Why We Don’t Act On Our Values (And What to Do About It)

Many of us experience a frustrating disconnect between what we say we care about and what we actually do. Maybe we're concerned about climate change but still fly frequently. Maybe we want to help those less fortunate than ourselves, but our charitable giving is the first thing to get cut when our budget feels tight. Maybe we believe factory farming is wrong but continue eating meat.

This phenomenon is called the value-action gap. 

In this article, we’re not trying to tell you what to value or how to act; our aim is to help you understand why these gaps emerge and how they persist, so that you can more easily bridge them in your own life (if you choose to), allowing you to more effectively live your values and create positive change in the world. In what follows, we use examples about specific issues like climate change and factory farming, but only because those are some of the domains in which this effect has been studied the most - if you don’t value those particular issues, then we hope you’ll be able to look past the specifics of the examples and apply the insights to the issues that do matter to you.

Why Don't People Act On Their  Values? The Three Ds

What makes these gaps between values and actions so persistent? Why do we so often fail to act on issues we genuinely care about? Research points to three key psychological barriers that maintain inaction - what we might call the "three Ds": despair, denial, and defiance.

In any individual case, it might be that one or more of these mechanisms is at play, but each of these can be a significant barrier to action.

Despair

Each one of us, by ourselves, is such a small part of the world that it’s easy to develop a deep sense that nothing we do can really make a difference. We often think of large-scale challenges as overwhelming crises where individual contributions seem insignificant. This feeling contributes to value-action gaps because (as research on "pseudo-inefficacy" shows), when people feel their actions won't create meaningful change, they're less likely to act at all. Even when it comes to things we value deeply, When this gap between a problem's scale and our potential impact appears insurmountable, the discouragement from perceived helplessness can outweigh any motivation to take action.

This despair is compounded by our tendency to underestimate others' willingness to act. Some studies find that people consistently misjudge how much their communities care about important issues. For example, one survey showed 80% of Americans underestimated support for major climate policies, on average by almost half.

When we believe we're alone in our concerns, our sense of futility deepens. We assume others won't join us, making collective action seem impossible before we even try.

The result is a vicious cycle: we see problems as too big for individual action, believe others won't help, and conclude that meaningful change is impossible. This perceived inefficacy becomes a more powerful predictor of inaction than lack of concern itself.

What makes this barrier particularly insidious is that it can affect even those who care deeply about an issue. Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura notes that "if people believe they have no power to produce results, they will not attempt to make things happen."

Solutions for Despair

Fighting despair requires finding action that can be effective.

If you are (or someone you know is) struggling with the sense that no available action will make a difference, consider researching the most effective charities working on the issues you (or they) care about. This can provide concrete evidence of impact. In many domains, there are organizations that have figured out how to make change in an effective way.

Seeing how existing organizations tackle even very difficult problems with measurable results may help counter feelings of futility. A simple thing you can always do to make a positive impact is to give, even a small amount, to some of these impactful charities. Some great places to start the search for high-impact organizations are charity evaluators, which spend a tremendous amount of time looking into which charities are actually effective, such as GiveWell (for global health organizations), GivingGreen (for climate organizations), Animal Charity Evaluators or FarmKind (for animal welfare organizations), or Happier Lives Institute (for wellbeing charities).

Another thing you can do is to change the scale of your focus. We are constantly bombarded with national and global news coverage of things that can feel far too big for us to do anything about. But that’s because we’re only being shown things at the biggest scale. If global poverty or disaster overwhelms you, it can help to change your focus from a national or global level to an individual level: You might not be able to solve global poverty or end a war, but you could help specific individuals escape poverty or conflict. This is unlikely to be as cost effective as donating to effective charities, but it may be deeply personally meaningful and help overcome a sense of futility.

The same is true of politics: Many of us feel powerless in the face of national or international political affairs that we find despair-inducing, but many of us never think to look into local politics. There are always things you can do at the local level that have an impact. 

Denial

Another barrier emerges from the human mind’s remarkable ability to distance itself from uncomfortable realities. Value-action gaps can be examples of uncomfortable realities because it is not pleasant to think about situations where our actions don’t line up with how we think of ourselves. For instance, suppose that honesty is one of your most fundamental core values, while you also believe that a significant lie you told recently was completely justified. What do you think it would feel like to simultaneously reflect on both (a) how much you believe you value honesty and (b) your belief that your dishonest action was justified? For many people, this creates an uneasy tension called ‘cognitive dissonance’, which is the discomfort of being aware that two or more of the beliefs you confidently hold actually contradict each other. When it comes to action-value gaps, the contradiction is between beliefs about what you value and beliefs about whether your actions are justified. Cognitive dissonance theory says that you will feel a drive to resolve that dissonance. One way to do so is to deny reality. That might mean denying that there is a contradiction (even when there is), reinterpreting one of the contradictory beliefs (e.g., “If you think about it this way, it wasn’t really a lie at all”), or changing one of the beliefs so that they match (e.g., "My lie actually wasn't justified, I shouldn't have lied.").

Another example has been pointed out by social psychologists and dubbed the ‘meat paradox’: It occurs when someone who deeply values animal welfare also consumes animal products that they believe have been produced at the expense of animal welfare. Again, reflecting on the tension between their values and their actions creates an unpleasant feeling called ‘cognitive dissonance’, and they are powerfully driven to resolve it.

Typically, the way that many people resolve this dissonance is to find reasons to deny that there is any contradiction between their values and their behavior. They might, for example, tell themselves that the kinds of practices that animal welfare campaigners highlight are rare and that most farmed animals are treated well (which unfortunately, in much of the world, is not true). This is an automatic psychological defense, rather than a conscious self-deception. When confronted with evidence that our actions contribute to problems we care about, we instinctively find ways to minimize our perceived impact or responsibility.

Denial can help us avoid the discomfort of cognitive dissonance, but while this coping mechanism might protect our emotional comfort in the short term, it ultimately prevents us from engaging more deeply and more meaningfully with issues we genuinely care about.

Solutions for Denial

So, what can you do if you have the sneaking suspicion that there’s a gap between your values and your actions, caused by denial? How can you both avoid this trap and become a better advocate for positive change with others? One answer might be to lower the difficulty barrier for taking positive action.

We often resolve our cognitive dissonance through denial because it feels like the easiest option. When changing our behavior to align with our values seems overwhelming or difficult, denial becomes an attractive psychological escape. So, by finding easy first steps, we can start living more in line with our values; we can lower the costs of acknowledging the inconsistency between our actions and our values.

For example, in the case of the person who deeply values animal welfare: If changing their diet feels too difficult, they might set up a small monthly donation to an effective animal charity or sign up to help with online corporate pressure campaigns. Some people even argue (though this is debated) that giving as little as $23 dollars a month to particularly effective charities can have the same impact on factory farming as giving up all animal products, and is - for many of us - much easier.

What if you spot someone else using denial to resolve the cognitive dissonance of a value-action gap? Well, when talking to others, it can be tempting to try persuading them by pointing out how their current behavior contradicts their stated values. However, this often backfires. As people, we are extremely skilled at rationalizing our behavior to align it with our self-perception as good and rational, especially if we feel we risk losing face in front of others. And confronting someone in that way may make them angry at you, which is often counter productive.

Instead, it is typically more effective to suggest a range of simple, low-cost ways that people can start taking actions that align with their values. Rather than letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, or trying to shame them into doing more - celebrate any positive action that people take to further important causes or live in line with their values.

Defiance

The final barrier, defiance, emerges when people feel their autonomy or identity is challenged. When this happens, people can move from potentially supporting a cause to actively opposing it.

This psychological reactance occurs when people perceive threats to their freedom of choice or self-determination. When advocates for a cause rely heavily on guilt-inducing messages, moral condemnation, or assertions of superiority, they may produce counterproductive outcomes of this kind. Rather than motivating people to act in line with their values, such strategies activate psychological defenses. This effect intensifies particularly when the targeted behaviors are deeply embedded in cultural practices, traditions, or personal identity.

Food choices are a really good example of this dynamic at play. Often, animal advocates use moral shaming to try to get people to change their diets and stop eating animal products. While such approaches may prove effective with certain populations, research indicates they can increase psychological resistance among others.

For many people, the food they eat isn’t just a matter of calories and nutrients; it plays an important role in their sense of their culture, their memories and, sometimes, their self-identity. When activists challenge these identity-relevant behaviors with shaming and moral criticism, people naturally respond with a defiant, heightened commitment to the contested practices. This may manifest, for instance, in people bragging to vegan activists about how much meat they like to eat.

This defensive response can affect even people who privately see that their actions don’t line up with their values and it can push them into being vocal defenders of those actions.

Solutions for Defiance

The key to overcoming defiance is respecting people’s autonomy while building bridges to shared values.

Instead of demanding specific behaviors from others, try emphasizing how there are many different ways to act in accordance with one’s values. For example, we could give our time to causes we care about by volunteering or even through a career change. Alternatively, we can give our money through donations. These are, often, the two greatest resources we have and there are many different ways that we can use them.

To reduce defiance when communicating with others, approach conversations with genuine curiosity. Ask questions, listen carefully, and find common ground. People are more open to change when they feel understood and respected, not judged. Lasting change typically occurs when individuals choose it for themselves, recognizing that they want to close the gap between their values and their actions, not when they feel coerced.

What to Remember 

By understanding and working with your psychology rather than against it, you can start building better bridges between your values and your actions. This means recognizing the barriers created by the Three Ds, and knowing what to do about them when they get in the way:

1. Despair can immobilize you by making action feel futile. If you’re facing this barrier, you can: (a) look into what existing effective charities are doing about the issues you care about and consider ways you can contribute; (b) change the scale of your focus and give your attention to a scale that you can impact.

2. Denial can feel good because it resolves cognitive dissonance, but it can also lead to acting out of step with values. If you’re facing this barrier, you can reduce barriers to action. Make it so that denial isn’t the easiest option anymore by finding simple ways you can move towards your values. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

3. Defiance is a natural response to some kinds of argument about what you should do, but it can lead us to dig our heels in and resist moving towards acting in line with our values. If you are facing this barrier, you can: Try to shift from confrontation to curiosity by asking questions and looking for shared values. It can also help to reframe issues in ways that respect autonomy and appreciate the many different options for action.

It’s not just people who struggle with these barriers: Many movements for change struggle to gain broader support because their messaging inadvertently triggers despair, denial, or defiance. Greater success may come from demonstrating concrete effectiveness, reducing barriers to action, and preserving individual choice.

Understanding these patterns gives us a powerful lens for examining both personal and societal challenges. Whether addressing climate change, improving health outcomes, or promoting social causes, recognizing how these three barriers shape responses becomes essential for effective action in line with our values.

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If you enjoyed learning about this topic, you could take things further by trying our free, Emotional Obstacles to Doing Good tool. In 15 minutes, it covers more ways that emotions can help or hinder your desire to make the world a better place.

Launch Tool: Emotional Obstacles to Doing Good

This article is a guest post by Thom Norman. Thom Norman is the co-founder of FarmKind, a non-profit donation platform that aims to find and fund the best charities working to reduce the suffering of animals in factory farms.

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