ConsumerShift takes the point of view that values changes are the single best indicator for gaining insight into the emerging future landscape. And they are not alone. A couple of my most exciting findings during my research was discovering their links to needs and worldviews. Needs are the motivators for action that values often address, and values cluster together into fairly coherent patterns or worldviews.
The table below shows the linkages to the New Dimensions Values types. The segments of needs are drawn primarily from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs and the Worldviews from Beck’s Spiral Dynamics (which actually has nine categories). The way to read the table, for example, is that a consumer with modern values will be focused on belonging and status needs organized under an orange or “competitive” worldview.
| How needs-values-worldviews fit together | ||
| Needs | Values | Worldviews |
| Survival | Traditional | Order (Spiral Blue) |
| Belonging | Modern | Competitive (Spiral Orange) |
| Self-Actualization | Postmodern | Communitarian (Spiral Green) |
| Self-Transcendence | Integral | Integrative (Spiral Yellow) |
What is really exciting from a research point of view is that each of these systems (as well as some others not mentioned here) was derived independently. It was exciting to me from my vantage point of looking across a wide swath of the consumer landscape to see that they were related! The overlap is almost perfect, yet they were done completely separately. Coincidence? I think not! Andy Hines
