Value Clarification Model: Empowering Personal Value Choices

Where do your values actually come from? For many people, the honest answer is that they were handed down by parents, teachers, religion, or society, and rarely examined afterward. The Value Clarification Model challenges this passive inheritance. Developed in the 1960s by three American educators, it argues that genuine values cannot be poured into a person like water into a glass. They must be discovered, weighed, and chosen by each individual through a deliberate process. This approach shifted the conversation in moral education away from telling people what to believe and toward helping them figure out what they truly believe and why.

Foundations of the value clarification model 🔗

The model was formulated by Louis E. Raths and developed further with his collaborators Merrill Harmin and Sidney B. Simon. Their landmark book, Values and Teaching, published in 1966, gave teachers both a theory and a set of practical classroom methods. Raths built his ideas on the educational philosophy of John Dewey, who believed that thoughtful, reflective intelligence should guide how human beings define their relationships with one another and with a changing world.

The central idea is simple but powerful. Raths was not interested in the content of a person’s values, meaning the specific beliefs they held. He was interested in the process of valuing, meaning how a person arrives at their beliefs and behaviour patterns. This focus on process over content is the feature that sets the model apart from most other approaches to moral instruction.

A rejection of indoctrination 🔗

Raths, Harmin, and Simon rejected the dominant method of moral teaching of their time, which is sometimes called inculcation or indoctrination. In their view, simply telling young people that cheating is wrong or that honesty is the best policy was an ineffective way to develop real values. Sidney Simon was direct about this, stating that the team was strongly opposed to the idea that values are something to be poured into people. Instead, the model offers a process that learners use to examine value systems and then consciously select and reject elements for themselves.

This made the model notably different from the work of Lawrence Kohlberg, whose famous theory of moral development focused mainly on the logic and reasoning behind moral decisions. Raths felt that reasoning alone was not enough, because it was unclear how thinking through a hypothetical dilemma connected to real action in everyday life. His definition of a value deliberately wove together three threads: thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Key elements of the valuing process 🔗

Before looking at the formal criteria, it helps to understand the spirit in which the model is meant to be applied. The approach is not a cold checklist. It depends on creating the right conditions so that a person feels free to explore honestly. Several guiding elements shape this environment and encourage learners to identify and act on what matters to them.

Focus on life 🔗

The valuing process is meant to address the real concerns of a person’s life rather than abstract theory. Raths observed that when young people displayed apathy, inconsistency, or poor decision making, asking them questions about their actual goals, purposes, and choices prompted them to reflect on their decisions. As they reflected, their behaviour shifted toward greater enthusiasm and consistency. Keeping the focus on life keeps values grounded in lived experience.

Accepting what is 🔗

A central and somewhat controversial element of the model is non-judgment. The facilitator or teacher is asked to listen carefully to a person’s expressions of interest, attitude, and belief, and then to refrain from judging those expressions. The aim is not to approve or disapprove but to accept what the person actually thinks and feels at that moment. Only in an atmosphere free of pressure can someone honestly examine their own position. Acceptance creates the psychological safety that genuine self-examination requires.

Reflection 🔗

Reflection is the engine of the whole model. Value clarification is fundamentally a process of reflecting, examining, and recollecting about our lives in order to discover clearly what we like and dislike and what we want to do. The strategies in the model, such as ranking choices, completing unfinished sentences, or responding to clarifying questions, are all designed to prompt this kind of reflective thinking. The educator’s job is often to ask a gentle clarifying question and then step back, letting the person do the mental work.

Criteria for the valuing process 🔗

This is the heart of the model. Raths, Harmin, and Simon argued that for a belief or attitude to qualify as a full value, it must satisfy seven criteria. These seven criteria are grouped under three broad sub-processes: choosing, prizing, and acting. Choosing is the cognitive or intellectual part, prizing is the emotional or affective part, and acting is the behavioural part. A belief that fails to meet all seven criteria is, in their words, only a belief or a good idea, not yet a true value.

Choosing your beliefs and behaviours 🔗

The first sub-process is intellectual and contains three criteria. A value must be:

Chosen freely. If we are to live by our own value system, we must learn to make independent choices rather than simply following authority or pressure. A value imposed from outside is not truly owned.

Chosen from among alternatives. Choice only has meaning when real options exist. If there is only one possible path, there is no genuine choosing involved.

Chosen after thoughtful consideration of consequences. A free choice among alternatives still requires careful study of where each option is likely to lead. This is where critical thinking enters the valuing process.

Prizing your beliefs and behaviours 🔗

The second sub-process is emotional and contains two criteria. A value must be:

Prized and cherished. When we discover something we have freely chosen and whose consequences we accept, we feel happy about it and hold it dear. This positive feeling of pride is what Raths saw as the affective signal of a real value.

Publicly affirmed. When we prize something, we are willing to make it known to others when the occasion is appropriate. A classic classroom strategy involved students raising hands or signalling agreement to questions, which allowed for the public affirmation of their choices and showed them that others might see things differently.

Acting on your beliefs and behaviours 🔗

The third sub-process is behavioural and contains the final two criteria. A value must be:

Acted upon. This is the criterion that separates values from mere opinions. Unless you act on something, it remains a good idea rather than a value. As one practical illustration puts it, if you value your role as a citizen, you demonstrate it by voting.

Acted upon repeatedly, as a pattern. A single action does not make a value. Examining your life for patterns of consistent, repeated action is how you confirm what you truly value. A genuine value tends to influence behaviour across many different situations and forms a recognisable pattern in a person’s life.

According to Raths, the process of valuing is more important than the particular value a person ends up selecting. The goal is to give people the tools to make sound decisions, not to install a fixed set of approved beliefs.

The importance of personal choice in value development 🔗

Why does any of this matter for everyday life? Because authorities on human behaviour broadly agree that values shape behaviour, and that people with unclear values tend to lack direction, persistence, and decision-making ability. When values are confused, choices become inconsistent and motivation suffers.

The model treats valuing as a personal and lifelong task. Values are not fixed for all time. As circumstances change and a person grows, their values may need to be re-examined and reaffirmed. This is why the skill of valuing matters more than any single conclusion. Someone who has internalised the process can navigate new and unexpected situations throughout their life.

Personal choice also builds clarity and consistency. When a value has been freely chosen, genuinely prized, and consistently acted upon, a person’s inner beliefs and outer behaviour line up. Modern research connects this kind of alignment to wellbeing. A study of working adults found that people were often motivated to work on their values because of life challenges, and that behavioural change followed when they paid focused attention to clarifying and living in line with what they valued. Other educational research links values clarification to a stronger sense of purpose and motivation, which in turn supports goal-setting and decision-making.

There is also a social dimension. Because the model asks people to consider consequences and to affirm their values publicly, it encourages choices that are both personally satisfying and socially responsible. A person who has clarified their values is better equipped to act with integrity in a community, rather than drifting along with whatever the crowd happens to be doing.

It is worth noting that the model has faced criticism over the years, particularly its non-judgmental stance, with some arguing it risks suggesting that all values are equally acceptable. Yet its core insight has proved durable. Elements of the approach now appear well beyond the classroom, including in counselling and in acceptance and commitment therapy, where clarifying values is treated as a key step toward meaningful action.

What do you think? Take one belief you hold strongly, perhaps about honesty, success, or family, and run it through the seven criteria. Did you choose it freely from real alternatives, do you prize it enough to affirm it openly, and do you act on it consistently? And do you think a fully non-judgmental approach is the right way to help someone develop values, or are there moments when guidance and clear direction serve a person better?

References

1. https://louisraths.wordpress.com/values-clarification-2/
2. https://blog.oup.com/2013/03/values-clarification-psychology/
3. https://sk.sagepub.com/ency/edvol/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-theory-in-counseling-and-psychotherapy/chpt/values-clarification
4. https://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/curriculum/units/2000/3/00.03.02/4
5. https://www.winthrop.edu/uploadedFiles/clubsorgs/leadership/Seven-Requirements-for-Values.pdf
6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212144716300023
7. https://www.leaderinme.org/blog/research-conversations-values-clarification/