What is ‘value-stressing’? (5 marks)
Answers
Under stress, our values may change. The state of arousal changes our brain chemistry and leads us to act in uncharacteristic ways.
Answer:
Values under stress
Under stress, our values may change. The state of arousal changes our brain chemistry and leads us to act in uncharacteristic ways.
Fight or flight
When we are affected by the Fight-or-Flight reaction, we unthinkingly may become aggressive, where values that normally would prevent us from hurting others are brushed aside by our fear and anger. The basic drive in the moment carries us away and we may seek to hurt others, either physically or psychologically.
Ethical dilemmas
Would you ever kill another person? What about if your life was threatened, or killing was the only way of protecting other people? Sometimes we consciously and deliberately act in ways we would not normally do, because to do otherwise would be to break an even more important value. Thus preserving life can be more important than taking life, particularly when numbers of people are involved or when we are preserving the lives of those we know and love.
We are also driven by other fundamental needs over which we may have more or less conscious control. Notably, we seem to have less control over our sex drive than we might think, as the number of illicit affairs indicates.
The force of emotion
Emotions, whether they are aggressive or passionate in other ways, act as powerful drives of behavior, and we can act out of character when we are jealous, greedy or driven to other 'deadly sins'.