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Testing a New Operationalization of the Basic Values on Estonian- and Russian-speaking Subpopulations in Estonia

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Abstract

The theory of basic human value developed by Shalom Schwartz has held a dominant place in the field of value studies for at least two decades. Despite of some modest adaptations, the theory has maintained its original form. Still, an increasing number of critical discussions have recently been published throwing doubt upon universality of its inner structure (e.g. Mohler and Wohn in Persönliche Wertorientierungen im European Social Survey, ZUMA-Arbeitsbericht, 2005; Clercq 2006; Perrinjaquet et al. in J Res Pers 41:820–840, 2007; Davidov and Schmidt in Measuring meaningful data in social research, Acco, Leuven, pp 373–386, 2007; Davidov et al. in Public Opin Quart 72:420–445, 2008; Davidov in Surv Res Methods 2:33–46, 2008; Knoppen and Saris in Surv Res Methods 3:91–103, 2009a; Knoppen and Saris 2009b; Fischer et al. in J Cross Cult Psychol 41:135–151, 2010). Most of these studies have proposed that the shortcomings of that model can be improved through unification of some adjacent value types (e.g. Davidov and Schmidt in Measuring meaningful data in social research, Acco, Leuven, pp 373–386, 2007; Davidov et al. in Public Opin Quart 72:420–445, 2008; Davidov in Surv Res Methods 2:33–46, 2008). However, Knoppen and Saris (Surv Res Methods 3:91–103, 2009a; Knoppen and Saris 2009b) have showed that the given grouping of factors was a consequence of misspecifications in the model and proposed an alternative structure with 19 value types, which has been largely confirmed by several recent papers (Cieciuch and Schwartz in J Pers Assess 94:321–328, 2012; Beierlein et al. in Surv Res Methods 6:25–36, 2012). Current study will also test the new model, but contrarily to cited papers, a representative national sample is used, which raises the robustness of findings. The data is from Estonia and collected in late 2008. Due to the existence of large ethnic minority in Estonian society, the sample allows additionally testing the equivalence of the measurement in the two subpopulations. This study shows that the alternative value-structure, proposed by Knoppen and Saris, applies well to the representative Estonian data.

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Notes

  1. http://scholar.google.com/.

  2. http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2012.

  3. http://en.rsf.org/.

  4. http://www.heritage.org/.

  5. According to Statistics Estonia in 2012 Russian-speaking minority formed 28.6% of Estonian overall population (http://www.stat.ee/).

  6. Estonia was occupied by Soviet Union in June 1940.

  7. The Bronze Soldier (Originally named “Monument to the Liberators of Tallinn”) is Soviet World War II memorial in Tallinn, Estonia, built at the site of several war graves, which were relocated to the nearby Tallinn Military Cemetery in 2007. The action triggered two nights of massive looting and destruction in the downtown of Tallinn.

  8. In doing so we have fixed the loading of the items for values with only one indicator on 1 while the error variance was fixed on the value estimated with SQP2.0 (Saris et al. 2011).

  9. Question wording: It is important to him always to behave properly. He wants to avoid doing anything people would say is wrong.

  10. He thinks it is important to be ambitious. He wants to show how capable he is.

  11. He thinks it's important to be interested in things. He likes to be curious and to try to understand all sorts of things.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Center of Excellence CECT).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Tartu, Ülikooli 18, 50090, Tartu, Estonia

    Laur Lilleoja

  2. The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia

    Laur Lilleoja

  3. Research and Expertise Centre for Survey Methodology, Universitat Popeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Willem E. Saris

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  1. Laur Lilleoja
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Correspondence to Laur Lilleoja.

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Table 7 Item qualities
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Lilleoja, L., Saris, W.E. Testing a New Operationalization of the Basic Values on Estonian- and Russian-speaking Subpopulations in Estonia. Soc Indic Res 116, 153–172 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0272-4

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