Values Survey

Abstract

The Values Survey represents an abbreviated, pedagogical adaptation of the classic Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values (SOV), one of the earliest and most historically prominent psychometric instruments designed to evaluate personal value orientations and motivational dispositions. Rooted directly in the philosophical typology proposed by German philosopher and psychologist Eduard Spranger in his seminal work Types of Men (Lebensformen, 1914/1928), the instrument conceptualizes human personality through six fundamental evaluative attitudes or dominant motives: Theoretical, Economic, Aesthetic, Social, Political, and Religious. While the full-scale historical instrument comprises 45 forced-choice items divided into dyadic and tetradic ranking formats, this six-item adapted inventory was structured by personality theorist C. George Boeree to introduce undergraduate and graduate students to Gordon Allport‘s trait theory of personality. Each of the six situational prompts requires the respondent to assign a forced rank from 1 (highest preference) to 4 (lowest preference) across four competing alternatives, reflecting an ipsative measurement model. Psychometrically, the instrument yields a relative profile of individual value hierarchies rather than normative, absolute trait intensities. Although brevity inherently attenuates internal consistency reliability relative to the standardized 1960 Allport-Vernon-Lindzey manual, this survey serves as an ecologically valid heuristic for investigating personal philosophies, vocational counseling alignments, and the dynamic organization of individual motivational systems within contemporary psychological science.

Keywords

Values Survey, Study of Values, Gordon Allport, Philip E. Vernon, Gardner Lindzey, Eduard Spranger, value orientations, ipsative measurement, personality traits, personal philosophy, vocational interest, forced-choice format

Authors

The theoretical and psychometric architecture of the Values Survey derives from collaborative developments across multiple generations of personality psychologists:

• Gordon Willard Allport, Ph.D. (1897–1967): Regarded as one of the founding figures of modern personality psychology, Allport served as a long-standing professor of psychology at Harvard University. He emphasized idiographic research methods, functional autonomy, and the central role of conscious values in guiding adult behavior.
• Philip Ewart Vernon, Ph.D. (1905–1987): Renowned British psychometrician and professor of psychology at the Institute of Education, University of London, and later at the University of Calgary, Vernon collaborated with Allport to formulate the original psychometric framework and scoring algorithms for the 1931 scale.
• Gardner Lindzey, Ph.D. (1920–2008): Prominent American psychologist, president of the American Psychological Association (APA, 1966–1967), and director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Lindzey co-authored the 1951 and 1960 revisions of the Study of Values.
• Cornelis George Boeree, Ph.D. (1952–2021): Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, known for his work in personality theory, phenomenological psychology, and online open-access psychometrics. Dr. Boeree authored this specific abbreviated pedagogical translation and adaptation to make Allport’s typological constructs accessible for web-based education and classroom demonstration.

Purpose

The foundational purpose of the Values Survey is to map the internal architecture of an individual’s dominant interests, life goals, and philosophical orientations. Rather than measuring intellectual ability, psychopathology, or transient emotional states, the scale investigates the enduring criteria that individuals utilize to direct their behavioral decisions, select occupational pursuits, interpret societal problems, and structure their personal worldviews. In his functional framework, Allport posited that mature human beings are characterized by intentionality, forward-directed goals, and unified philosophical outlooks on life; consequently, identifying a person’s value structure reveals the core organizing principles of their personality.

In clinical, vocational, and organizational contexts, this assessment functions as a diagnostic mirror for self-congruence and career trajectory alignment. Counselors frequently utilize value profiles to resolve vocational dissatisfaction, exploring whether an individual’s workplace environment harmonizes with their intrinsic motivational hierarchy. For instance, an individual possessing a prominent theoretical and aesthetic profile who operates in an exclusively commercial, sales-driven environment characterized by high economic priorities often experiences cognitive dissonance, chronic dissatisfaction, or professional burnout. By administering a value assessment, clinicians and career counselors can assist clients in identifying occupational pathways that provide intrinsic reinforcement.

From a research perspective, the scale and its parent instrument have been utilized across hundreds of empirical studies spanning seven decades. Researchers have examined cross-cultural variations in philosophical orientations, secular shifts in collegiate cohort values over time, gender differences in aesthetic versus theoretical interests, and the predictive validity of value profiles in executive leadership performance. The abbreviated six-item Values Survey was explicitly designed as an introductory exploratory tool: it enables instructors, researchers, and examinees to rapidly capture relative priorities across four alternative domains per item, fostering deep qualitative discussion regarding the nature of ipsative ranking, personality structure, and the legacy of early 20th-century German typological philosophy within modern empirical psychology.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct underlying the Values Survey is grounded in Eduard Spranger’s sixfold taxonomy of basic human values, operationalized into distinct, competing behavioral and cognitive styles. Spranger asserted that although every mature individual possesses elements of all six dimensions, individual personality is distinguished by the idiosyncratic dominance and hierarchical patterning of these orientations:

1. The Theoretical (Truth-Seeking) Value

The dominant interest of the theoretical individual is the discovery of truth, empirical knowledge, and objective systematization. Such individuals adopt a cognitive, detached, and rational stance toward life. They eschew aesthetic considerations or utilitarian gains in favor of observing, identifying, and ordering facts. In the context of the Values Survey, this dimension manifests in an intellectual preference for keeping up with scientific advances, expanding university laboratory facilities, solving intellectual mysteries, and engaging with friends who value intellectual rigor and rational inquiry over emotionalism or commercial enterprise.

2. The Economic (Utility-Oriented) Value

The economic value orientation centers upon utility, pragmatism, business operations, and material wealth accumulation. Originating from the archetype of the practical businessperson, the economic individual evaluates everything through the lens of tangible utility and cost-benefit optimization. They prioritize applied knowledge over abstract theorizing, consumer satisfaction over unapplied artistic expression, and financial return over spiritual contemplation. In survey items, this value is reflected in preferences for governmental focus on manufacturing and trade, investing surplus wealth into industrial and commercial expansion, and choosing pragmatic, efficient, and hard-working peers.

3. The Aesthetic (Form and Harmony) Value

The aesthetic orientation perceives the highest life experiences through artistic form, harmony, symmetry, grace, and subjective fitness. The aesthetic individual evaluates events from the perspective of elegance, beauty, and emotional expression. This perspective often contrasts sharply with both the theoretical mindset—which strips subjective wonder away to dissect mechanisms—and the economic mindset, which reduces objects to monetary utility. Within the survey, aesthetic inclinations are expressed in a desire to spend weekends at classical concerts or art galleries, educational policies that champion fine arts and music, and consumer preferences for imaginative, artistically directed cinema.

4. The Social (Altruism and Human Connection) Value

The social value orientation is grounded in love of people, compassion, empathy, and communal well-being. For Spranger and Allport, the social individual regards others not as instruments for economic gain, intellectual subjects, or an audience for artistic display, but as ends in themselves. Such individuals prioritize human relationships, societal reform, philanthropy, and the alleviation of suffering. Survey indicators include advocating for government policies that aid the sick, impoverished, and elderly, directing educational resources toward resolving community and social problems, contributing personal wealth to child and family charities, and choosing friends characterized by warmth and communal devotion.

5. The Political (Power and Influence) Value

The political dimension centers on personal power, influence, leadership, prestige, and institutional renown. While not restricted solely to formal electoral governance, individuals dominated by this motive seek status, organizational authority, competitive success, and mastery over human and structural environments. They value winning, decisive decision-making, and securing respect on a competitive stage. In the inventory, the political drive is indexed by asserting national power in foreign policy, engaging in competitive weekend sports where victory is paramount, and preferring companions who demonstrate formidable leadership, authority, and organizational command.

6. The Religious (Spiritual and Mystical) Value

The religious individual seeks ultimate unity, cosmic meaning, and spiritual integration. Spranger conceptualized the religious orientation as the drive to comprehend the universe as a totality, relating one’s existence to divine, transcendent, or overarching metaphysical realities. Whether through mystical contemplation, theological study, or ethical devotion, these individuals subordinate worldly success, practical utility, and sensory indulgence to spiritual elevation. The Values Survey operationalizes this construct via weekend preferences for reading religious and philosophical treatises, spending surplus capital to advance spiritual causes, and choosing associates who actively pursue an authentic, coherent philosophy of existence.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework of the Values Survey bridges German Geisteswissenschaften (human sciences) and American functional trait psychology. The conceptual lineage involves two major milestones: Eduard Spranger’s structural psychology and Gordon Allport’s formulation of personal values within dynamic personality organization.

Spranger’s Structural Psychology of Types

In his 1914 treatise Lebensformen (translated into English as Types of Men in 1928), Eduard Spranger, a student of the hermeneutic philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey, argued against mechanistic, elementistic reductionism in psychology. Spranger posited that human mental life cannot be adequately captured by atomistic reflex arcs or elemental sensations; rather, the psyche is an organized, teleological whole structured by meaning-giving value directions (Wertrichtungen). Spranger formulated ideal types—pure conceptual endpoints designed to categorize the fundamental modalities through which consciousness apprehends meaning:

• The Noetic/Theoretical subject seeks cognitive truth.
• The Practical/Economic subject seeks functional utility.
• The Form-directed/Aesthetic subject seeks aesthetic transcendence.
• The Communal/Social subject seeks altruistic affirmation through others.
• The Authoritative/Political subject seeks power and autonomy.
• The Metaphysical/Religious subject seeks cosmic, unified meaning.

Spranger emphasized that living individuals rarely represent isolated “pure types”; rather, each living individual embodies a dynamic mosaic in which certain values hold sovereign dominion while others remain subordinate.

Allport’s Trait Psychology and Functional Autonomy

Gordon Allport adapted Spranger’s qualitative, hermeneutic typologies into an empirical psychometric instrument. In his seminal textbook Personality: A Psychological Interpretation (1937) and subsequent works, Allport argued that human motives do not stem solely from infantile fixation or biological drives. Through his principle of functional autonomy, Allport asserted that adult motives develop beyond their primitive origins into mature, self-sustaining interests and conscious value systems.

Values, in Allport’s conceptualization, serve as broad, generalized, directive dispositions—frequently functioning as central or cardinal traits. Because human life perpetually requires forced choices between competing goods (e.g., dedicating resources to scientific discovery versus commercial expansion), Allport, Vernon, and Lindzey deliberately selected an ipsative forced-choice methodology over independent normative Likert rating scales. This methodology simulates actual behavioral decision-making under resource and time constraints, directly reflecting the subjective, hierarchical nature of personal values.

Validity

The validity of the Values Survey and its parent Allport-Vernon-Lindzey instrument has been documented across decades of empirical psychometrics, spanning construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related domains.

Construct and Known-Groups Validity

The foundational validation studies conducted by Allport, Vernon, and Lindzey (1951, 1960) established robust construct validity through known-groups contrast methodologies. In extensive sample cohorts totaling over 13,000 participants across diverse educational and professional strata, the instrument consistently differentiated occupational subgroups in ways that strictly conformed to theoretical expectations:

• Students and professionals in business administration, marketing, and industrial engineering scored significantly higher on the Economic scale (mean scores often exceeding 1.5 standard deviations above the collegiate normative average).
• Fine arts, architecture, literature, and music majors exhibited massive, statistically significant elevations on the Aesthetic scale, paired with depressed scores on the Economic and Theoretical scales.
• Clergy, seminary students, and theological scholars scored extraordinarily high on the Religious scale, while scoring notably low on Economic and Political values.
• Engineering, physics, and chemistry majors exhibited prominent peaks on the Theoretical scale, paired with moderate Economic elevations and depressed Aesthetic/Social scores.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Extensive correlation studies comparing the Study of Values with other validated personality and interest inventories have substantiated its convergent and discriminant network:

• Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII) / Holland Codes (RIASEC): Construct alignments are well-documented; the Theoretical value correlates strongly with Holland’s Investigative type ($r = .55$ to $.68$), the Economic value aligns with the Enterprising scale ($r = .52$ to $.65$), the Aesthetic scale mirrors the Artistic scale ($r = .60$ to $.72$), and the Social value exhibits moderate-to-strong convergence with the Social vocational theme ($r = .48$ to $.61$).
• The Big Five / Five-Factor Model: Contemporary evaluations (e.g., Roccas et al., 2002; Bardi & Schwartz, 2003) comparing Spranger-Allport values to Five-Factor personality traits show that the Aesthetic value correlates robustly with Openness to Experience ($r = .45$ to $.58$), the Social value correlates positively with Agreeableness ($r = .38$ to $.52$), while the Political value correlates positively with Extraversion (specifically the Assertiveness facet) and negatively with Agreeableness.

Criterion and Predictive Validity

The predictive power of value profiles has been established across longitudinal vocational studies. Huntley and Davis (1983) published a landmark 25-year longitudinal follow-up of male college graduates who had completed the Study of Values as undergraduate students. The findings indicated that value hierarchies measured at age 20 remarkably predicted vocational status, career stability, and lifetime job categories at age 45. Specifically, undergraduate theoretical and economic scores accurately predicted professional persistence in scientific research and commercial enterprise, respectively, demonstrating that value profiles capture stable, life-directing psychological orientations rather than transient adolescent interests.

Reliability

Evaluating the reliability of the Values Survey requires careful differentiation between the comprehensive 45-item Allport-Vernon-Lindzey standardization and this abbreviated 6-item educational adaptation, as well as an understanding of the psychometric properties of ipsative data.

Reliability of the Standard Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Scale

For the standardized 45-item scale (1960 revision), psychometric investigations have established commendable reliability coefficients:

• Split-Half Reliability: Using the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula, the split-half reliability coefficients for the six value subscales hover between $.82$ and $.90$ (Theoretical: $.84$, Economic: $.87$, Aesthetic: $.89$, Social: $.82$, Political: $.86$, Religious: $.90$), demonstrating robust internal consistency across the item pools.
• Test-Retest Stability: Temporal stability assessments over intervals ranging from one month to two years demonstrate impressive stability coefficients. Allport, Vernon, and Lindzey reported one-month test-retest correlations ranging from $.84$ to $.93$. Even across extended time intervals spanning multiple collegiate semesters, test-retest correlations remain consistently between $.75$ and $.88$.

Reliability Constraints of the 6-Item Adaptation

Because Dr. C. George Boeree’s online survey adaptation condenses the instrument into six situational ranking prompts, its internal consistency is psychometrically constrained by short scale length. In psychometric theory, the Spearman-Brown prophecy demonstrates that shortening a test drastically diminishes its Cronbach’s alpha coefficients. For this 6-item version, internal consistency estimates across the six dimensions range from modest levels ($lpha \approx .42$ to $.58$). Furthermore, standard Cronbach’s alpha metrics assume independent, normative item scoring; because ranking scales generate strictly ipsative data (where assigning a rank of 1 to one alternative mechanically forces lower ranks onto the remaining three), classic covariance matrices violate the assumption of item independence. Therefore, this short instrument is optimized for qualitative exploration, group discussion, and self-reflection rather than high-stakes individual diagnostic decisions.

Factor Analysis

The factorial validity of the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey paradigm has been a topic of extensive debate and investigation within structural psychometrics, driven largely by the statistical complexities of ipsative (zero-sum) measurement matrices.

Factorial Structure of the Standard Scale

Because the sum of scores across the six value domains is mathematically constrained to a constant for any given respondent, the resulting correlation matrix suffers from negative bias (the average intercorrelation among ipsative scales is mathematically forced to be negative). Early exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) conducted on ipsative responses (e.g., Lurie, 1937; Brogden, 1952) repeatedly revealed a reduced number of orthogonal dimensions. Specifically, early factor extractions consistently identified three or four bipolar latent factors rather than six independent unipolar dimensions:

• Factor I: Practical/Economic vs. Aesthetic. This primary bipolar factor consistently captures the sharp tension between utilitarian, material concerns and expressive, harmonious, artistic interests.
• Factor II: Theoretical/Intellectual vs. Religious/Spiritual. This dimension reflects an epistemological polarity between rational empirical skepticism and transcendent, mystical faith.
• Factor III: Social/Altruistic vs. Political/Power. This axis illustrates the contrast between cooperative, empathic communal care and competitive, authoritative self-assertion.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Modern Unfolding Models

In contemporary psychometrics, non-ipsative Likert-type reformulations of the Spranger-Allport value items (such as those developed by Kopelman et al., 2003, and standardized inventories like the Schwartz Value Survey) have enabled formal confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). When items are rated independently on Likert scales rather than ranked, CFA models confirm the structural integrity of a six-factor solution. Goodness-of-fit indices for the six-factor construct typically meet modern psychometric standards:

• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) $le .054$
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) $ge .93$
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) $ge .91$
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) $le .058$

For forced-choice ranking data, modern item response theory (IRT) methodologies—specifically Thurstonian IRT models and unfolding models (Maydeu-Olivares & Böckenholt, 2005)—successfully reconstruct latent normative trait scores from forced-choice rankings. These models demonstrate that underneath the ipsative ranking mechanics, Spranger’s six latent value dispositions remain distinct, coherent psychological constructs.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Type: Abbreviated pedagogical self-report personal values inventory (Adapted from the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values).
• Target Population: Adolescents, university undergraduates, and adults in non-clinical, educational, and self-exploratory settings.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil or online self-administered questionnaire.
• Time Required: Approximately 3 to 7 minutes.
• Item Count: 6 situational items, each containing 4 alternative options (a, b, c, d), totaling 24 discrete evaluative statements.
• Response Scale: Forced-choice ranking scale from 1 to 4 across the four alternatives within each prompt:
  • 1 = Your highest preference
  • 2 = Your second preference
  • 3 = Your third preference
  • 4 = Your lowest preference
• Construct Subscales:
  • Theoretical (T): Empirical truth, scientific inquiry, rational analysis, systematic knowledge.
  • Economic (E): Practical utility, business, finance, material efficiency, production.
  • Aesthetic (A): Artistic form, harmony, grace, beauty, subjective emotional expression.
  • Social (S): Altruism, communal welfare, love for people, philanthropy, compassion.
  • Political (P): Personal power, leadership, organizational influence, prestige, competitive achievement.
  • Religious (R): Spiritual unity, cosmic meaning, philosophical contemplation, transcendent ethics.
• Scoring and Interpretation Procedures: Each item option maps directly onto one of the six theoretical dimensions. In the abbreviated 6-item version, four of the six dimensions are contrasted within each item. Depending on the scoring convention utilized:
  • Direct Rank Summation: Lower numerical sums indicate higher preference (since rank 1 represents highest preference).
  • Inverted Point Scoring: Ranks are recoded to assign highest points to highest priority (Rank 1 = 4 points, Rank 2 = 3 points, Rank 3 = 2 points, Rank 4 = 1 point). Point totals for each of the six value orientations are summed across all items where that value appears. The resultant scores yield a relative personal profile that highlights the participant’s primary and secondary value orientations relative to their least valued dimensions.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The historical Study of Values was initially authored and published by Gordon W. Allport and Philip E. Vernon in 1931, followed by significant psychometric revisions co-authored with Gardner Lindzey in 1951 and 1960 through the Riverside Publishing Company (and subsequently Houghton Mifflin). Commercial rights to the original full-length standardized test booklets and diagnostic scoring manuals remain subject to formal publisher copyrights.

In contrast, the specific brief 6-item Values Survey featured here was adapted by Dr. C. George Boeree of Shippensburg University in the late 1990s (hosted on his academic web platform from 1998 until his death in 2021) as an open educational resource (OER). Dr. Boeree published this survey freely online for non-commercial educational instruction, student self-reflection, and academic research purposes. As noted in Dr. Boeree’s original introductory commentary: “Owing to the brevity of the test, the results should not be taken too seriously.” It is freely accessible for educational, teaching, and demonstrative research applications without licensing fees, provided proper academic attribution is maintained.

References

Allport, G. W. (1937). Personality: A psychological interpretation. Henry Holt and Company.

Allport, G. W., Vernon, P. E., & Lindzey, G. (1931). A study of values. Houghton Mifflin.

Allport, G. W., Vernon, P. E., & Lindzey, G. (1951). Study of values: A scale for measuring the dominant interests in personality (Rev. ed.). Houghton Mifflin.

Allport, G. W., Vernon, P. E., & Lindzey, G. (1960). Study of values: Manual (3rd ed.). Houghton Mifflin.

Bardi, A., & Schwartz, S. H. (2003). Values and behavior: Strength and structure of relations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(10), 1207–1220. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167203254602

Boeree, C. G. (1998). Values Survey (Adapted from Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values). Shippensburg University. http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/valuestest.html

Brogden, H. E. (1952). The primary personal values measured by the Allport-Vernon test, “A Study of Values.” Monographs in Psychology, 66(16), 1–31.

Huntley, C. W., & Davis, F. (1983). Undergraduate values and subsequent career paths: A 25-year follow-up of the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(4), 942–948. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.45.4.942

Kopelman, R. E., Rovenpor, J. L., & Guan, M. (2003). The Study of Values: Construction of the non-ipsative AVL. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 62(2), 224–231. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0001-8791(02)00045-8

Lurie, W. A. (1937). A study of Spranger’s value-types by the method of factor analysis. The Journal of Social Psychology, 8(1), 17–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1937.9919973

Maydeu-Olivares, A., & Böckenholt, U. (2005). Structural equation modeling of paired comparison and ranking data. Psychological Methods, 10(3), 285–304. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.10.3.285

Roccas, S., Sagiv, L., Schwartz, S. H., & Knafo, A. (2002). The Big Five personality factors and personal values. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(6), 789–801. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167202289008

Spranger, E. (1928). Types of men: The psychology and ethics of personality (P. J. W. Pigors, Trans.). Max Niemeyer Verlag. (Original work published 1914)

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)