Do women and men live by different ethical values? I suppose the stereotypical view would be that women care more about ’soft’ values like Gentleness and Empathy, while men are more concerned with ‘hard’ values like Honour and Perseverance. So is this picture supported by the data from the Actics Community?
Not exactly… Or to be more precise: not remotely. Here are the five most popular values, arranged in alphabetical order, of one of the sexes:
- Empathy, Environmentalism, Integrity, Openness, Tolerance
And here are the five most popular values, again in alphabetical order, of the other sex:
- Empathy, Environmentalism, Integrity, Strength of Character, Tolerance
It’s not exactly what you’d call wildly divergent, is it? One tiny difference- that is all the Actics data turns up. And now for a little quiz for anyone who’s interested: which way round do you think it is? Is it women who live by Strength of Character and men who live by Openness, or vice versa?
In any case, the conclusion we can draw from all of the above is clear:
Men Are from Somewhere Between Mars and Venus- and So Are Women
But I guess that’s not exactly the sort of catchy long-live-stereotypes title (besides, the capitalization gets a bit tricky) that will catapult a book to the top of the bestseller lists.
What is the most popular ethical value these days? I have to confess that when the Actics Community started, I expected to see a neck-and-neck race between about a half dozen values. And if I’d had to put my money on any single one of them, I would probably have gone for Integrity.
That much for my instincts… True: Integrity doesn’t score badly in the Actics Community, but it doesn’t get close to the winning value. This winning value in fact leaves all other values standing and sweeps the field in every category you can think of:
- 36% of male community members live by it (ahead of Integrity with 25% and Openness with 21%)
- 44% of female members live by it (ahead of Integrity with 24% and Empathy with 19%)
- And a whopping 53% of company members live by it (ahead of Integrity with 20% and Openness with 19%)
So is the situation any different when we look at countries? Not really. Right now most community members are from Denmark, the UK and the US- and only in Denmark does the winning value get something of a run for its money:
- 27% of Danish community members live by it (ahead of Integrity and Openness with 24%)
- 48% of UK members live by it (ahead of Tolerance with 17% and Integrity with 14%)
- And an astounding 56% of US members- our largest geographical group- live by it (ahead of Integrity with 21% and Openness with 17%)
So what is this all-conquering value I’ve been talking about? Well: I’d like to think that I’ve kept you on the edge of your seat until now, but you’ve probably already guessed: it’s Environmentalism.
And I wonder: is this just an Actics Community phenomenon or has Environmentalism truly become the dominant value of our times?