A Multilingual App for Studying Children’s Developing Values: Introducing a New Arabic Translation of the Picture-Based Values Survey and Comparison of Palestinian and Jewish Children in Israel

Although over 250 million people speak Arabic as their first language, only a minuscule fraction of developmental science studies Arab children. As values are a core component of culture, understanding how values develop is key to understanding development across cultures. Little is known about young Arab children’s values. We developed an Arabic version of the Picture-Based Value Survey for Children and implemented it in a multilingual application, adapted for 5-year-olds by recording the instructions and value item captions. We then compared the results in Arabic to those from the more established Hebrew version, with Hebrew-speaking children as a comparison group. A pilot study (N = 63) provided preliminary support that the measure is working well in Arabic and Hebrew. In Study 2, four hundred 5- to 12-year-old children reported their values (50% in Arabic, 50% in Hebrew) in a preregistered study. Multidimensional scaling analyses revealed structural patterns that closely correspond to Schwartz’s (1992) theoretical structure in both languages. Replicating past findings, power values were less important than benevolence in both cultural groups, and girls ranked self-enhancement values lower than boys (but not in Hebrew speakers). We further explored age and cultural differences in value development. Value consistency increased with age in both cultures, peaking at age 9–10. Cultural comparisons revealed several differences in value importance between the two cultures and lower value consistency and coherence in Arabic-speaking children. These results establish a tool for studying value development in Arab children and, more broadly, understanding the basic motivations driving populations that were hardly studied before.