Identifying Culture-Specifics in the Content and Structure of Values

Abstract

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.