Societal value consensus has been widely discussed but rarely studied empirically. The authors developed a definition and an operational index for value consensus suitable for cross-national comparisons. They then generated and tested hypotheses concerning causal impacts of socioeconomic development and political democratization on both value importance and value consensus in a society. Data are from matched samples of teachers from 42 nations (N = 7,856) who completed a survey that measures 10 distinct types of values. Both development and democratization correlate positively with the importance of openness and self-transcendence values, and negatively with the importance of conservation and self-enhancement values. Development and democratization have opposite relations to value consensus, suppressing one another’s effects. Development increases overall value consensus, whereas democratization decreases it. Differences between effects on specific value types are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abramson, P. R. , & Inglehart, R. (1995). Value change in global perspective. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
2.
Au, K. Y. (1998). On intra-cultural variation: Studying its properties with secondary data of 42 cultures. Unpublished manuscript, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
3.
Avis, G. (Ed.). (1987). The making of the soviet citizen: Character formation and civic training in Soviet education. London: Croom Helm.
4.
Barbu, Z. (1956). Democracy and dictatorship. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
5.
Barnea, M. , & Schwartz, S. H. (1998). Values and voting. Political Psychology, 19, 17-40.
6.
Bellah, R. N. , Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A., & Tipton, S. M. (1985). Habits of the heart. Berkeley: University of California Press.
7.
Bourdieu, P. (1972). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
8.
Christensen, R. M. , Engel, A. S., Jacobs, D. N., Rejai, M., & Waltzer, H. (1971). Ideologies and modern politics. London: Nelson.
9.
Cohen, P. S. (1968). Modern social theory. London: Heinemann.
10.
Dahl, R. A. (1971). Polyarchy: Participation and opposition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
11.
Durkheim, E. (1947). The division of labor in society. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Eisenstadt, S. N. (1973). Tradition, change and modernity. New York: John Wiley.
14.
Encyclopedia Britannica. (1989). 1989 book of the year. Chicago: Author.
15.
Ester, P. , Halman, L., & de Moor, R. (Eds.). (1994). The individualizing society: Value change in Europe and North America. Tilburg, the Netherlands: Tilburg University Press.
16.
Etzioni, A. (1988). The moral dimension. New York: Free Press.
17.
Etzioni, A. (1994). The spirit of community. New York: Touchstone.
18.
Etzioni, A. (1996). The new golden rule: Community and morality in a democratic society.New York: Basic Books.
19.
Fischer, D. H. (1989). Albion’s seed: Four British folkways in America. New York: Oxford University Press.
20.
Galnoor, I. (1982). Steering the polity. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
21.
Gastil, R. D. (1987). Freedom in the world. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
22.
Graham, K. (1986). The battle of democracy: Conflict, consensus and the individual. Brighton, UK: Wheatsheaf.
23.
Griffith, E. S. , Plamenatz, J., & Pennock, J. R. (1956). Cultural prerequisites to a successfully functioning democracy: A symposium. American Political Science Review, 50, 101-137.
24.
Groth, A. J. (1974). Major ideologies. New York: Wiley.
25.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
26.
Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. London: Macmillan.
27.
Horowitz, I. L. (1962). Consensus, conflict and cooperation: A sociological inventory. Social Forces, 41, 177-188.
28.
Huntington, S. (1991). The third wave: Democratization in the late twentieth century. Norman: University of Oklahoma.
29.
Inglehart, R. (1977). The silent revolution: Changing values and political styles. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
30.
Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
31.
Inglehart, R. (1997). Modernization and postmodernization: Cultural, economic and political change in 43 societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
32.
Inkeles, A. (1975). The emerging social structure of the world. World Politics, 27, 467-495.
33.
Inkeles, A. , & Smith, D. H. (1974). Becoming modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
34.
International Labour Organization . (1990). 1989-90 yearbook of labour statistics. Geneva, Switzerland: International Labour Office.
35.
Jackman, R. W. (1975). Politics and social equality: A comparative analysis. New York: Wiley.
36.
Kahl, J. A. (1968). The measurement of modernism: A study of values in Brazil and Mexico. Austin: University of Texas.
37.
Kluckhohn, C. (1951). Values and value-orientations. In T. Parsons & E. Shils (Eds.), Toward a general theory of action (pp. 388-433). New York: Harper and Row.
38.
Kohn, M. , & Schooler, C. (1983). Work and personality. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
39.
LeFort, C. (1986). The political forms of modern society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
40.
Lerner, D. (1964). The passing of traditional society: Modernizing the Middle East. London: Collier-Macmillan.
41.
Levy, M. J., Jr. (1966). Modernization and the structure of societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
42.
Lipset, S. M. (1994). The social requisites of democracy revisited. American Sociological Review, 59, 1-22.
43.
Markus, H. R. , & Kitayama, S. (1994). A collective fear of the collective: Implications for selves and theories of selves. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 568-579.
44.
McClelland, D. C. (1961). The achieving society. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.
45.
Meyer, J. W. , Boli-Bennett, J., & Chase-Dunn, C. (1975). Convergence and divergence in development. In A. Inkeles, J. Coleman, & N. Smelser (Eds.), Annual review of sociology (pp. 223-246). Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews.
46.
Musil, J. (1992). Czechoslovakia in the middle transition. Daedalus, 121, 175-196.
47.
Nowak, K. (1988). Covert repressiveness and the stability of a political system: Poland at the end of the seventies. Social Research, 55, 179-209.
48.
Parsons, T. (1968). The structure of social action. New York: Free Press.
49.
Partridge, P. H. (1971). Consent and consensus. New York: Praeger.
50.
Portes, A. (1973). Modernity and development: A critique. Studies in International Development, 8, 247-279.
51.
Prince-Gibson, E. , & Schwartz, S. H. (1998). Value priorities and gender. Social Psychology Quarterly, 61, 49-67.
52.
Prothro, J. W. , & Grigg, C. M. (1960). Fundamental principles of democracy: Bases of agreement and disagreement. Journal of Politics, 22, 276-294.
53.
Putnam, R. D. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
54.
Roccas, S. , & Schwartz, S. H. (1997). Church-state relations and the association of religiosity with values. Cross-Cultural Research, 31, 356-375.
55.
Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. New York: Free Press.
56.
Roskin, M. G. (1991). The rebirth of East Europe. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
57.
Rossi, P. H. , & Berk, R. A. (1985). Varieties of normative consensus. American Sociological Review, 50, 333-347.
58.
Rupnik, J. (1988). The other Europe. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.
59.
Sagiv, L. , & Schwartz, S. H. (1995). Value priorities and readiness for out-group social contact. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 437-448.
60.
Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theory and empirical tests in 20 countries. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 1-65). New York: Academic Press.
61.
Schwartz, S. H. (1993, July). Toward explanations of national differences in value priorities. Paper presented at the XXIV Congress of the Interamerican Society of Psychology, Santiago de Chile.
62.
Schwartz, S. H. (1994a). Are there universal aspects in the content and structure of values?Journal of Social Issues, 50, 19-45.
63.
Schwartz, S. H. (1994b). Beyond individualism/collectivism: New cultural dimensions of values. In U. Kim, H. C. Triandis, C. Kagitcibasi, S.-C. Choi, & G. Yoon (Eds.), Individualism and collectivism: Theory, method and applications (pp. 85-119). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
64.
Schwartz, S. H. (1996). Applying of theory of integrated value systems: Value priorities and behavior. In C. Seligman, J. M. Olson, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), The psychology of values: The Ontario Symposium (Vol. 8, pp. 1-24). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
65.
Schwartz, S. H. (1999). Cultural value differences: Some implications for work. Applied Psychology: An International Journal, 48, 23-47.
66.
Schwartz, S. H. , & Bardi, A. (1997). Influences of adaptation to communist rule on value priorities in Eastern Europe. Political Psychology, 18, 385-410.
67.
Schwartz, S. H. , & Bardi, A. (in press). Moral dialogue across cultures: An empirical perspective. In E. W. Lehman (Ed.), Autonomy and order: A communitarian anthology. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
68.
Schwartz, S. H. , & Bilsky, W. (1987). Toward a universal psychological structure of human values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 550-562.
69.
Schwartz, S. H. , & Bilsky, W. (1990). Toward a theory of the universal content and structure of values: Extensions and cross-cultural replications. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 878-891.
70.
Schwartz, S. H. , & Huismans, S. (1995). Value priorities and religiosity in four Western religions. Social Psychology Quarterly, 58, 88-107.
71.
Schwartz, S. H. , & Ros, M. (1995). Values in the West: A theoretical and empirical challenge to the individualism-collectivism cultural dimension. World Psychology, 1, 99-122.
72.
Schwartz, S. H. , & Sagiv, L. (1995). Identifying culture specifics in the content and structure of values. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 26, 92-116.
73.
Shils, E. (1975). Center and periphery: Essays in macrosociology. Chicago: University of Chicago.
74.
Smith, P. B. , & Schwartz, S. H. (1997). Values. In J. W. Berry, M. H. Segall, & C. Kagitcibasi (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology (Vol. 3, 2nd ed., pp. 77-118). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
75.
Taylor, C. L. , & Hudson, M. C. (1972). World handbook of political and social indicators (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
76.
Thompson, D. F. (1970). The democratic citizen: Social science and democratic theory in the 20th century. London: Cambridge University Press.
77.
Tipps, D. C. (1973). Modernization theory and the comparative study of societies: A critical perspective. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 15, 199-226.
78.
Triandis, H. C. (1990). Cross-cultural studies of individualism and collectivism. In J. Berman (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 1989 (pp. 41-133). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
79.
Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism and collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview.
80.
United Nations . (1990). 1987 statistical yearbook. New York: Author.
81.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization . (1989). Statistical yearbook. Paris: Author.
82.
Veenhoven, R. (1995). The cross-national pattern of happiness: Test of predictions implied in three theories of happiness. Social Indicators Research, 34, 33-68.
83.
Williams, J. E. , & Best, D. L. (1982). Measuring sex stereotypes: A thirty nation study. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
84.
Williams, R. M., Jr. (1968). Values. In E. Sills (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the social sciences (Vol. 16, pp. 283-287). New York: Macmillan.
85.
World Bank . (1990). World tables: 1989-1990 edition. Washington, DC: Author.
86.
Yang, K.-S. (1986). Chinese personality and its change. In M. H. Bond (Ed.), The psychology of the Chinese people (pp. 106-170). Hong Kong: Oxford Press.
87.
Yang, K.-S. (1988). Will societal modernization eventually eliminate cross-cultural psychological differences? In M. H. Bond (Ed.), The cross-cultural challenge to social psychology (pp. 67-85). London: Sage.
