The Mechanisms that Link Values to Behavior: The Role of Attention and Interpretation: Personal values are abstract desirable goals that serve as guiding principles in people’s lives. Values are recognized as important psychological constructs, because they are hypothesized to have wide ranging effects on attitudes and behaviors. In this talk I will present a new model of the mechanisms linking values and behavior. We propose that one of the important ways in which values affect behavior, is through their impact on attention and interpretation of the social context. Relying on the Schwartz value theory, we study the full spectrum of motivational goals, thus comprehensively mapping the impact of values on attention and interpretation. I will present a series of studies testing the hypotheses that conflicting value types (e.g., openness to change and conservation) direct attention to similar aspects of the context (e.g., focusing on the novel aspects of the situation) but lead to different, even opposing, interpretations (i.e., an opportunity for excitement versus a threat for stability).