Overview

By Liubov V. Borisova

December 8, 2009

Overview

‘Theories of Values’ – Introduction

Theory of Basic Human Values – individual level

Theory of Cultural Values – ‘cultural’ level

Schwartz Value Survey (SVS)

Validation of Theories and Empirical Results

• Theory of Basic Human Needs

• Theory of Cultural Values

Critical Assessment and Discussion

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‘Theories of Values’ (1) 3

Theory inspired by the works of Rokeach (1973) and Hofstede (1980, 1982, 1983) – the ‘early classics’ of value research.

Schwartz developed a theory of ‘content and structure of values’ on the basis of empirical cross-cultural studies (Schwartz 1992; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987, 1990).

Methodologically arises from the idea of circumplex structure of personality: “Personality or affect variables lie on the circumference of a

circle, and the strength of the association between variables decreases as the distance between variables on the circle increases” (Schwartz & Boehnke, 2004).

Idea of competing and complementary types of values (Schwartz, 1996)

‘Theories of Values’ (2) 4

Three major questions within the project (Schwartz, 1992):

How are the value priorities of individuals affected by their social experiences?

How do the value priorities held by individuals affect their behavioural orientations and choices?

How do value priorities from matched groups in various countries differ between each other?

According to Schwartz, integrated values on the individual level (in terms of “motivational types of values and their goals“) are distinguished from cultural orientations:

While motivational dimensions are found in every culture, the level of importance of each dimension varies from one culture to the next

Concept of Values 5

Values are “conceptions of the desirable that guide the way social actors (e.g. organizational leaders, policy-makers, individual persons) select actions, evaluate people and events, and explain their actions and evaluations. … [Values] are trans-situational criteria or goals, ordered by importance as guiding principles of life” (Schwartz, 1999).

Theory of Basic Human Values 6

The type of motivational goal the values express distinguishes among different values

Three universal requirements of human existence (Schwartz, 1996):

Biological needs

Coordinated social interaction

Demand of group survival and functioning

Schwartz creates 10 motivational types, which are comprised of 57 (45) single values and plots them in the circumplex structure within the two dimensions.

Motivational Types and Individual Values (1)

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Power: motivational goal of power values is the attainment of social status and prestige, and the control or dominance over people and resources.

Social Power, Authority, Wealth

Achievement: personal success through demonstrated competence.

Successful, Capable, Ambitious, Influential

Hedonism: pleasure or sensuous gratification for oneself. This value type is derived from physical needs and the pleasure associated with satisfying them.

Pleasure, Enjoying Life

Stimulation: excitement, novelty, and challenge in life.

Daring, a Varied Life, an Exciting Life

Self-Direction: independent thought and action (for example, choosing, creating, exploring).

Creativity, Freedom, Independent, Curious, Choosing Own Goals

From SVS Official Web-site www.imo-international.de

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Universalism: understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection of the welfare for all people and for nature.

Broadminded, Wisdom, Social Justice, Equality, a World at Peace, a World of Beauty, Unity with Nature, Protecting the Environment

Benevolence: preserving and enhancing the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent personal contact.

Helpful, Honest, Forgiving, Loyal, Responsible

Tradition: respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that one's culture or religion imposes on the individual.

Humble, Accepting my Portion of Life, Devout, Respect for Tradition, Moderate

Conformity: restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others and violate social expectations or norms.

Politeness, Obedient, Self-Discipline, Honoring Parents and Elders

Security: safety, harmony, and stability of society, relationships, and of self.

Family Security, National Security, Social Order, Clean, Reciprocation of Favours

Originally there was 11th type – Spirituality, but it was not found to be ‘universal’

Motivational Types and Individual Values (2)

From SVS Official Web-site www.imo-international.de

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All the 10 motivational types/integrated values can be

summarised in terms of the two-dimensional structure (this is

empirically driven):

Openness to change vs. Conservation (conflict between emphasis on own

independent thought and action, and favouring change vs. self-

restriction, preservation of traditional practices, protection of stability).

Self-Transcendence vs. Self-Enhacement (conflict of acceptance of others

as equals and concern for their welfare vs. pursuit of own relative

success and dominance over others)

Motivational Types and Individual Values (3)

Theorised Structure of the Individual-Level

Motivational Types 10

Schwartz & Rubel, 2005: 1011

Theory of Cultural Values (1) 11

Cultural values – “implicitly or explicitly shared abstract ideas about what is good, right, and desirable in a society” (Schwartz, 1999)

According to Schwartz, the way the societal institutions function and their goals express cultural value priorities.

Individual value priorities are a product of a)shared culture and b)personal experiences.

Individuals learn to accept shared social values through adaptation to social reality, formal and informal socialisation.

Thus, Schwartz infers societal value priorities by aggregating the value priorities of individuals.

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Three major issues which confront all societies, on which cultural values can be compared:

Relationship between individual and group:

Conservatism vs. (Intellectual and Affective) Autonomy

Responsible behaviour to preserve ‘social fabric’:

Hierarchy vs. Egalitarianism

The relation to the natural and social world

Mastery vs. Harmony

The seven value types form three bipolar dimensions

Theory of Cultural Values (2)

Theorised Structure of the Culture-Level Value Types

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Schwartz, 1999: 29

Schwartz Value Survey (SVS) (1) 14

Established 1987 by Schwartz and Bilsky

1988-1992: survey administered within 41 cultural groups in 38 nations

38 samples of school teachers, 38 – of university students

Reasoning: “school teachers may have a number of advantages for characterizing cultural priorities. … they play an explicit role in value socialization, they are presumably key carriers of culture and they probably reflect the mid-range of prevailing value priorities in most societies” (Schwartz, 1999:34) .

To argue for his point, Schwartz compares the order of different nations from the teacher samples with student samples and finds many similarities.

By now: more than 60,000 individuals in 64 nations on all continents

Schwartz Value Survey (SVS) (2) 15

Structure:

2 sets of single items/values (56 or 57 total)

21 values identical to those proposed by Rokeach (1973)

Terminal vs. instrumental values (Schwartz, 1992) Terminal – end states, expressed in nouns: equality

Instrumental – modes of behaviour, phrased as adjectives: independent

Some divergence of responses to terminal and instrumental values

But also Schwartz and Bilsky discuss the possibility of the order of values influencing the answers

Each item followed in parentheses by a short explanatory phrase. E.g. “EQUALITY (equal opportunities for all)”

Respondents need to rate each item as a ‘guiding principle in their life’ on a 9-point scale: from 7 (‘of supreme importance’) through 0 (‘not important’) to -1 (‘opposed to my principles’)

Demographic questionnaire

Address: www.imo-international.de

Motivational Types and Individual Items

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Miao et al., 2009:671

Validation of Theory – Individual Level 17

Validation of Theory of Basic Human Values through

empirical analysis

Smallest Space Analysis (Schwartz, 1992) OR Similarity

Structure Analysis (Schwartz, 1999) – both SSA

Intercorrelation matrix of Pearson correlations between the

importance of ratings within samples

Computed on the multidimensional space through MDS (non-

metric multidimensional scaling) – the closer the ‘points’ are,

the more similar they are (separate samples)

Value Structure, averaged 18

Schwartz, 1992: 24

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Value Structure, teacher sample

Schwartz, 1992: 34

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Value Structure, student sample

Schwartz, 1992: 33

Example

Comparison of sportsmen and

trainers with teachers. By Dr

Nicholas G. Aplin in “The Values of

Physical Education Trainees in

Singapore”

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Validation of Theory – Cultural Level 22

Validation of Theory of Cultural Values through

empirical analysis (Schwartz, 1999)

SSA

Means of each of the single items for each of the 122

samples

Correlations between items within sample

Covariation in the mean importance ratings across samples

determines the culture-level dimensions

Value structure, culture-level 23

Schwartz, 1999: 31

Empirical implications 24

Comparing cultures

Assumption: teachers are a good representation of national

value priorities

Finding the importance attributed to each dimension through

averaging the values which represent each dimension –

creating a mean for each nation/sample for each dimension

Thus, for example, mean for Intellectual Autonomy would consist of

average of Creativity, Broadminded and Curious

Comparing nations in terms of relative importance ascribed

to each value type taken alone

Co-plot technique

Co-plot of nations 25

Schwartz, 1999: 36

WVS vs. SVS 26

Schwartz, 1999: 36 WVS Website, www.worldvaluessurvey.org

Critical Assessment

SVS provides less ‘limited’ aspects of

culture, trying to seek for a fuller

range of value dimensions

Not politically-driven, but rather

‘value-driven’

Developed structure of values on

both individual and ‘nation’ level

Problem of sampling – the main assumption is too stretched?

Problem of measuring – is rating importance really expresses a value

The usual dilemma in ‘value’ research – do people across nations understand similar concepts under one phrasing?

Very theory-based, values might be too sensitive to change, and theory might ‘work’ ONLY for this type of study.

In cross-country research no attention to value change.

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Pros Cons

Sources 28

Maio, Gregory R.; Pakizeh, Ali; Cheung, Wing-Yee; Rees, Kerry J. Changing, priming, and acting on values: Effects via motivational relations in a circular model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol 97(4), Oct 2009, 699-715

Schwartz, Shalom H. A Theory of Cultural Values and Some Implications for Work. APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, 1999, 48 (1), 23–47

Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 1–65). New York: Academic Press.

Schwartz, Shalom H.; Boehnke, Klaus. Evaluating the structure of human values with confirmatory factor analysis. Journal of Research in Personality 38 (2004) 230–255

Schwartz, Shalom H.; Rubel, Tammy. Sex Differences in Value Priorities: Cross-Cultural and Multimethod Studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2005, Vol. 89, No. 6, 1010–1028

Schwartz, S. H. (1996). Value priorities and behavior: Applying a theory of integrated value systems. In C. Seligman, J. M. Olson, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), The psychology of values: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 8, pp. 1–24). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.