Values and Experiences Mapping

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Please note the video content differs from the text below. You can also find a downloadable Values and Experiences Mapping PDF Worksheet at the end.

Before you can effectively engage with anyone who holds fixed beliefs, you must understand the foundation of your own thinking. This is not optional preparation. This is essential groundwork. Most people enter difficult conversations completely unaware of their own assumptions, blind to how their experiences have shaped their views, and ignorant of the gaps in their information diet. They see their own positions as obvious truth and cannot fathom why anyone would disagree. This makes persuasion impossible. You cannot help someone examine their reasoning if you have never examined your own.

This comprehensive self-audit guides you through a systematic examination of the values, experiences, and information sources that have shaped your worldview. Complete it honestly. The purpose is not to feel good about yourself. The purpose is to map your intellectual terrain so you can navigate difficult conversations with precision rather than fumbling in the dark. You cannot identify the assumptions blocking productive conversation if you do not know which assumptions you carry. You cannot find common ground if you do not know where your own ground sits.

Part A: Identify Your Core Values

Your core values are the principles that guide your political and moral judgements, the foundations from which your policy preferences flow. This exercise is harder than it appears. You have likely never articulated your value hierarchy explicitly, which means you argue from unstated premises you yourself have not examined.

Your values might include individual freedom, collective responsibility, fairness, security, tradition, progress, compassion, accountability, or dozens of others. The critical task is ranking them honestly. Which matters most to you when values conflict? You might value both freedom and equality, but which takes precedence in your mind when policies that increase equality require restrictions on freedom? You might value both compassion and personal responsibility, but which guides your thinking on welfare policy when you must choose?

If you place individual freedom at the top of your hierarchy, this value will influence your thinking, but how it translates into your specific policy positions depends on many other factors: how you define freedom, what you see as threats to it, what other values interact with it, and what trade-offs you are willing to accept. You might support strong environmental regulations because you see pollution as restricting people’s freedom to live healthy lives. Or you might oppose those same regulations because you see government intervention as the primary threat to freedom. The same core value can lead you in different directions.

If you place collective responsibility at the centre of your moral thinking, you face similarly complex questions. What does collective responsibility require in your view? How much individual freedom can be preserved whilst meeting collective obligations? When do community needs outweigh individual choice in your judgement, and when is the reverse true?

The point is that understanding which values matter most to you helps explain why certain arguments feel compelling to you whilst others feel irrelevant. When you argue about healthcare policy, you might be emphasising evidence about health outcomes and equality of access because those connect to your core values. The other person might be emphasising evidence about innovation and personal choice because those connect to theirs. You are not disagreeing about facts alone. You are weighing different considerations according to different priorities.

Part A Worksheet: List Your Five Most Important Values

Instructions: In order of importance, list your five core values and explain why each matters to you. Be specific. If you write “freedom,” what kind of freedom? Freedom from what? Freedom to do what? Similarly, if you write “fairness,” explain what fairness means to you. Equal outcomes? Equal opportunities? Proportional rewards for effort?

1. Value 1: ________________________________

Why this matters to me: ___________________________________________________

2. Value 2: ________________________________

Why this matters to me: ___________________________________________________

3. Value 3: ________________________________

Why this matters to me: ___________________________________________________

4. Value 4: ______________