“Value” and “values.” Everyone will be using these words in the months and years ahead. And the words themselves can invoke many different meanings; so let’s focus for a moment on what we mean.

“Value” is what people want and are willing to pay for, and price is how much they are asked to pay for it. Over the boom years, until the economic crisis, value increasingly came to mean lots more for the price—bigger, faster, brighter, more powerful, more features, more convenience, more choice, more prestige. It was a time of supersize expectations—although ironically, consumer satisfaction didn’t rise at the same rate. The more consumers got, the more demanding they became.

“Values” are the feelings that motivate people to act, and the criteria by which they judge actions. Values are what people feel is important in life. Until the economic crisis, having more, doing more and being more were dominant values, not just in the United States and other developed economies, but also in emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, India and China.

In just a few months, the economic crisis has challenged the boom notions of value and values. As demand contracts and prices fall (in gasoline and real estate, for example), the previous links between value and price have been broken. How can the same gallon of fuel cost $4 one day and $2 a week later? As the crisis unfolds further, watch out for individuals, communities and whole countries to reevaluate the way they think about value.

In business, the emerging commercial reality is that cautious consumers seek a new kind of value when they spend. Value no longer means “as much as possible” or “all you can eat.” Now, as consumers watch their spending much more closely, they’re acutely aware of how much satisfaction (value) they derived from their cravings, whims and impulse buys in the boom years.

The greedy rise of “more” has hit a ceiling. And now a fearful downward run of “less” threatens to plunge to “none at all.” In this anxious, uncertain environment, real value means “just enough to satisfy.” It means meeting needs and having a sense of money well spent, not wasted. Listen out for more vocal consumers: “I’m not paying for all those extra features, I just need the basics.” It all came together, symbolically, a couple of weeks before the U.S. elections when Michelle Obama appeared on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” wearing a modestly priced J. Crew outfit she bought online.

When it comes to bigger issue of values, the crisis has already prompted most of us to ask: “How did we get into this mess?” Accusing fingers are pointed at bankers who chased massive profits, and at feckless homebuyers who borrowed more than they could afford. But they weren’t the only ones who allowed the pursuit of more to dominate their other values. In 2009 and beyond, watch for consensus building around values that suddenly feel so much more important: Stability, Sustainability, Cooperation and Peace of Mind.