Why Personal Values Matter in Disability-Inclusive Practice
How your beliefs shape your work—and why reflection is key.
We all hold personal values—deep beliefs that guide our decisions, shape our behaviours, and influence how we relate to others. Whether we’re aware of them or not, our values are always in the background, helping us determine what’s right, wrong, important, or worth our time.
And when we work in healthcare, community services, or education—especially with people with disability—our values matter more than ever.
What Are Personal Values?
Personal values are the beliefs and principles that matter most to us. They help us decide:
How we treat others
What careers we choose
Who we spend time with
What we stand up for (or stay silent about)
Values begin to develop in childhood, shaped by our upbringing, culture, lived experiences, and the society we live in. Over time, they form a kind of compass that guides how we navigate the world.
Social psychologists have spent decades researching values. One of the most well-known models includes 19 specific values grouped into four broader “higher-order” values. These sit on a continuum, meaning that some values tend to oppose each other—if one is very important to you, its opposite might not be.
Here’s a quick breakdown:
Openness to Change – Valuing independence, creativity, excitement, and new experiences
Self-Enhancement – Valuing achievement, power, and status
Conservation – Valuing safety, tradition, and following social norms
Self-Transcendence – Valuing care for others, justice, and acceptance of diversity
Each of us ranks these differently, depending on what we believe and what drives us.
How Values Affect Working with People with Disability
Your values influence how you see disability—even when you don’t realise it. They shape your responses, assumptions, and decisions in professional settings.
For example, many health professionals value benevolence—caring for and helping others. That’s often why they’re drawn to this work. But even positive values can play out in unhelpful ways if we’re not aware of them. Assumptions, stereotypes, and bias can slip in when we act from our values without reflection.
Here’s what the research tells us:
People who value universalism, self-transcendence, and aspects of self-enhancement tend to show lower negative bias towards people with disability.
People who strongly value security and preserving societal structures tend to show higher levels of unconscious bias.
Why? Because a deep need for safety and predictability can make us less open to perceived “differences” or disruption—including how we view disability.
Reflection Is the First Step Toward Inclusion
If we want to offer truly inclusive, person-centred care, we need to understand what’s going on beneath the surface. That means taking time to explore how our own values show up—and where they might be unintentionally getting in the way.
💭 Ask yourself:
What do I value most in life and work?
How do those values shape the way I respond to people with disability?
Are there any assumptions or biases I need to unpack?
Ready to Take It Further?
Our Know Your Bias training dives deeper into the science behind personal values, unconscious bias, and disability-inclusive practice. You’ll walk away with tools to explore your own values, challenge assumptions, and build more equitable environments.
👉 Join us to learn how your values influence your work—and how to use them to better support people with disability. https://www.beyondbias.com.au/training-and-professional-development-2
References
Schwartz, S. H., Cieciuch, J., Vecchione, M., Davidov, E., Fischer, R., Beierlein, C., Ramos, A., Verkasalo, M., Lönnqvist, J. E., Demirutku, K., Dirilen-Gumus, O., & Konty, M. (2012). Refining the theory of basic individual values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(4), 663–688. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029393
Antonopoulos, C. R., Sugden, N., & Saliba, A. (2025). Implicit bias towards people with disability in Australia: relationship with personal values. Australian Journal of Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049530.2025.2507626