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Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.zaIt is a theoretical assumption that values are general principles, which workdirectively in people’s decisions in, commitment to and justification of socialactions and relations.When a particular mode of action or relationship is considered by a person asdesirable, it does not imply that this action or relationship is necessarily the onewhich he, in terms of his interests or need dispositions, wishes or desires. Alsoit is not assumed that he will consistently want to or be able to act according tothis principle; nor that the intensity of his commitment to the directiveprinciple is constant. It is assumed, however, that adults hold single andpatterns of general directive principles that can be identified; that theseprinciples are basic to the normative orientations and actions of thepersonalities concerned; and that these principles can be so specified andidentified that they can be used as strategic sociological and socialpsychologicalvariables in the description and explanation of social behaviour.Again, it is not claimed that value orientations are the most important singleconsideration in decisions, commitments and/or justifications in socialbehaviour. But value orientations are conceptualized as being the most generalnormative considerations. The qualification that value orientations only formone component of a person’s total orientation to situations, suggests threedifferent research objectives and designs: (a) The determination of whatpeople’s value orientations in fact are; (b) Process analysis in which the role ofvalue orientations in a person’s total orientation, his decisions, commitmentsand justifications is determined; (c) The correlation of value orientations withother variables. It should be obvious that process analysis (b) is the mostexacting of the three types of research.The question: which value orientations are possible? is a theoretical questionwhich has to be answered theoretically. The question: which value orientationsare present in particular individuals or collectivities? is, on the contrary, anempirical question which has to be answered by empirical research. If any ofthe value orientations postulated in a typology developed on theoreticalassumptions and logical argument, do not empirically appear in a particularuniverse, this does not invalidate the typology. It does, however, mean that atleast part of the typology is not meaningful to the particular universe. Hereagain the difference but also the interdependence of logical and empiricalconsiderations must be borne in mind.3. Theoretical assumptions in the construction of a field of valueorientationsThe construction of a typology of value orientations as conceptualized aboverequires (a) the explication of definite theoretical assumptions or principlesrelevant to the plotting of the field of (possible) value orientations, and (b) aspecification of the level of abstraction of the value orientations concerned.226