The only way to explain what someone does, and to predict what they will do next, is to understand who they are and why they decide the way they do. ValueCentered Psychology is how we get there. Developed by Dr. Darrel Edwards, with J. Susan Johnson and Sharon Shedroff. It has been refined on every study since 1968.
The CoreValues build on one another like a tree. It does not matter whether the decision is about a vehicle, a relationship or a financial product: nothing above Security holds without it, and Love only arrives once the rest are in place. The order is not one we imposed on the data. It emerges naturally through the clustering of the emotions found in more than 1.2 million ValueCentered interviews and surveys, and 276 common expressions people use for their values and emotions map onto these five.
The interview comes first
A ValueCentered interview is a structured, in-depth conversation, run one on one. It opens on the surface, the physical attributes and benefits of the thing itself, then follows the respondent's own words down to the emotions and values underneath. It often uncovers what respondents did not know about themselves.
The survey makes it countable
Those words become the instrument. Our syndicated studies carry ValueCentered questions fielded the same way every year, and the same questions can be added to any custom survey. Two tools make the results measurable:
- The Edwards Commitment Scale, which measures commitment in the words people actually use, from “I hate it” to “I love it”.
- Emographics, the emotional makeup of a population: how people feel, how they want to feel, and how a product makes them feel.