“Kiasu”, “competitive”, “materialistic”, “self-centred” and “complaining”: These are some of the negative and potentially-limiting values that define the current society, according to a survey of some 2,000 Singaporeans.

The 2018 Singapore National Values Assessment also showed that of the top 10 values that characterise the current society, the respondents only listed three positive values: “educational opportunities”, “care for the elderly” and “effective healthcare”.

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These findings were unveiled on Monday (30 July) at a closed-door roundtable discussion organised by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS). The survey, jointly conducted by aAdvantage Consulting Group and Barrett Values Centre (BVC) for the third consecutive time, was also previously carried out in 2012 and 2015.

Notably, six of the seven negative values of the current society in the survey – “kiasu”, “competitiveness”, “materialistic”, “blame”, “kiasi” and “self-centeredness” – also appeared in the 2015 survey while “complaining” was a new value added to the latest edition.

Vincent Ho, director of aAdvantage Consulting Group, said at the discussion that complaining could be seen as a virtue.

“If people complain and as a result of them, openly discuss what went wrong and (their) different perspectives, then potentially there might be positive outcomes,” said Ho.

When asked to describe their top 10 personal values, the respondents selected positive attributes such as “family”, “caring”, “compassion”, happiness and “humour/fun”.

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On the gap between the respondents’ perceptions of the Singaporean society and at the individual level, Associate Professor Tan Ern Ser from the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore (NUS), explained, ”I think it’s because Singaporeans hope that society will be like a family, where people care for another…But society is such that each person is for himself or herself.”

He noted that the respondents’ negative views of certain aspects of society may be a form of self-criticism. As a result, this can hold back Singaporeans from “being the best” they aspire to be despite their high expectations, he stressed.

Prof Tan graded the respondents’ views of current societal values in Singapore a “C” and their perceptions of themselves an “A-”.

In a separate section of the survey on their desired society, the respondents listed the top 10 values as “affordable housing”, “care for the elderly”, “compassion”, “care for the disadvantaged’, “effective healthcare”, “caring for the environment”, “dependable public services”, “educational opportunities”, “concern for future generations” and “respect”.

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The top five values with the largest disparity between the perceptions of current and desired society were “affordable housing”, “compassion”, “care for the disadvantaged”, “care for the elderly” and “respect”.

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