Evaluating the structure of human values with confirmatory factor analysis

This is the first statistical test of a theory of the structure of human values (Schwartz, 1992). The theory postulates that 10 basic values are discriminated in all societies and that these values form a quasi-circumplex structure based on the inherent conflict or compatibility between their motivational goals. Past support for the theory came from subjective judgments of visual plots of the relations among value items in samples from over 60 countries. We formally test the postulated structure and several potential refinements. We employ a specially designed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) approach with new data from two sets of 23 samples from 27 countries (N = 10,857). In both data sets, CFAs confirm the 10 basic values, a modified quasi-circumplex rather than a simple circumplex structure, and the claim that values form a motivational continuum.