report, conducted for the PSY1CFP course at La Trobe University, investigates the correlation between personal values and attitudes towards the environment. The study hypothesized that individuals with a higher concern for the environment would score higher on self-transcendence, reflecting a positive relationship with basic human values. Using a sample of 24 participants, the study employed convenience sampling and correlational analyses to examine the relationship between values (independent variable) and attitudes (dependent variable). The results showed statistically significant correlations between self-transcendence, universalism, and benevolence. The report concludes that there is a significant relationship between personal values and attitudes, supporting existing theories and research in the field of psychology. The study acknowledges limitations such as the sample size and suggests improvements for future research.

Running head: PSY1CFP RESEARCH REPORT 1
PSY1CFP Research Report
Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date

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Abstract
Attitudes and values are two closely related psychological terms that need to be understood well
as they have significant impacts on human life. The attitudes and values of people influence their
behaviors, their personalities, and many other aspects of their lives. This study was done to show
the kind of relationship which exists between values and attitudes of some participants towards
their environment. It is hypothesized that individuals who expressed a higher level of concern for
the environment will have also produced a relatively high score on the higher-order value of
Self-Transcendence and will subsequently reflect a positive relationship with the basic human
values. 24 participants were selected using convenience sampling technique to take part in the
study. Some correlational statistical analyses were done to get the desired correlational results.
The results obtained were statistically significant proved that indeed, there exists some
correlation between values and attitudes as far as the environment, the societal issue considered,
is concerned.

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PSY1CFP Research Report
Introduction
Attitude can be viewed as the psychological tendency, which represents a detailed
evaluation of psychological objects or aspects with some degree or some extent of favor or
disfavor (Ajzen, 2001). Values, on the other hand, can be described as the abstract deals which
guide the thoughts and the behaviors of human beings (Maio, Olson, Bernard, & Luke, 2006,
p.285). Values can also be considered as the criteria of varying importance used by people as the
guiding principles of their lives (Schwartz, 1992). Research has proved that there is a significant
relationship between attitudes and values where attitudes serve as value-expressive functions in
some instances. The attitudes of people highly affect the behaviors and the entire lives of people,
and so, it’s very crucial for people to always be mindful of their attitudes as much as possible
(Katz, 1960). Generally, attitudes can be classified as either positive or negative attitudes, but
there are other more specific descriptions that can be given to describe the specific attitudes of
different people. Attitudes are closely related to emotions, and these two influence the behaviors,
the values, and the entire lives of human beings.
Research, which has been done before has shown that emotions and attitudes are part of
human beings and have a significant contribution to the behaviors, the values, and the entire lives
portrayed by human beings. Several theories have been formulated to analyze the emotions and
attitudes portrayed by people and their effects on people’s lives. Bearing in mind that personal
values act as the guiding principles of people’s lives, it can be argued that there is some
relationship between attitudes and values where they all influence the behaviors portrayed by
human beings and the entire lives of people.

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The attitudes people have towards different things, or issues determine how the people
perceive those issues. These attitudes are what make people come with varying perceptions and
opinions about the same issues. For instance, people may have different opinions about some
common issues such as immigration happening in their regions, varying opinions about their
environment, among many other common issues they face. A research was done to investigate
the varying attitudes and thus the varying opinions of the people of Idaho, USA, towards their
environment where the study concentrated on the use of plastics and pollution of the
environment. The main questions posed for the research or the study were:
Do you feel it is important to reduce the use of plastics?
What is the main benefit of reducing their plastic usage?
The main objective or aim of this research was to assess the relationship between some
values such as attitudes and self-transcendence towards pollution’s impact on the environment. It
is hypothesized that individuals who expressed a higher level of concern for the environment will
have also produced a relatively high score on the higher-order value of Self-Transcendence and
will subsequently reflect a positive relationship with the basic human values. The main variables
of the study were values (the independent variable) and attitudes (taken as the dependent
variable).
Method
The participants
The sample size or the number of participants used for this study was 24 (12 males and
12 females). These 24 participants (students of La Trobe University) were specifically selected

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from the Clinical Foundations of Psychology class, where convenience sampling was used as the
main sampling technique.
Materials
In this specific study case, the independent value was Self-Transcendence, while the
dependent variable was concern for the environment. Self-transcendence is a value while
concern for the environment is an attitude that some people may have, and others may not have.
Some special scales were used to record the responses of the participants. The required
calculations and other analyses were done using special statistical software and tools.
Procedure
All the selected participants were of legal age but were required to sign a consent form
before participating in the study. ‘Twenty Item Values Inventory (TwIVI)’ were given to be
answered by the participants and the scores recorded. The ‘Reflective Attitude on Pollution Scale
(RAPS)’ was also given where it was meant to record the scores of attitudes of the participant
about pollution. Each of the two quizzes was expected to take about 5 minutes.
Results
In this study, the correlational analysis was done using Pearson’s product-moment
correlations to obtain the desired results. The results which were obtained after the correlational
analysis can be shown by the correlation matrix shown below:
A table of the correlational analysis results
1 2 3 4 M SD

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1. Attitudes to the environment --- 0.09 -0.24 -0.29 35.10 4.91
2. Universalism 0.09 --- 0.49* 0.63* 0.66 0.72
3. Benevolence -0.29 0.49* ---- 0.40 0.77 0.71
4. Self-Transcendence -0.24 0.63* 0.40 --- 0.58 0.75
The main constructs which were considered in the analysis were universalism,
benevolence, and self-transcendence. The results obtained did not support our initially stated
hypothesis since both self-transcendence and benevolence produced a very weak and negative
correlation towards the environment. However, the observed benevolence was on the right
direction as it produced a week but positive correlation of attitudes towards the environment. At
a significance level of 0.05, both benevolence and universalism produced statistically significant
correlations. At a significance level of 0.01, both universalism and self-transcendence yielded
positive correlations which were statistically significant. The overall results show that higher
order value of self-transcendence yielded positive correlations with the very basic human values
of universalism and benevolence which agrees with the initial predictions that universalism and
benevolence are closely associated with higher-order value self-transcendence.
Discussion
From the introduction, it was hypothesized that individuals who expressed a higher level
of concern for the environment will have also produced a relatively high score on the higher-
order value of Self-Transcendence and will subsequently reflect a positive relationship with the
basic human values. Considering the correlational analysis results which are statistically
significant, it can be asserted that, indeed, the individuals who expressed a higher level of
concern for the environment also produced relatively higher scores on the higher-order values of

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Self-Transcendence. This outcome agrees with the available theories and literature, which insists
that indeed there is some correlation or relationship between values (the independent variable in
this study) and attitudes (the dependent variable in the study). The personal values always
control or determine the kind of attitudes shown by different people in different situations.
This research aimed to analyze the value expressive function of attitudes. As mentioned
earlier, research which has been done in the past proved that there exists a significant
relationship between values and attitudes of people. Values were described as the abstract deals
which guide the thoughts and the behaviors of human beings. From this description, which
insinuates that values are closely related to the thoughts and thus the reasoning of human beings,
it can be deduced that there is a close relationship between the values of human beings and the
attitudes they show towards different issues or aspects. Attitude is that psychological tendency
which drives people to judge different issues or aspects based on what they know, have heard, or
think about the issues or the aspects. As such, these attitudes depend on people’s values to some
extent for the judgments to be made. The correlational analysis results obtained were statistically
significant proving right the theory and literature which has been prepared, which asserts that
indeed, there is some correlation or relationship between the values and attitudes of people.
This study is very valid and gave valid results as it met all the requirements which should
be followed to conduct a scientific study or research. It collected the required data using the
appropriate methods and analyzed the collected data using the required and the appropriate data
analysis methods. Therefore, the study was valid. However, this study was faced with several
limitations, some of which include the reluctance of the participants to participate in the study
and selection of very few participants (only 24 participants) and insufficient content or details on
the attitude scale. Before this version of the study is run again, it’s very important to fix the

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issues of the participants and the attitudes scale. The participants should be motivated to
participate in the study by being given some incentives, and the attitude scale should be good
enough to contain all the contents or details required to complete the research successfully. The
correlation shown in this study does not mean values led to the attitudes about environmental
concern but rather supports the existing theory and literature.
Conclusively, this study proves that there is a significant relationship between personal
values and the attitudes shown by people towards different issues or aspects. This study is very
crucial as it improves our knowledge about values and attitudes and boosts our overall
researching skills.

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References
Ajzen, I. (2001). Nature and operation of attitudes. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 27-58. doi:
10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.27
Cohen, J (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 155–159. doi: 10.1037/0033-
2909.112.1.155
Katz, D. (1960). The functional approach to the study of attitudes. Public Opinion
Quarterly, 24(2), 163-204. doi: 10.1086/266945
Maio, G. R., & Olson, J. M. (2000). What is a “value-expressive” attitude. In G. R. Maio & J. M.
Olson (Eds.), Why we evaluate: functions of attitudes (pp. 249-269). New Jersey:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Sandy, C. J., Gosling, S. D., Schwartz, S. H., & Koelkebeck, T. (2017). The Development and
Validation of Brief and Ultrabrief Measures of Values. Journal of Personality
Assessment, 99(5), 545-555. doi: 1-11. 10.1080/00223891.2016.1231115
Schultz, P. W., & Zelezny, L. (1999). Values as predictors of environmental attitudes: Evidence
for consistency across 14 countries. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 19, 255-265.
doi: 10.1006/jevp.1999.0129
Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances
and empirical tests in 20 countries. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1-
65. doi: 10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60281-6

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Appendix
Table of Results