Abstract
Public opinion research shows that American citizens utilize domain-specific political values to guide opinion formation in the key issue areas that comprise the American political agenda. One set of political values operates on economic welfare opinions, a different set of values applies to cultural issue positions, a third set shapes foreign policy preferences, and so on in other policy domains. Drawing on Shalom Schwartz’s theory of basic human values, this paper argues that two socially focused values—self-transcendence and conservation—guide opinion formation across all major policy domains. By contrast, the personally focused values of self-enhancement and openness-to-change should play a more limited role in preference formation. These hypotheses are tested using data from a novel 2011 national survey and the 2012 General Social Survey. The statistical results affirm expectations. We show that self-transcendence and conservation values predict scores on symbolic ideology, economic conservatism, racial conservatism, cultural conservatism, civil liberties, and foreign policy opinions. Self-enhancement and openness-to-change values play a modest role in shaping preferences.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Source Adapted from Schwartz (1994, p. 24)
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Our “Theoretical Framework” section draws heavily on Goren (2013, pp. 161–168) and Rathbun et al. (2016, pp. 126–128).
We drop the hedonism value type because it lies in both the self-enhancement and openness-to-change domains (Schwartz 1992).
The models also contain correlated measurement errors that pick up method factor covariance. To preserve space, we do not report these estimates in the tables.
The Schwartz item reads: “She thinks it is important that every person in the world should be treated equally. She believes everyone should have equal opportunities in life.” The NES items read: “(1) “Our society should do whatever is necessary to make sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.” (2) “If people were treated more equally in this country, we would have many fewer problems”.
We did not replicate this check for the YouGov data because we have only two universalism items versus the three available in the GSS survey. As such, the measurement cost in scale reliability and validity would, in our estimation, be too steep.
Question wording: “If you had to choose, which thing on this list would you pick as the most important for a child to learn to prepare him or her for life?” We used the (1) “To Obey” and the (2) “To think for himself or herself” items.
References
Barker, D., & Tinnick, J. D. (2006). Competing visions of parental roles and ideological constraint. American Political Science Review, 100, 249–263.
Beckers, T., Siegers, P., & Kuntz, A. (2012). Congruence and performance of value concepts in social research. Survey Research Methods, 6, 13–24.
Campbell, A. L. (2002). Self-interest, social security, and the distinctive participation patterns of senior citizens. American Political Science Review, 96, 565–574.
Caprara, G. V., Schwartz, S., Capanna, C., Vecchione, M., & Barbaranelli, C. (2006). Personality and politics: Values, traits, and political choice. Political Psychology, 27, 1–28.
Chittick, W. O., Billingsley, K. R., & Travis, R. (1995). A three-dimensional model of foreign policy beliefs. International Studies Quarterly, 39, 313–331.
Datler, G., Jagodzinski, W., & Schmidt, P. (2013). Two theories on the test bench: Internal and external validity of the theories of Ronald Inglehart and Shalom Schwartz. Social Science Research, 42, 906–925.
Davidov, E., & Meuleman, B. (2012). Explaining attitudes towards immigration policies in European countries: The role of human values. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 38, 757–775.
Davidov, E., Schmidt, P., & Schwartz, S. H. (2008). Bringing values back in: The adequacy of the European Social Survey to measure values in 20 countries. Public Opinion Quarterly, 72, 420–445.
Feldman, S. (1988). Structure and consistency in public opinion: The role of core beliefs and values. American Journal of Political Science, 32, 416–440.
Feldman, S. (2003). Values, ideology, and the structure of political attitudes. In D. O. Sears, L. Huddy, & R. Jervis (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of political psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Feldman, S., & Zaller, J. (1992). The political culture of ambivalence: Ideological responses to the welfare state. American Journal of Political Science, 36, 268–307.
Fischer, R., & Smith, P. (2004). Values and organizational justice: performance and seniority based allocations criteria in the UK and Germany. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 35, 669–688.
Goren, P. (2001). Core principles and policy reasoning in mass publics. A test of two theories. British Journal of Political Science, 31, 159–177.
Goren, P. (2013). On voter competence. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hetherington, M. J., & Weiler, J. D. (2009). Authoritarianism and polarization in American politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Homer, P. M., & Kahle, L. R. (1988). A Structural equation test of the value-attitude-behavior relationship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 638–646.
Hurwitz, J., & Peffley, M. (1987). How are foreign policy attitudes structured? A hierarchical model. American Political Science Review, 81, 1099–1120.
Hurwitz, J., & Peffley, M. (1990). Public images of the Soviet Union: The impact of foreign policy attitudes. Journal of Politics, 52, 3–28.
Jacoby, W. G. (2006). Value choices and public opinion. American Journal of Political Science, 50, 706–723.
Kinder, D. R., & Kiewiet, D. R. (1981). Sociotropic politics: The American case. British Journal of Political Science, 11, 129–161.
Kinder, D. R., & Sanders, L. M. (1996). Divided by color. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kuntz, A., Davidov, E., Schwartz, S. H., & Schmidt, P. (2015). Human values, legal regulation, and approval of homosexuality in Europe: A cross-country comparison. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 120–134.
Layman, G. (2001). The great divide: Religious and cultural conflict in American party politics. New York: Columbia University Press.
Liberman, P. (2006). An eye for an eye: Public support for war against evildoers. International Organization, 60, 687–722.
Maio, G., & Olson, J. M. (1995). Relations between values, attitudes, and behavioral intentions: The moderating role of attitude function. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 31, 266–285.
McCann, J. A. (1997). Electoral choices and core value change: The 1992 presidential campaign. American Journal of Political Science, 41, 564–583.
McClosky, H., & Zaller, J. (1984). The American ethos: Public attitudes toward capitalism and democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Piurko, Y., Schwartz, S. H., & Davidov, E. (2011). Basic personal values and the meaning of left-right political orientations. Political Psychology, 32, 537–561.
Rathbun, B. C., Kertzer, J. D., Reifler, J., Goren, P., & Scotto, T. J. (2016). Taking foreign policy personally: Personal values and foreign policy attitudes. International Studies Quarterly, 60, 124–137.
Roccas, S. (2003). Identification and status revisited: The moderating role of self-enhancement and self-transcendence values. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 726–736.
Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. New York: Free Press.
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.
Schwartz, S. H. (1994). Are there universal aspects in the structure and content of human values? Journal of Social Issues, 50, 19–45.
Schwartz, S. H. (2012). An overview of the Schwartz theory of basic values. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1), 11. doi:10.9707/2307-0919.1116.
Schwartz, S. H., Caprara, V., & Vecchione, M. (2010). Basic personal values, core political values, and voting: A longitudinal analysis. Political Psychology, 31, 421–452.
Sears, D. O. & Funk, C. L. (1991). The role of self-interest in social and political attitudes. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 24, pp. 1–91).
Sniderman, P. M., Brody, R., & Tetlock, P. E. (1991). Reasoning and choice: Explorations in political psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Spini, D. (2003). Measurement equivalence of 10 value types from the Schwartz value survey across 21 countries. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 34, 3–23.
Verplanken, B., & Holland, R. W. (2002). Motivated decision making: Effects of activation and self-centrality of values on choices and behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 434–447.
Acknowledgments
Funding for the YouGov survey was provided by an International Studies Association venture grant “Integrating Research on Domestic and Foreign Policy Opinions” awarded to William Chittick and Jason Reifler. Additional funding for the survey was provided by a University of Southern California grant to Brian Rathbun. Reifler and Scotto’s time was supported by ESRC Grant ES/L011867/1.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Goren, P., Schoen, H., Reifler, J. et al. A Unified Theory of Value-Based Reasoning and U.S. Public Opinion. Polit Behav 38, 977–997 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-016-9344-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-016-9344-x