Changes in american values - Research Paper Example

Changes in American Values Changes in American Values When one talks about values, the ideas that come to one’s mind include personal preferences for things that could be tangible or intangible and are considered of paramount relevance to one’s existence. One strongly believes that values are shaped by the experiences imbibe in individuals and are therefore unique and distinct per person or per culture. Likewise, values could be developed and manifested in different levels of intensities as people go through various stages of development.

For children and the youth, for example, values could focus more on support of one’s family and friends, the ability to achieve satisfaction of physiological needs, and academic pursuit. For adults, values could be more profound ranging from abstract ideals such as democracy, freedom, faith, adherence to ethical and moral standards, to name a few. As a culture, Americans have been very vocal in their belief for democracy, freedom, human rights, and open mindedness. However, there have been some indications that there are apparent changes in American values.

One’s personal view on this is that, indeed, American values are changing or evolving through time. For one, there have been changes in valuing long term relationships, particularly in marriage patterns. From the points of views of people deciding to get married, contemporary trends manifest tendencies for later marriages – meaning, people opting to get married at much older ages and have preferred spending greater times being unmarried, as compared to people in past generations. Concurrently, as people decide to marry later, there are more tendencies for cohabitation, live-in situations, and childbearing outside the marital bond.

In more ways, the changes could be explained as forms of social liberation. The kind of liberation extends to increased acceptance for homosexuality and controversial support for gay marriages. The changes in American values could be explained through vast developments in all facets of life: technology, religious affiliations and beliefs, greater expressions for personal, social, and political freedom, consumer behavior, mass media, access and delivery of health care, and other macro environmental factors that influence man’s well-being.

Changes in marriage patterns, for instance, could be explained by economic factors where women started to lead professional lives and laws on equal opportunities paved the way for marginalized sectors to join the workforce. Social acceptance for homosexuality increased in contemporary generation due to the emphasis on equality of rights and freedom of expression. Likewise, one also contends that America’s continued support to accept immigrants from other cultures have significantly influenced the changes in American values.

As American society continues to be diverse, the traditional values begin to merge and assimilate with new values promoted by people from other cultural orientations. As such, society gives way for transformations and evolutions of value preferences of people from other cultures; America learns to respect the cohesive system of beliefs of people from diverse cultures and to imbibe the beliefs that are exhibited to be more productive and acceptable in today’s society. As such, American values change and evolve over time since American is a land composed of people from diverse cultures, with different value systems and yet, live cohesively and productively as one.