Personal values and political activism: A cross-national study

Michele Vecchione*, Shalom H. Schwartz, Gian Vittorio Caprara, Harald Schoen, Jan Cieciuch, Jo Silvester, Paul Bain, Gabriel Bianchi, Hasan Kirmanoglu, Cem Baslevent, Catalin Mamali, Jorge Manzi, Vassilis Pavlopoulos, Tetyana Posnova, Claudio Torres, Markku Verkasalo, Jan Erik Lönnqvist, Eva Vondráková, Christian Welzel, Guido Alessandri

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

91 Scopus citations

Abstract

Using data from 28 countries in four continents, the present research addresses the question of how basic values may account for political activism. Study 1 (N = 35,116) analyses data from representative samples in 20 countries that responded to the 21-item version of the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ-21) in the European Social Survey. Study 2 (N = 7,773) analyses data from adult samples in six of the same countries (Finland, Germany, Greece, Israel, Poland, and United Kingdom) and eight other countries (Australia, Brazil, Chile, Italy, Slovakia, Turkey, Ukraine, and United States) that completed the full 40-item PVQ. Across both studies, political activism relates positively to self-transcendence and openness to change values, especially to universalism and autonomy of thought, a subtype of self-direction. Political activism relates negatively to conservation values, especially to conformity and personal security. National differences in the strength of the associations between individual values and political activism are linked to level of democratization.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)84-106
Number of pages23
JournalBritish Journal of Psychology
Volume106
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Feb 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 The British Psychological Society.

Keywords

  • Cross-cultural
  • Participation
  • Political activism
  • Values

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