Milton Rokeach\u27s Experimental Modification of Values: Navigating Relevance, Ethics and Politics in Social Psychological Research

In 1967, social psychologist Milton Rokeach (1918 – 1988) proposed that in order for social psychology to remain relevant to the issues confronting the social sciences and the United States, it must adopt value as its core construct. In addition to influential conceptual advancements, his major contributions to this literature would include the development of the Rokeach Value Survey and the introduction of a method of experimentally inducing changes in values, termed self-confrontation. Rokeach conceptualized this body of research as operating within an explicitly humanistic, democratic and socially-oriented ethic. As Rokeach\u27s efforts to produce socially-relevant research expanded beyond the traditional contexts of social psychological research, they raised unique challenges and concerns with which the researcher would grapple during the remainder of his career