Dominant Cultural Values in Life Styles: A Case Study in the City of Tehran

Identification of dominant cultural values in life styles gains more importance when we understand how values can shape individual’s mental space، tastes، and preferences and affect their practical choices in what is called life-style. Accordingly، the main purpose of this study is to shed light on dominant cultural values in the city of Tehran. The pivotal problem is to measure the ratio between the ideal and current real values among the respondents. The method of the study is quantitative. The data was collected by both interviewing 30 people selected from a heterogeneous group of people from Tehran to explore the concepts and responding to a questionnaire made by the researcher which was distributed among 300 respondents who differed in age، gender، academic education، income، and residency in 1391. Descriptive and inferential clustering statistics are employed in this study. Findings display a gap between current real and ideal values for determination of the valuable person. In case of the former، we face the saliency of “pretentious” values such as emulation، ostentation، and hypocrisy and the triviality of values of considering others such as empathy and gratefulness. This occurs in spite of the fact that the valuable person، in the view of respondents، has been identified as a wise and educated person. In addition، there is no significant difference between the before mentioned dominant values and the independent variables of this study including، gender، age، academic education، residency، income، and employment which consequently reveals the fact that we experience a kind of homogeneity in our value findings.