Ways to Live

1. Abstract

The Ways to Live scale, formulated by the American philosopher and semiotician Charles W. Morris (1942, 1956), stands as one of the earliest systematic, empirical psychometric instruments designed to evaluate cross-cultural human values, philosophical orientations, and preferential life strategies. Stemming from Morris’s foundational philosophical treatise Paths of Life: Preface to a World Religion and expanded empirically in Varieties of Human Value (1956), the instrument presents respondents with descriptions of diverse existential orientations. In its canonical psychometric manifestation, the scale incorporates 13 distinct paragraphs—frequently distilled into 13 representative value propositions—each encapsulating a coherent, historically grounded cultural or philosophical approach to existence, including Apollonian preservation, Buddhist detachment, Christian sympathetic love, Dionysian sensory abandonment, Promethean mastery, and Taoist quiet receptivity.

Administered historically via both an ipsative rank-ordering procedure and a 7-point Likert-type preferential rating format (ranging from 1 = “I dislike it very much” to 7 = “I like it very much”), the instrument yields a multi-dimensional value profile. Extensive factor analytic investigations conducted by Morris, Lyle V. Jones, and subsequent psychometricians identified a recurrent five-factor structural architecture underlying the 13 paths: (1) Social Restraint and Self-Control, (2) Enjoyment and Progress in Action, (3) Withdrawal and Self-Sufficiency, (4) Receptivity and Sympathetic Concern, and (5) Self-Indulgence or Sensuous Enjoyment. Across large international cohorts—encompassing extensive cross-cultural samples from the United States, China, India, Japan, Norway, and Canada—the scale has demonstrated substantial construct, convergent, and discriminant validity, as well as satisfactory test-retest reliability across diverse cultural milieus. This comprehensive psychometric review details the scale’s historical development, theoretical foundations in semiotics and somatotype psychology, factor structure, metric properties, research utility, and its foundational status in the genealogy of modern psychological value assessment.

2. Keywords

Ways to Live scale, Charles W. Morris, human values, cross-cultural psychometrics, value orientations, factor analysis, axiology, existential orientations, Paths of Life, Varieties of Human Value, comparative philosophy

3. Authors

The Ways to Live scale was conceptualized, authored, and empirically standardized by:

• Charles W. Morris, Ph.D. (May 23, 1901 – January 15, 1979): Prominent American philosopher, semiotician, and pragmatist. Morris served on the faculty of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago (1931–1958) and subsequently as Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Florida (1958–1971). A central contributor to the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Morris integrated semiotics, pragmatism, and behavioral science.
• Lyle V. Jones, Ph.D. (Collaborating Psychometrician): Renowned psychometrician and quantitative psychologist at the University of Chicago and later Director of the L. L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Jones collaborated extensively with Morris in subjecting the Ways to Live instrument to rigorous multi-sample factor analysis and empirical scaling.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Ways to Live scale is to provide a rigorous, quantifiable methodology for evaluating preferred existential orientations, ethical designs for living, and cultural value commitments. Historically situated at the intersection of comparative philosophy, social psychology, and psychometrics, the scale was engineered to move beyond purely speculative ethical treatises by measuring human preferences among comprehensively articulated world philosophies.

In mid-twentieth-century behavioral science, assessing human values was predominantly confined to narrow interest inventories or rudimentary attitude surveys. Morris sought to devise an instrument that captured the totality of an individual’s value system—what he conceptualized as an individual’s “design for living.” The scale was designed to systematically address several fundamental psychometric and theoretical objectives:

• Cross-Cultural Value Comparison: Measuring how cultural traditions (e.g., Eastern traditions such as Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism versus Western traditions such as Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and Christianity) manifest in the conscious value hierarchies of diverse populations across nations.
• Determinants of Value Choices: Exploring the systemic relationships between preferential value endorsements and biological, temperamental, social, and economic variables. Morris notably collaborated with researchers exploring Sheldon’s constitutional somatotypes to assess whether somatic constitution biased value selection.
• Theoretical Modeling of Human Action: Providing empirical substantiation for Morris’s triadic theory of human action, which balances three fundamental behavioral components: the dionysian (detachment/receptivity), the promethean (active mastery/manipulation), and the apollonian (social order/restraint).
• Research and Clinical Applications: Offering personality researchers, cross-cultural psychologists, and sociologists an empirically grounded battery to investigate societal value shifts, ideological differences, acculturation patterns, and interpersonal compatibility. In educational and counseling psychology, the instrument serves as an introspective tool enabling individuals to clarify life goals, resolve existential ambivalence, and map personal worldviews.

5. Psychological Construct

The Ways to Live scale operationalizes the psychological construct of preferential value orientations. Within Morris’s axiology, a value is not an abstract metaphysical absolute but an active, preferential behavior toward specific forms of living. The instrument operationalizes this construct across thirteen explicit, multi-faceted existential pathways, each capturing a distinctive configuration of cognitive, affective, and behavioral imperatives:

The Thirteen Existential Paths

• Way 1: Preserve the Best That Man Has Attained (Apollonian Social Preservation): Prioritizes active participation in community life to preserve cultural heritage, moderation, intellectual refinement, self-control, and moral clarity. It shuns vulgarity, excessive enthusiasm, and sudden, radical social upheaval.
• Way 2: Cultivate Independence of Persons and Things (Buddhist/Self-Sufficient Detachment): Champions solitary reflection, privacy, self-knowledge, and autonomy from external social and material systems. It advocates reducing external dependence and centering life within the self.
• Way 3: Show Sympathetic Concern for Others (Christian Loving Kindness): Centers on selfless, sympathetic affection, mutual support, and moral purity. It cautions against interpersonal domination, sexual greed, intellectual elitism, and egocentrism.
• Way 4: Experience Festivity and Solitude in Alternation (Dionysian Aesthetic Rhythms): Conceives of life as a sensuous, open festival coupled with periods of introspective solitude. It rejects moralistic discipline and calls for openness, aesthetic enjoyment, and personal non-entanglement.
• Way 5: Act and Enjoy Life Through Group Participation (Social-Action Collaboration): Advocates merging the self into collective social activity, group solidarity, robust cooperative action, and energetic community life. It dismisses aloofness, excessive intellectualism, and solitary withdrawal.
• Way 6: Constantly Master Changing Conditions (Promethean Technical Mastery): Focuses on relentless physical action, technological problem-solving, scientific exploration, and mastering natural forces. It rejects contemplative stagnation, insisting that human progress depends on tangible deeds.
• Way 7: Integrate Action, Enjoyment, and Contemplation (Dynamic Pluralistic Synthesis): Posits that an optimal life dynamically integrates action, contemplation, and sensuous enjoyment in equal measure, embracing the internal tensions generated by diverse human impulses.
• Way 8: Live with Wholesome, Carefree Enjoyment (Epicurean Simple Comfort): Focuses on unhurried, simple pleasures: physical ease, domestic comfort, good food, casual sociality, and relaxation, repudiating intense ambitions and asceticism.
• Way 9: Wait in Quiet Receptivity (Taoist Quietism): Proposes that true fulfillment occurs when the ego surrenders conscious control, allowing universal forces to nourish the self through peaceful receptivity and natural attunement.
• Way 10: Control the Self Stoically (Stoic Dignity and Self-Discipline): Emphasizes vigilant, unyielding self-mastery, cognitive rationality, personal dignity, and emotional resilience in the face of an indifferent cosmos.
• Way 11: Meditate on the Inner Life (Contemplative Inwardness): Rejects the external material environment as harsh and superficial, asserting that human fulfillment resides within the rich, internal landscape of ideals, reverie, and introspective consciousness.
• Way 12: Chance Adventuresome Deeds (Physical Dynamism and Conquering Courage): Celebrates physical energy, manual production, athletic exertion, and bold confrontation with physical challenges. It values overcoming physical obstacles above cautious intellectual deliberation.
• Way 13: Obey the Cosmic Purposes (Cosmic Instrumentality and Humble Devotion): Urges the individual to serve as a humble, devoted vessel for universal, spiritual, and social purposes, finding profound peace through faith, gratitude, and surrender.

6. Theoretical Framework

The conceptual framework underpinning the Ways to Live scale is rooted in American Pragmatism, behavioral semiotics, and cross-cultural philosophical taxonomy. Morris synthesized George Herbert Mead’s social behaviorism, John Dewey’s instrumental axiology, and his own semiotic theory of signs. Central to this theoretical framework are three foundational pillars:

1. The Triadic Model of Action and Value

Morris posited that all human life strategies represent differential combinations of three primal behavioral orientations:

• Detachment / Receptivity (Dependence): The propensity to withdraw from immediate manipulation, observe, surrender, and cultivate inner awareness (exemplified in Eastern traditions such as Buddhism and Taoism).
• Dominance / Action (Promethean Drive): The urge to manipulate the physical and social environment, solve empirical problems, conquer obstacles, and maintain restless activity.
• Affection / Sociality (Interpersonal Belonging): The instinct toward communal harmony, social preservation, shared ritual, and sympathetic fellowship.

Morris argued that historically celebrated world religions and philosophies represent institutionalized cultural solutions prioritizing one or more of these three components. For instance, traditional Christian ethics merge affection with receptive faith, Buddhist ethics center on detached contemplation, and Western scientific modernity elevates active dominance.

2. Semiotic Foundations of Axiology

As outlined in Morris’s seminal work Signification and Significance (1964), values operate analogously to signs. Morris delineated three dimensions of semiotic functioning: designative (what is, cognitive representation), appraisive (what is preferential, evaluative disposition), and prescriptive (how one ought to act, normative execution). The Ways to Live scale operates at the intersection of appraisive and prescriptive discourse, eliciting an individual’s evaluation of comprehensive behavioral paradigms.

3. Constitutional and Temperamental Determinants

Morris integrated William H. Sheldon’s constitutional psychology (somatotype theory) into his explanatory model. Morris hypothesized that an individual’s constitutional biology (ectomorphy, mesomorphy, endomorphy) and associated temperament (cerebrotonia, somatotonia, viscerotonia) systematically predispose them toward corresponding designs for living. Ectomorphic, cerebrotonic individuals were predicted to favor detached, contemplative ways (Ways 2 and 11); mesomorphic, somatototonic individuals were predicted to favor vigorous, manipulative paths (Ways 6 and 12); and endomorphic, viscerotonic individuals were expected to prefer comfortable, cooperative avenues (Ways 5 and 8).

7. Validity

The construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the Ways to Live scale has been evaluated across multiple empirical investigations involving diverse multinational samples.

Construct and Factorial Validity

Construct validity was initially established through extensive comparative analyses across student and adult populations in the United States, pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary China, India, Japan, Norway, and Canada (Morris, 1956). Despite distinct cultural backgrounds, factor analyses of the 13 paths consistently yielded invariant psychological dimensions, confirming that the scale tapped into transcultural value structures rather than isolated linguistic artifacts.

Convergent and Concurrent Validity

The convergent validity of the scale was supported through systematic correlations with concurrent personality, value, and semantic scales:

• Semantic Differential Validations: In a landmark study, Osgood, Ware, and Morris (1961) analyzed the connotative meanings of the 13 paths among American college students using Charles Osgood’s Semantic Differential technique. The paths exhibited strong, predictable projections across the fundamental affective dimensions of Evaluation, Potency, and Activity (EPA). For example, Way 6 (active mastery) and Way 12 (physical action) projected positively onto the Potency and Activity dimensions, whereas Way 9 (quiet receptivity) and Way 11 (inward meditation) aligned inversely with Activity, corroborating the underlying theoretical constructs.
• Correlations with Constitutional Temperament: Jones and Morris (1956) administered the instrument alongside Sheldon’s temperament inventories. As predicted, individuals scoring high on cerebrotonia exhibited statistically significant positive correlations with Way 2 (self-sufficiency) and Way 11 (inner life), while somatotonia correlated significantly with Way 6 (mastery) and Way 12 (adventuresome deeds, r = .38 to .45, p < .001).
• Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Values: When correlated with the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values, Morris’s Ways demonstrated consistent convergent patterns: Way 6 correlated positively with Theoretical and Economic values; Way 3 correlated positively with Social values; and Ways 9 and 13 correlated strongly with Religious values.

Discriminant and Known-Groups Validity

The scale effectively distinguishes between distinct cultural and demographic populations. Morris (1956) demonstrated clear, statistically significant group divergences across cultures. Prior to the political transformations of the mid-20th century, Chinese respondents exhibited high preferences for Way 5 (group action) and Way 1 (social preservation), Indian respondents placed significantly higher value on Way 1 (preservation) and Way 3 (sympathetic concern), while American cohorts favored Way 7 (dynamic integration) and Way 6 (problem-solving mastery). Gender differences were also consistently observed: female cohorts across cultures systematically rated Way 3 (sympathetic concern) higher than male cohorts, who registered higher ratings for Way 6 and Way 12.

8. Reliability

Evaluating the reliability of the Ways to Live scale requires examining both stability coefficients (test-retest reliability) and the internal consistency of its underlying factor constructs, given that the canonical instrument utilizes single-paragraph stimuli for each of the 13 paths.

Test-Retest Stability

Because each “Way” is operationalized as a rich, unified descriptive paragraph, temporal stability is critical. Morris (1956) reported test-retest reliability across intervals ranging from three weeks to six months within American university cohorts:

• Individual Path Stability: Test-retest correlation coefficients ($r$) for individual ratings of the 13 paths ranged between .68 and .85 over a 3- to 4-week interval, demonstrating solid temporal consistency.
• Profile Stability: When respondents’ overall rank-order profiles (ranking all 13 ways from 1 to 13) were evaluated across a six-week span, rank-order profile stability coefficients (Spearman’s $rho$) routinely exceeded .80 for over 85% of respondents.

Metric Consistency and Revisions

In subsequent examinations of Morris’s scale, psychometricians noted the challenges of relying on complex, paragraph-length value stimuli. Dempsey and Dukes (1966) investigated the complex stimuli of Morris’s Paths of Life and administered both the paragraph versions and sentence-length distillations. They observed split-half and equivalence reliabilities between .72 and .81 across the underlying dimensions, confirming that the distinct themes maintain psychometric stability even when respondents evaluate concise value statements.

9. Factor Analysis

The factor structure of the Ways to Live scale has been extensively analyzed. Morris and Jones (1955) conducted a large-scale factor analysis on preferential ratings collected from a stratified sample of 2,015 American college students, subsequently replicating the analysis on international cohorts.

The Five Canonical Factors

Centroid and subsequent varimax-rotated principal components analyses revealed that the variance across the 13 paths is reliably accounted for by five primary value dimensions:

Way 7 (“Integrate action, enjoyment and contemplation”) typically exhibited moderate, balanced loadings across multiple factors rather than loading heavily on a single factor, consistent with its theoretical design as a pluralistic synthesis of all value orientations.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Type: Multi-dimensional philosophical value assessment inventory / preferential attitude rating scale.
• Format: Available as a 13-paragraph descriptive inventory or as a 13-item distilled statement scale. Administration protocols support both absolute Likert-type scaling and ipsative full-rank ordering.
• Item Count: 13 primary stimulus items/descriptions (Ways 1 through 13).
• Administration Time: Approximately 15 to 25 minutes for reading, rating, and ranking.
• Response Scale (Authentic 7-Point Evaluative Format):
  • 7: I like it very much
  • 6: I like it quite a lot
  • 5: I like it slightly
  • 4: I am indifferent to it
  • 3: I dislike it slightly
  • 2: I dislike it quite a lot
  • 1: I dislike it very much
• Scoring and Factor Profiling:
  • Raw Item Scores: The assigned numerical score (1 to 7) reflects preference for that specific life design.
  • Rank Order: Respondents order the items from 1 (most preferred) to 13 (least preferred), yielding an ipsative profile.
  • Factor Composite Scores: Factor scores are computed by weighting or summing item ratings corresponding to the five core dimensions identified by Morris and Jones: Factor A (Ways 1, 10 minus 4), Factor B (Ways 12, 5, 6 minus 2), Factor C (Ways 11, 2 minus 5), Factor D (Ways 13, 9, 3), and Factor E (Ways 8, 4 minus 13).

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The conceptual framework of the scale was first published in 1942 in Charles Morris’s Paths of Life: Preface to a World Religion (Harper & Brothers), with its formal psychometric standardization detailed in the 1956 monograph Varieties of Human Value (University of Chicago Press). As an early foundational instrument of academic social science, the scale items and factor matrices have been published extensively across peer-reviewed scholarly literature (e.g., Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1955) and public reference compilations, including the Institute for Social Research (ISR) volumes at the University of Michigan (Robinson & Shaver, 1969).

The scale is widely recognized within the academic psychometric community as a historic, open-access assessment instrument. Researchers may utilize the scale for non-commercial, academic, and clinical research purposes without licensing fees, provided proper bibliographic attribution is accorded to Charles W. Morris and his associated publishers.

12. References

• Dempsey, P., & Dukes, W. (1966). Complex value stimuli: An examination and revision of Morris’s Paths of Life. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 26(4), 871–882. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316446602600406
• Jones, L. V., & Morris, C. (1956). Relations of temperament to the choice of values. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 53(3), 346–349. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0040854
• Morris, C. (1942). Paths of life: Preface to a world religion. New York: Harper & Brothers. (2nd ed. published 1956, New York: George Braziller).
• Morris, C. (1951). Comparative strength of life-ideals in Eastern and Western cultures. In C. A. Moore (Ed.), Essays in East-West philosophy: An attempt at world philosophical synthesis (pp. 353–370). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
• Morris, C. (1956). Varieties of human value. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Morris, C. (1964). Signification and significance: A study of the relations of signs and values. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Morris, C., & Jones, L. V. (1955). Value scales and dimensions. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51(3), 523–535. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0047355
• Osgood, C. E., Ware, E. E., & Morris, C. (1961). Analysis of the connotative meanings of a variety of human values as expressed by American college students. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 62(1), 62–73. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0041280
• Robinson, J. P., & Shaver, P. R. (1969). Measures of political attitudes. Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)