How Society Measures Worth

By Yiler Huang

In this semester, one of the major topics is about the worth and value of a person. In the first week, we have discussed our thoughts about the measure of a person's value, and we learned that people have quite different opinions when it comes to measuring the worth of a person. In the class, we have come up with several standards to measure a person's value, including money, fame, physical appearance, offering to the society etc. It is shown that there is already a wide variety of answers in the author's 5 people class. Therefore, we wanted to know how the general public measures the value of a person. By collecting and analyzing the thoughts of the general public, we can get a better view of how people judge each other and gain a better understanding of human nature.

In order to know what the general public thinks about a person's value, a survey was designed. In the survey, the subjects were asked to provide three standards that can be used to measure a student's value. The survey was conducted on September 21st and 22nd, and it took place in the areas around Yuanshan MRT station and Taipei Expo park. 88 answers were collected from 31 people of different ages and gender for comparing different subjects more easily. Due to the wide variety of the answers, the answers were roughly divided to 8 categories after a series of discussions within the author's research group. The categories included social relationship, physical appearance, personal qualities, morals, wealth, abilities, and social contribution.

Out the 31 subjects, 15 were female and 16 were male. 1 of them was student, 26 were at working age, and 4 were retired. The majority of the subjects were at working age because the data was collected during class time, and many of the elderlies were less willing to answer the questions. In the 88 responds, 9 were in the “social relationship” category, 2 were in “physical appearance”, 27 were in “personal qualities”, 9 were in “behavior”, 17 were in “morals”, 1 was in “wealth”, 23 were in “abilities”, and 1 in social contribution. More details are shown in the table below.

From the data, we can see that the most common standard people used to measure a student's value are personal qualities, followed by abilities, and moral. The interesting thing is that these are all things people were taught in schools. Because most subjects were people who had completed their education, it is reasonable to believe that people might tend to use the things they learned from school to measure the value of a student. These three standards are also the main moral of Confucius' teaching collection the Analects (Lunyu), which is still widely used as education material in Taiwanese schools nowadays.

Another surprising result was that there is a difference between the answers collected from female and male subjects. It is observed that there were twice as much female than male subjects who believed the value of a student should be measure by their behavior. This could be the result of the different expectation Taiwanese people have for male and female. Having different expectations for men and women is a common situation in East Asian countries. For example, in Japan and Korea, women are more expected to use polite language over man. It is also common for people to expect women to behave politely in China. These expectations might be considered traditional or old-fashioned, we can still see the impacts of the traditions in the modern society.

Overall, the results could be valuable, but it is important to keep in mind that it only reflects the situation in Taipei and may not represent the actual condition of the society. On the other hand, there are more than twice as much male subjects that believed the worth of a student should be measured with their relationships between others. These results are interesting and showed potential differences between the thoughts of male and female. Though they may not seem very significant, they are still valuable information that can improve our view and perspective of the society.

In conclusion, it can be seen that the main factors that general public considers when measuring the worth of a student are personal qualities, abilities, and moral. From the result, it is reasonable to state that many of the general public's perceptions for value of students came from their education and the expectations they received in their lives, and this piece of information can give us a wider and more educated understanding of how people measuring people's value. However, it is important to acknowledge that the survey was done on streets with no strict restrictions and limitations, thus the result can be inaccurate due to the inconsistency in different factors. Though the the results may contain inaccuracy, this research can be a general description for the topic of measuring a students value based on the opinions of the general public in Taipei.

Perry, M. (2021, October 14). Women Earned the Majority of Doctoral Degrees in 2020 for the 12th Straight Year and Outnumber Men in Grad School 148 to 100. American Enterprise Institute - AEI. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/women-earned-the-majority-of-doctoral-degrees-in-2020-for-the-12th-straight-year-and-outnumber-men-in-grad-school-148-to-100/