Structure of the human values in the student community

To identify the structure of human values in the student community, the procedure described by ^{Schwartz (1994}) and ^{Allen (2001}) was used, which consisted in applying a descriptive survey of closed responses, using paper and pencil, to a sample (n=187) of the total population (600) of undergraduate and graduate students from the Agroindustrial Engineering Department (Departamento de Ingeniería Agroindustrial, DIA), using the maximum variance, reliability of 95 % and error margin of 7.4 %. To this effect, the survey included a section in which people initially had to select the 13 most important human values from a list of 40 human values to then select the 13 least important values. A three was assigned to the values selected as most important, a one to the least important values and finally a two to those not used by the survey respondent. To the Euclidean distances generated between the 40 values, a nonmetric multidimensional analysis was applied, with the least squares alternative scaling procedure (ALSCAL), using the IBM SPSS software.

Additionally, to the matrix of responses of importance of the 40 human values, a factorial analysis without rotation was applied by the method of principal components, and the Eigen values higher than one were the selection criterion of the total number of factors. The geographic location of the loads and grades in the first two components represented the human and individual values, in their respective graphs. The proportion of participants with regards to variables was 4.7:1; the proportion of participants with regards to the factors was 26.7:1, and the proportion of variables with regards to the factors was 5.7:1. For the data analysis, the XLSTAT software was used.

Exploring the symbolism of the Chapingo Cheese in the agroindustrial community

An online survey was applied, using the Google Forms program, to research the existence and extension of the symbolism of the Chapingo Cheese in the agroindustrial community of students and professors. A sample of students (n=137) was used from a population of 600 individuals from undergraduate and graduate programs, using the maximum variance, a reliability of 95 % and an error margin of 8.6 %, and another sample (n=24) from a population of 40 professors, with the same conditions as before and an error margin of 16.2 %. The procedure consisted in showing an image of Chapingo Cheese to each of the consumers and ask them to write three words (ideas or concepts) that came to mind, associated with the stimulus presented (^{Elliot, 1994}). Two modifications were done to the original procedure: the first was to ask the question online and the second consisted in asking the survey respondents to write only three words instead of all the words they wanted. This is because in a pilot test people found it difficult to write more than three words. The responses were organized hierarchically by highest number of frequencies and, then, three people grouped the words by affinity to form categories that contained each one and not less than two ideas. With the Minitab 17 software, an independence test was applied, using the χ² statistic for a contingency table with the type of community (student/professor) and the categories of related words. Additionally, the k proportions test was applied for the categories of related words, using the χ² statistic and the proportions were compared by using the Marascuilo procedure.

Structure of the personal values in the student community

Table 1 contains the means and standard deviations of the personal values of the Agroindustrial community. We can observe that the most important values included Honesty, Responsibility and Education; the least important were Salvation, Social Power and Indulgence. The first seem to emphasize, on the one hand, a direction of benevolence and, on the other, one of conformity; these two are neighboring categories in the Theoretical Model of Relations between the Motivational Types of Values (^{Schwartz, 1992}), finally the community resists social power and beliefs of an eternal life.

The analysis of multidimensional scaling of the 40 human values showed for the solution of two dimensions a Kruskal stress of 0.199 and a square correlation (R ² ) of 0.826, which indicated an adequate adjustment. The Kruskal stress is an adimensional measure of the error (0-1) between the disparities and the distances, and the R ² represents the percentage of variance of the disparities that was explained by the distances of the configuration (^{Kruskal, 1964}).

The coordinates of multidimensional analysis are presented in Figure 1. The first step consisted in observing those values that were closer one from the other and interpret them as more compatible; for example, in the left side of Figure 1 the values of Salvation, Indulgence and Pleasure and a World of Beauty were closer one to another. Then, those people from the community who believed that Salvation was important were also inclined to believe that Indulgence, Pleasurable and a World of Beauty were. Other interesting compatibilities of the several present were the values of Responsibility and Honesty, and True Friendship and Happiness, shown in the right section of the first dimension; no less interesting was the association between Social Justice and A World in Peace, close to the center of the graph.

Figure 1 Representation of the dimensions one and two of the multidimensional scaling of personal values of the agroindustrial community. 

The second theoretical aspect of the multidimensional scaling map is that the two dimensions (horizontal and vertical) showed the primary orientations of the personal values. Examining dimension one (horizontal), the right side had values like Responsibility and Honesty, which give the community an orientation of benevolence. The left side of dimension one presented values like Indulgence, Salvation, Social Power and Social Recognition, which seem to highlight benevolence and the category opposed to benevolence, which is power; this agrees with the Theory of Structure of Value Relations (^{Schwartz, 1992}). The higher part of dimension two showed the value of Happiness, belonging to the hedonistic category; the lower placed the values of Useful, Broad Mind and Ambition, the two first belonging to the category of benevolence and the last to the category of achievement, which is opposed to the one of benevolence (^{Schwartz, 2012}).

The examination of the means represented the final acceptable states and the ways of behavior of the community, but the multidimensional analysis brought to light the predominant forms in which people varied. The importance of these two dimensions and of their own values should not be overlooked, since the personal values help individuals to adapt to their environment and to perform behavioral decisions. Therefore, the personal values are intervening in the differentiation of the students and these dimensions could be related to the individual differences of personality for their consumption behaviors (^{Furst et al., 1996}; ^{Allen, 1999}; ^{Connors et al., 2001}).

The purpose of applying a factorial analysis to the set of importance of the values of the student community was to obtain the graphic representation of the distribution of people (grades) and of human values (loads) with the first two factors. The factorial analysis provided seven factors that explained 26.08% of the total variation of the data. The first two factors explained only 10.92 % of the variation (Figure 2). The first factor (6.64 %) included in its structure, as variables of highest positive weight, the values of Honesty and Responsibility, and of highest negative weight, the values of Social Power, Social Recognition and Salvation, which completely agrees with the multidimensional analysis. The second factor (4.27 %) included with highest positive weight the values of Equality and Indulgence, and with highest negative weight, Intellectual. The observations in Figure 3 represent the students per gender; a large concentration of them is observed in the quadrants on the right where the values of Responsibility and Honesty showed a great weight on factor one, not so the value of Education (good manners) related to tradition. More interesting were the values of Obedience and Self-control located in the left quadrants, where a lower frequency of students was observed and which represents the space opposite to the predominant values of Responsibility and Honesty. The structures of the values found in the multidimensional analysis and the factorial analysis indicate that the community has an orientation towards benevolence, adjacent to the type of values of tradition in the theoretical model (^{Schwartz, 1994}). However, in this study the benevolence (Figure 3) resulted opposite to the types of values of conformity and tradition.

Figure 2 Loads of the first two factors, obtained from a factorial analysis of the personal values of the agroindustrial community. 

Figure 3 Observations of the first two factors, obtained from a factorial analysis of the personal values of the agroindustrial community. 

To determine whether the genders represent different psychosocial patterns, which would be reflected in the human values of factor one, the average of the grades (obtained from the factorial analysis) from factor one was calculated, corresponding to each gender. The value of t for the difference test between the averages of the grades of the genders was -3.91 (gl=185, p<0.001). For the women (n=100) the average was 0.137 (s=0.81), which placed them on the side of benevolence, and on the other hand, the men (n=87) were located in the side of power with a mean of -0.213 (s=0.98). The difference in the means of this factor does not mean that the men do not appreciate the values of benevolence; in fact, these were important for both genders. The difference in the means of factor one actually indicate that the men placed more importance on the values of power and less on those of benevolence.

The symbolism of the Chapingo Cheese in the agroindustrial community

Table 2 shows the 14 categories and the examples of the related words used to express the ideas of the people to whom the Chapingo Cheese was presented. Table 3 shows the percentages of the words that correspond to each one of the 14 categories; those of higher percentage, both for students and for professors, were those related to hedonism, 31.5 % and 25 %, respectively. The percentage of times that the students used words related to identity and tradition were 2.3 % and 3.4 %, and for the case of the professors it was 3.9 %, for both categories. The highest percentage of the frequencies of words related to the identity obtained in professors can be explained, because the symbolism of the consumption is made more intense with the increase in the age of the consumers (^{Belk, Bahn, & Mayer, 1982}). None of the categories reached 50 % of the total frequencies of words used, which is why there is no communality for the symbolism of the Chapingo Cheese, according to the criterion cited by ^{Elliot (1994}). However, the communality for the symbolism of identity of the various traditional Mexican cheeses has still not been reported.

When applying an independence test, using the statistic χ² for a contingency table, with the lines as the sector of the community (student and professor) and the columns with the 14 categories of related words, no evidence was obtained (p=0.75) to reject the hypothesis of independence between the two variables. In addition, the analysis indicated the presence of ten cells with expected numbers less than five. A new contingency table was analyzed with the frequencies of the four remaining categories (maturation, appetite, hedonism and genuineness) and the results did not show again evidence to reject the hypothesis of independence (p=0.53).

The results of the meaning of the Chapingo Cheese indicated that the departmental community expressed mostly (25-31.5 %) a utilitarian meaning by using words related to the tangible attributes of the cheese (hedonism: appearance, flavor and texture) and to a much lesser measure an intangible meaning, which includes the symbolic part. The symbolic meaning of a product includes a greater involvement of individuals with the culture in their environment (^{Allen, 2002}). For the case of the students, the hedonistic meaning was greater and different from other categories (p<0.05), but not so for the professors: The symbolism of identity in students was statistically equal in 12 categories, with the exception of genuineness and hedonism. In the professors, the proportions for all the categories were equal (p>0.05).