Basic human values: Shalom Schwartz's theory

Where the model comes from

Values are broad goals that guide choices, such as security, freedom, power or the welfare of others. In the 1970s Milton Rokeach showed that values can be measured by asking people to rank them by importance. From the 1980s, social psychologist Shalom Schwartz proposed a fuller theory: ten basic values recognized across cultures, arranged in a circle of compatibilities and conflicts (Schwartz, 1992).

Neighbouring values on the circle reinforce each other, like benevolence and universalism. Opposite values pull against each other, like personal achievement and care for others. The ten values group into four higher-order dimensions: Openness to Change, Self-Enhancement, Conservation and Self-Transcendence. In 2012 Schwartz and colleagues refined the model into 19 narrower values (Schwartz et al., 2012).

What the research says

The circular structure has been found in samples from dozens of countries, with small shifts in where some values sit (Schwartz, 1992; Schwartz, 2012). That makes the theory one of the best-supported models in cross-cultural psychology.

Values predict attitudes and behaviour, such as voting, consumption, career choice and prosocial behaviour, though the correlations are usually moderate: values guide us, but situations matter too (Bardi & Schwartz, 2003). The values the average person rates as most important are also similar across cultures, with benevolence and universalism near the top and power near the bottom.

Why forced choice suits values

Values only become meaningful when they conflict: almost everyone says security and freedom matter. That's why Schwartz's research recommends analysing each person's priorities relative to their own average, by centring their answers. A comparison format, which forces a choice, captures exactly those relative priorities.

Limitations

Ethea's test measures only the four higher-order dimensions, not the ten or nineteen values. Because it uses forced choice, it shows the hierarchy of your values, not how much you value each one compared with other people. Values can shift with life stages and contexts. The test has not been validated against Schwartz's research questionnaires.

How Ethea adapts the model

Ethea's version has 16 blocks of four statements, one per dimension; you mark the most and the least important to you, and each dimension appears 16 times. The result shows the dimension you prioritize most, the one you prioritize least and the tensions between them, following the logic of Schwartz's circle.

Test created by Giovanni Oliveira.

References

Links with a DOI go to the original article. Where no DOI is given, the link opens a Google Scholar search.

1. Rokeach, M. (1973). The Nature of Human Values. Free Press. Search Google Scholar(opens in a new tab)
2. Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1–65. DOI: 10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60281-6(opens in a new tab)
3. Schwartz, S. H. (2012). An overview of the Schwartz theory of basic values. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1). DOI: 10.9707/2307-0919.1116(opens in a new tab)
4. Schwartz, S. H., Cieciuch, J., Vecchione, M., Davidov, E., Fischer, R., Beierlein, C., et al. (2012). Refining the theory of basic individual values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(4), 663–688. DOI: 10.1037/a0029393(opens in a new tab)
5. Bardi, A., & Schwartz, S. H. (2003). Values and behavior: Strength and structure of relations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(10), 1207–1220. Search Google Scholar(opens in a new tab)
6. Hicks, L. E. (1970). Some properties of ipsative, normative, and forced-choice normative measures. Psychological Bulletin, 74(3), 167–184. DOI: 10.1037/h0029780(opens in a new tab)
7. Brown, A., & Maydeu-Olivares, A. (2011). Item response modeling of forced-choice questionnaires. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 71(3), 460–502. DOI: 10.1177/0013164410375112(opens in a new tab)
8. Brown, A., & Maydeu-Olivares, A. (2013). How IRT can solve problems of ipsative data in forced-choice questionnaires. Psychological Methods, 18(1), 36–52. DOI: 10.1037/a0030641(opens in a new tab)