Making Sense of Beliefs and Values

This book is both inspirational and informative. Shealy and co-authors show how understanding why we form beliefs and values and how we use them can promote rich and reflective accounts of human motivation and action - essential ideas as we try to cultivate a global society and citizenry. -- Merry Bullock, PhD, Executive Committee, International Union of Psychological Science In educating our children, we as a society put great emphasis on knowledge and abstract analytical thinking. But if you look at what moves a society and changes it, you don't find knowledge and abstract analytical thinking having much to do with it. Rather, you find that societies move forward, and too often, backward, on the basis of the beliefs and values of their citizens and their leaders. This book will help you understand how those beliefs and values come to be, how they are organized, and how they translate into the actions that make our world either a better, or a worse place in which to live. --Robert J. Sternberg, PhD, Professor of Human Development, Cornell University Social psychologists have studied beliefs and values and related constructs such as "attitudes" and "prejudice" for decades. But as this innovative andinterdisciplinary book convincingly demonstrates, the scientific examination of beliefs and values now influences research and practice across a range ofdisciplines. Specifically, this edited volume explores the many cutting-edge implications and applications of Equilintegration (EI) Theory and the Beliefs, Events, and Values Inventory (BEVI). Grounded in 20 years of research and practice, EI Theory seeks to explain the processes by which beliefs, values, and worldviews are acquired and maintained, why their alteration is resisted, and under what circumstances they are modified. Based upon EI Theory, the BEVI is a comprehensive analytic tool that examines how and why we come to see ourselves, others, and the world as we do, as well as the influence of such processes on multiple aspects of human functioning. Edited by the developer of the EI model and BEVI method, and informed by contributions from leading U.S. and international scholars, this book features captivating research findings and pioneering practice applications. Research-focused chapters explain how the EI model and BEVI method increase our conceptual sophistication and methodological capacity across a range of areas: culture, development, environment, gender, politics, and religion.Practice-oriented chapters demonstrate how the BEVI is used in the real world across a range of applied domains: assessment, education, forensics, leadership, and psychotherapy. Written in an accessible and engaging manner, this fascinating and timely volume speaks to many of the most pressing issuesof our day, illuminating why we believe what we believe and demonstrating how our beliefs and values may be assessed, explained, and transformed in the real world.

Craig N. Shealy, PhD, is the executive director of the International Beliefs and Values Institute (IBAVI) and professor of graduate psychology at James Madison University.