In the years following 9/11 and the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, you might expect that Americans’ desire for security and a sense of belonging has gone up. But not so, discovered a team of marketing researchers from the University of Oregon. They asked people to pick their top social value and found that the craving for security has gone down. While 20.6 percent of people chose security as their most important social value in 1976, only 12.4 percent chose it in 2007 (though it is possible, the researchers admit, that the recent financial crisis has raised concerns about security once again).
The desire for self-respect, on the other hand, has become even more important to Americans, picked as the top social value by 21.1 percent of people in 1976 and 28.8 percent of people in 2007. To marketing professor Lynn Kahle, this suggests that, more than before, people are relying on themselves to solve their problems. Other values going up: “warm relationships with others” (from 16.2 percent to 20.9 percent) and “fun-enjoyment-excitement” (4.5 percent to 9.3 percent.)
What accounts for the shift? The researchers aren’t sure, but Eda Gurel-Atay, the doctoral student who led the study, thinks social networking sites may have something to do with it:

Without Facebook, for instance, we might not contact our friends from primary school or others from years ago, but now we can connect with them, talk to them, share our experiences, tell them what we have done. That phenomenon may help a lot in explaining the increase in the importance of “warm relationships with others,” but this study did not look directly at such influences.