Anat Bardi

Value Hierarchies Across Cultures Taking a Similarities Perspective

Beyond the striking differences in the value priorities of groups is a surprisingly widespread consensus regarding the hierarchical order of values. Average value hierarchies of representative and near representative samples from 13 nations exhibit a similar pattern that replicates with school teachers in 56 nations and college students in 54 nations. Benevolence, self-direction, and universalism values are consistently most important; power, tradition, and stimulation values are least important; and security, conformity, achievement, and hedonism are in between. Value hierarchies of 83% of samples correlate at least .80 with this pan-cultural hierarchy. To explain the pan-cultural hierarchy, the authors discuss its adaptive functions in meeting the requirements of successful societal functioning. The authors demonstrate, with data from Singapore and the United States, that correctly interpreting the value hierarchies of groups requires comparison with the pan-cultural normative baseline.

Values and Behavior: Strength and Structure of Relations

Three studies address unresolved issues in value-behavior relations. Does the full range of different values relate to common, recurrent behaviors? Which values relate more strongly to behavior than others? Do relations among different values and behaviors exhibit a meaningful overall structure? If so, how to explain this? We find that stimulation and tradition values relate strongly to the behaviors that express them; hedonism, power, universalism, and self-direction values relate moderately; and security, conformity, achievement, and benevolence values relate only marginally. Additional findings suggest that these differences in value-behavior relations may stem from normative pressures to perform certain behaviors. Such findings imply that values motivate behavior, but the relation between values and behaviors is partly obscured by norms. Relations among behaviors, among values, and jointly among values and behavior exhibit a similar structure. The motivational conflicts and congruities postulated by the theory of values can account for this shared structure.

Influences of Adaptation to Communist Rule on Value Priorities in Eastern Europe

The basic value priorities prevalent in Eastern Europe are studied in a cross-national comparison. Analyses of the implications of adaptation to life circumstances under communist regimes lead to the hypotheses that East European samples are likely to attribute especially high importance to conservatism and hierarchy values and low importance to egalitarianism, intellectual and affective autonomy, and mastery values. The same hypotheses apply to differences between countries within Eastern Europe in which there was greater or lesser communist penetration. These hypotheses are largely supported with data both from samples of school teachers and of university students from nine Eastern European and 12 Western European countries. Various possible alternative explanations are discussed: national economic level, religion, earlier shared history, effects of totalitarianism, and distinctiveness of Western Europe.

The structure of intraindividual value change.

Values are assumed to be relatively stable during adulthood. Yet, little research has examined value stability and change, and there are no studies on the structure of value change. On the basis of S. H. Schwartzs (1992) value theory, the authors propose that the structure of intraindividual value change mirrors the circumplexlike structure of values so that conflicting values change in opposite directions and compatible values change in the same direction. Four longitudinal studies, varying in life contexts, time gaps, populations, countries, languages, and value measures, supported the proposed structure of intraindividual value change. An increase in the importance of any one value is accompanied by slight increases in the importance of compatible values and by decreases in the importance of conflicting values. Thus, intraindividual changes in values are not chaotic, but occur in a way that maintains Schwartzs value structure. Furthermore, the greater the extent of life-changing events, the greater the value change found, whereas age was only a marginal negative predictor of value change when life events were taken into account. Implications for the structure of personality change are discussed.

The Dual Route to Value Change: Individual Processes and Cultural Moderators

Understanding value stability and change is essential for understanding values of both individuals and cultures.Yet theoretical thinking and empirical evidence on this topic have been scarce. In this article, the authors suggest a model outlining processes of individual value change. This model proposes that value change can occur through automatic and effortful routes. They identify five facilitators of value change (priming, adaptation, identification, consistency maintenance, and direct persuasion) and consider the moderating role of culture in each. In addition, the authors discuss the roles of culture, personal values, and traits as general moderators of value change. Evidence on the structure of value change and the effects of age on value change are also reviewed.

Personality Traits and Personal Values A Meta-Analysis

Personality traits and personal values are important psychological characteristics, serving as important predictors of many outcomes. Yet, they are frequently studied separately, leaving the field with a limited understanding of their relationships. We review existing perspectives regarding the nature of the relationships between traits and values and provide a conceptual underpinning for understanding the strength of these relationships. Using 60 studies, we present a meta-analysis of the relationships between the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality traits and the Schwartz values, and demonstrate consistent and theoretically meaningful relationships. However, these relationships were not generally large, demonstrating that traits and values are distinct constructs. We find support for our premise that more cognitively based traits are more strongly related to values and more emotionally based traits are less strongly related to values. Findings also suggest that controlling for personal scale-use tendencies in values is advisable.

A new archival approach to the study of values and value--behavior relations: validation of the value lexicon.

The present effort employs a new archival approach to study values and value- behavior relations, which is likely to be particularly useful in applied settings. A value lexicon was developed on the basis of the Schwartz (1992) value theory to extract lexical indicators of values from texts. The convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of this measure was established using American newspaper content from 1900 to 2000 vis-à-vis existing self-report measures of values and objective indicators of value-expressive behaviors. Results provide empirical support for the use of the value lexicon to study values and value- behavior relations. First, the value lexicon demonstrated convergence with self-report responses of values. Second, values in American newspapers were associated with objective indicators of their corresponding value-expressive behaviors compared with noncorresponding value- expressive behaviors. Third, patterns of values over this 101-year period exhibited meaningful fluctuations with major historical and political events. The discussion describes new possibilities for future research on values in many applied settings with the value lexicon. The discussion also suggests that the principles of the value lexicon could be adopted to measure other psychological constructs of interest to applied psychology.

Value stability and change during self-chosen life transitions: Self-selection versus socialization effects

Three longitudinal studies examine a fundamental question regarding adjustment of personal values to self-chosen life transitions: Do values fit the new life setting already at its onset, implying value-based self-selection? Or do values change to better fit the appropriate and desirable values in the setting, implying value socialization? As people are likely to choose a life transition partly based on their values, their values may fit the new life situation already at its onset, leaving little need for value socialization. However, we propose that this may vary as a function of the extent of change the life transition entails, with greater change requiring more value socialization. To enable generalization, we used 3 longitudinal studies spanning 3 different life transitions and different extents of life changes: vocational training (of new police recruits), education (psychology vs. business students), and migration (from Poland to Britain). Although each life transition involved different key values and different populations, across all 3 studies we found value fit to the life situation already early in the transition. Value socialization became more evident the more aspects of life changed as part of the transition, that is, in the migration transition. The discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for research on values and personality change, as well as limitations and future directions for research.

The interaction between values and organizational identification in predicting suggestion-making at work

The present study proposed and found that personal values and organizational identification interact in predicting making suggestions for organizational improvements at work. One hundred and forty-eight employees of childrens day-care centres rated their values, their identification with the organization and their suggestion-making behaviour. Their behaviour was also rated by their supervisors. As expected, the value dimension of openness to change vs. conservation predicted suggestion-making more strongly amongst individuals highly identified with the organization than amongst individuals weakly identified with the organization. This was found using self-ratings of behaviour as well as supervisors rating of behaviour. The study points to the importance of values and identification in understanding suggestion-making and innovative behaviour at work, and it opens new avenues for examining this interaction in predicting other kinds of organizational behaviours.

Value Adaptation to the Imposition and Collapse of Communist Regimes in East-Central Europe

Does the political system in a country influence the importance that its citizens ascribe to the broad range of basic human values? Surprisingly, there is little direct evidence that this is the case. We address this question through a comparative, crossnational study. For this purpose, we take advantage of the natural experiment in Central and Eastern Europe constituted by the imposition of communist regimes over 40 years and their subsequent collapse. We seek to identify if and how the experience of living under communist regimes affected the basic values of citizens in East and Central European countries. (For convenience we refer to this region collectively as East Europe).