The globalization and localization of moral values: A cultural-developmental study of adolescents and their parents

Abstract

This study examines how culture and development jointly shape moral values in northern Thailand. Eighty participants (40 adolescents [ Mage = 17.30] and 40 parents, evenly divided across a rural community and a globalized urban city) completed the Ethical Values Assessment (EVA), a questionnaire that examines the extent to which individuals prioritize Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity. Statistical analyses reveal that these three moral values are customized by extent of exposure to globalization: adolescents in the globalized urban context were most likely to prioritize Autonomy, and least likely to prioritize Community. Urban parents prioritized Community values more so than their children and rural-dwelling parents. These and other findings speak to the effects of globalization and localization in the face of cultural change. The more granular focus on particular EVA items endorsed further reveals both the maintenance of long-standing cultural values (i.e., filial piety), even among those with most significant exposure to globalization, and ways in which certain autonomous values may be tailored to function alongside long-standing local values. In total, this study suggests that local value systems are maintained, reasserted, and dynamically reshaped with globalization.