The Human Values Scale Findings from the European Social Survey The Human Values Scale 3 CONTENTS THE EUROPEAN SOCIAL SURVEY European Social Survey 3 As the European Social Our tenth round will include core Survey (ESS) approaches 20 questions on climate change and The Human Values Scale 7 energy, crime and justice, cis- years of data collection, we When considering new policies, Convergence on political crimination, economic justice and 8 present a compendium of governments in the past were values? academic research based on morality, health and wellbeing, immigration, media consumption, Predictors of opposition the Schwarz human vales 10 political attitudes and participation, often ignorant of their citizens’ to immigration scale section of our survey satisfaction with government and preferences and needs. Now Do values matter for Our survey was first developed at trust in democracy, religion, trust in 12 behaviour? the European Science Founda- other people and institutions and European governments have a tion in 1995, intended to provide Social trust and value welfare. 14 academics, researchers and policy source for counteracting that similarity We also ask questions on socio- makers the tools required to map demographics, so responses to ignorance. The geography of human and measure social attitudes, be- 16 questions can be analysed by age, values liefs and behaviours between and gender, economic profile, ethnicity across European nations. Wellbeing, the and a range of other factors. environment and 20 Every two years since 2002/03, In each round we also include moral values around 1,500 face-to-face inter- Professor Sir Roger Jowell CBE the 21-item human values scale views are conducted in partici- Co-founder of the European Social Survey The link between (or portrait values questionnaire), pating countries. Individuals are personal values and 23 which is a series of statements selected by strict random probabil- frequency of drinking developed by Shalom H. Schwartz ity methods at every stage using to understand the moral values of Value differences sampling frames of individuals, the respondent. between parents 24 households or addresses. They and non-parents represent the entire residential Shalom has very kindly written an Did the great recession population aged 15 and over in introduction to the human values 26 impact human values? each country. scale and the research presented in this publication on page 7. Human values around Since Round 9 was completed in 28 the world 2018/19, over 425,000 interviews We hope you enjoy this Findings have taken place. Booklet, and we thank all the au- ESS resources: Data, thors for their research and excel- 30 Over 200 questions - all carefully learning and publications lent contributions. translated into each language - are asked in each round of the survey. Most are repeated every round, though we also cover two topics proposed by researchers from all scientific disciplines. 4 www.europeansocialsurvey.org The Human Values Scale 5 ROTATING MODULES ARE SELECTED FOR PARTICIPATING COUNTRIES EACH ROUND The ESS aims to gather 38 countries have participated have taken part in every round of 3 survey data from as many in at least one round of the ESS the ESS. The ESS currently has European nations as since the first round was fielded in the largest number of members of ROUND 3 possible - the wider the 2002/03. Up until the ninth itera- any European Research Infrastruc- 2006/07 coverage, the richer the data tion of our survey, 15 countries ture Consortium (ERIC). • Personal and social wellbeing 2 • The timing of life ROUND 2 4 9 ROUNDS 4 ROUNDS 2 ROUNDS 2004/05 1. Belgium 28. Greece 32. Albania • Work, family and wellbeing 1 • Health care seeking 2. Finland 29. Iceland 33. Luxembourg 3. France 34. Romania • Economic morality ROUND 4 2008/09 4. Germany 3 ROUNDS 35. Turkey 5 5. Hungary ROUND 1 • Attitudes to age and ageism 30. Croatia 2002/03 • Welfare 6. Ireland 1 ROUND 31. Latvia • Citizenship 7. The Netherlands 36. Kosovo • Immigration ROUND 5 8. Norway 37. Montenegro 2010/11 9. Poland • Work, family and 38. Serbia 10. Portugal 2 6 wellbeing in recession 11. Slovenia 26 • Trust in justice 29 12. Spain 13. Sweden 13 ROUND 6 10 14. Switzerland 8 2012/13 • Personal and social wellbeing 15. United Kingdom 19 7 • Understanding and evaluations of democracy ROUND 10 8 ROUNDS 31 2020/21 • Understandings 9 16. Austria 18 21 ROUND 7 and evaluations 17. Czechia 2014/15 of democracy 18. Denmark 6 • Health inequalities • Digital social 19. Estonia • Immigration ROUND 9 contacts in work 15 9 2018/19 and family life 7 6 ROUNDS 27 • Justice and fairness 1 4 8 • The timing of life 20. Israel 33 17 21. Lithuania 22 22. Slovakia ROUND 8 16 5 3 14 34 2016/17 11 30 • Climate change CORE TOPICS IN ALL ROUNDS 5 ROUNDS and energy • Crime • Religion 23. Bulgaria 38 • Welfare • Democracy and politics • Social exclusion 23 24. Cyprus 37 MEASURING • Human values • Social trust/trust in 25 36 25. Italy 35 • Immigration institutions 32 ATTITUDES • Media use • Subjective wellbeing 26. Russia 10 12 • National and ethnic identity • Socio-demographics 27. Ukraine 28 SINCE 2002 • Perceived discrimination 24 20 6 www.europeansocialsurvey.org The Human Values Scale 7 THE EUROPEAN SOCIAL SURVEY THE HUMAN VALUES SCALE The European Social Survey (ESS) has always included a 21-item measure of human values: the Human Values Scale or Portrait Values Questionnaire. The scale was designed 1995 by Shalom H. Schwartz (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) to classify respondents according to their basic value orientations. Here, the Israeli psychologist introduces the The development of the ESS was led Theory of Basic Human Values and how we measure them in our survey. by Professor Sir Roger Jowell (UK) and Professor Max Kaase (Germany) at the European Science Foundation (ESF) When we refer to people’s val- Every language has thousands of ible any two values are, the closer 2001 ues, we mean the deeply rooted, specific value terms. Scientists they are going around the circle, Launched in 2001, the first round of the abstract orientations that help to must reduce this abundance to a and the more in conflict, the more survey was conducted in 2002/03 guide, justify or explain people’s manageable yet comprehensive distant. The more important a opinions, attitudes and actions. set in order to work with values. value is in the hierarchy, the more 2005 These orientations help to predict The 21-item ESS scale measures it influences opinions, behaviours The ESS became the first social science and to explain people’s opinions, ten broad values intended to and policies. When a value comes project to win the annual Descartes Prize attitudes and behaviour patterns. cover the full range of narrower into play, the conflicting values in Moreover, they influence - and for Excellence in Scientific Collaborative values that people in all cultures the circle are activated too. So are influenced by - social, politi- share. The theory underlying decisions result from trade-offs Research, awarded by the European Union cal and economic changes within 2006, 2008, 2010 the scale assumes that values between opposing values (e.g. societies. Rigorously measuring Included on European Strategy Forum on developed through evolution as security vs. stimulation; autonomy Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Roadmap value differences between people and countries and changes in the a vehicle for humans to commu- vs. conformity). The influence of nicate about their fundamental values often occurs outside of 2013 importance and distributions of val- ues was one of the primary motiva- needs and to coordinate with conscious awareness Awarded European Research Infrastructure tions for the ESS. others in satisfying them. Three Consortium (ERIC) status by the European types of universal needs gave rise Values are involved in a wide Commission The absence of a comprehen- to values: biological needs, needs variety of personal and policy 2016 sive, well-tested and analytically- for interpersonal cooperation, and decisions and they are sensitive to The ESS ERIC was recognised powerful set of tools for measuring groups’ needs for welfare and sur- societal pressures and changes. as an ESFRI Landmark underlying values across nations vival. Values express these needs Both personal and collective val- challenged the ESS planners. Ex- as motivating goals (e.g. security, ues change quite slowly, but they isting surveys and validated scales 2019 kindness, creativity, achievement, do change. The studies summa- focused on specific topics. Even rized in this booklet illustrate some Research using Google Scholar found combined, they did not provide the tradition). that 4,913 English-language academic of what we have learned about needed comprehensive, theory- We all recognize the same ten values. publications were based on ESS data based integration of the domain basic values, but we differ in how of basic values. Consequently, 2020 2020 important we consider each as a they asked me to develop a values guiding principle. That is, every Awarded the Lijphart/Przeworski/Verba Over 180,000 people have registered scale for the ESS, grounded in Dataset Award 2020 by the Comparative to use or download ESS data for free my theory of basic human values person, group, or country has Politics Section of the American Political that had been tested and validated its own importance hierarchy of Science Association internationally. values. The ten values form a circle in which the more compat- 8 www.europeansocialsurvey.org The Human Values Scale 9 Developments in intraclass correlations for personal and political values and political trust CONVERGENCE ON POLITICAL VALUES? A (ESS Round 1 - Round 8) MULTI-LEVEL ANALYSIS OF DEVELOPMENTS 25% IN 15 EU COUNTRIES 2002-2016 LGBT-aversion Migrants enrich culture Pepijn van Houwelingen, Jurjen Iedema and Paul Dekker of The Netherlands Institute Trust national parliament for Social Research - SCP - analysed several survey items to better understand political Important that government is strong and ensures safety 20% values.