Shalom H. Schwartz

Universals in the Content and Structure of Values: Theoretical Advances and Empirical Tests in 20 Countries

Publisher Summary This chapter addresses the universals in the content and structure of values, concentrating on the theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries, and its four basic issues: substantive contents of human values; identification of comprehensive set of values; extent to which the meaning of particular values was equivalent for different groups of people; and how the relations among different values was structured. Substantial progress has been made toward resolving each of these issues. Ten motivationally distinct value types that were likely to be recognized within and across cultures and used to form value priorities were identified. Set of value types that was relatively comprehensive, encompassing virtually all the types of values to which individuals attribute at least moderate importance as criteria of evaluation was demonstrated. The evidence from 20 countries was assembled, showing that the meaning of the value types and most of the single values that constitute them was reasonably equivalent across most groups. Two basic dimensions that organize value systems into an integrated motivational structure with consistent value conflicts and compatibilities were discovered. By identifying universal aspects of value content and structure, the chapter has laid the foundations for investigating culture-specific aspects in the future.

Toward A Universal Psychological Structure of Human Values

We constructed a theory of the universal types of values as criteria by viewing values as cognitive representations of three universal requirements: (a) biological needs, (b) interactional requirements for interpersonal coordination, and (c) societal demands for group welfare and survival. From these requirements, we have derived and presented conceptual and operational definitions for eight motivational domains of values: enjoyment, security, social power, achievement, sehxiirection, prosocial, restrictive conformity, and maturity. In addition, we have mapped values according to the interests they serve (individualistic vs. collectivist) and the type of goal to which they refer (terminal vs. instrumental). We postulated that the structural organization of value systems reflects the degree to which giving high priority simultaneously to different values is motivationajly and practically feasible or contradictory. To test our theory, we performed smallest space analyses on ratings given by subjects from Israel (N = 455) and Germany (N = 331) of the importance of 36 Rokeach values as guiding principles in their lives. Partitioning of the obtained multidimensional space into regions revealed that people do indeed discriminate among values according to our a priori specifications of goal types, interests served, and motivational domains in both societies. Moreover, the motivational domains of values are organized dynamically in relation to one another in both societies, as predicted by the patterns of compatible or contradictory motivation and practical consequences. We have noted additional values and domains possibly needed for a universal scheme as well as potential applications of this approach for comparing the meanings, structure, and importance of values across cultures, for analyzing relations between social structure and values, and for predicting and interpreting relations of values to attitudes and behavior.

Normative Influences on Altruism

Publisher Summary Central to the theoretical model of personal normative influences on altruism presented in this chapter is the idea that altruistic behavior is causally influenced by feelings of moral obligation to act on ones personally held norms. Research supporting this central tenet of the model has demonstrated associations between personal norms and behavior rather than causal relations. These associations are partly causal because the associations appear primarily in the presence of personality conditions conducive to norm activation and are absent when personality conditions are conducive to deactivation, and attributes of personal norms (e.g., centrality, stability, and intensity) relate to altruism singly or in combination, in ways predicted when the causal impact of anticipated moral costs on behavior is assumed. Studies show that variations in situational conditions conducive to activation of moral obligation also influence the relationship between personal norms and behavior. There is ample evidence that variables that foster movement through the activation process—according to the theoretical model—are themselves related to altruistic behavior (e.g., seriousness of need and uniqueness of responsibility). The study of how personal norms are related to altruism is a part of a larger enterprise—the investigation of attitude–behavior relations in general.

Toward a theory of the universal content and structure of values: Extensions and cross-cultural replications.

The universality of Schwartz and Bilskys (1987) theory of the psychological content and structure of human values was examined with data from Australia, Finland, Hong Kong, Spain, and the United States

Extending the Cross-Cultural Validity of the Theory of Basic Human Values with a Different Method of Measurement

Several studies demonstrate that Schwartz’s (1992) theory of human values is valid in cultures previously beyond its range. We measured the 10 value constructs in the theory with the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ), a new and less abstract method. Analyses in representative samples in South Africa (n = 3,210) and Italy (n = 5,867) and in samples of 13- to 14-year-old Ugandan girls (n = 840) yielded structures of relations among values similar to the theoretical prototype. In an Israeli student sample (n = 200), the values exhibited convergent and discriminant validity when measured with the PVQ and with the standard value survey. Predicted relations of value priorities with a set of 10 background, personality, attitude, and behavioral variables in the four samples supported the construct validity of the values theory with an alternative method of measurement.

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.

Identifying Culture-Specifics in the Content and Structure of Values

Using data from 88 samples from 40 countries, the authors reevaluate the propositions of a recent values theory and provide criteria for identifying what is culture-specific in value meanings and structure. They confirm the widespread presence of 10 value types, arrayed on a motivational continuum, and organized on virtually universal, orthogonal dimensions: Openness to Change versus Conservation and Self-Transcendence versus Self-Enhancement. Forty-four values demonstrate high cross-cultural consistency of meaning. In the average sample, about 16% of single values diverge from their proto-typical value types, and one pair of motivationally close value types is intermixed. Test-retest and randomly split sample analyses reveal that some two thirds of deviations represent unreliable measurement and one third represent culture-specific characteristics. Ways to identify and interpret the latter are presented.

Individualism-Collectivism Critique and Proposed Refinements

Three criticisms of the individualism-collectivism dichotomy are explicated. The dichotomy leads one to overlook values that inherently serve both individual and collective interests (e.g., wisdom), it ignores values that foster the goals of collectivities other than the ingroup (e.g., universal values, such as social justice), and it promotes the mistaken assumption that individualistic and collective values each form coherent syndromes that are in polar opposition. These problems are illustrated by applying a more fine-tuned analysis of ten types of values postulated to be present in all cultures (Schwartz, 1987) to data from four empirical studies. This analysis reveals meaningful group differences that are obscured by the individualism-collectivism dichotomy. As an impetus to future research, hypotheses are offered about the types of values likely to differ in importance between societies with a more collectivist (communal) social structure and those with a more individualistic (contractual) structure.

Evaluating the structure of human values with confirmatory factor analysis

Abstract This is the first statistical test of a theory of the structure of human values ( Schwartz, 1992 ). The theory postulates that 10 basic values are discriminated in all societies and that these values form a quasi-circumplex structure based on the inherent conflict or compatibility between their motivational goals. Past support for the theory came from subjective judgments of visual plots of the relations among value items in samples from over 60 countries. We formally test the postulated structure and several potential refinements. We employ a specially designed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) approach with new data from two sets of 23 samples from 27 countries (N=10,857). In both data sets, CFAs confirm the 10 basic values, a modified quasi-circumplex rather than a simple circumplex structure, and the claim that values form a motivational continuum.