Principles that People Seek to Avoid in Their Lives

Abstract

This study concerns the interrelationship between positive and negative values. Previous research has treated personal values as a bipolar process in which negative values can be described merely as desired values with the opposite sign. Contrary to values research, the study of motivation has shown that approach motivation is conceptually distinctive from the motivation of avoidance. The results revealed that, in general, level positive and negative values form two opposite domains that are not completely independent. On a more specific level of analysis the structure of negative values did not mirror the structure of positive values: They formed a single general negativity factor, which had no significant loadings on any of the six positive value factors.