World Values Survey

The World Values ​​Survey ( World Values ​​Survey - WVS ) is the most comprehensive and weiträumigste survey on human values ​​that has ever been carried out. There is an ongoing academic project by social researchers to determine the state of sociocultural, moral, religious and political values ​​of different cultures in the world. The results are mostly to be found on the project website.

History

The first representative survey wave of the World Values ​​Surveys took place in 1981 in 22 states instead. As a major player in the global survey of people about their attitudes and values, the Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan in the United States.

It was the work of the research group of the European Values ​​Study - built (European Values ​​Study EVS). The EVS examined the values ​​settings of people in eight Western European countries. The scientific patronage took this January Kerkhofs and Ruud de Moor, whose university - the University of Tilburg - is still the headquarters of the EVS.

The first survey was repeated after about 10 years, which was named after the second edition of "waves". One of the goals of the project was the longitudinal measurement of the development of values ​​in the respective countries. More waves followed the Second at intervals of about five years.

Due to the European origin of the project, the WVS were mainly carried out surveys in Western countries in the early waves and African and südostasisatische States were underrepresented. Thus, the WVS is performed in more countries, there was a decentralized organizational structure. In this way, the WVS grew over their European origin Weighted addition to 42 countries in the second wave, 54 in the third and 62 countries in the fourth wave to include.

The data from the WVS are on his website freely available and there are also a descriptive analysis through an online analysis tool. The Secretariat of the WVS is based in Stockholm, Sweden, and the data archive of the WVS is located in Madrid, Spain.

Methodology and survey

The WVS methodology consists of the use of detailed questionnaires in -person interviews. The questionnaires of all five waves can be viewed in full version on the WVS website. The questionnaires of the 5th wave consisted of about 250 questions. In each country, 1000 to 3500 persons were interviewed. In the fourth wave, for example, there was an average of 1330 interviews per country, corresponding to a world total of about 92,000 interviews.

Results

The WVS questionnaire consists of 250 questions, which amount to 400 to 800 measurable variables. Some examples are as follows:

Happiness

The WVS examines the individual's perception of happiness in which different countries. This part of the WVS is also the most often quoted by the press. The statistics Website NationMaster example published a simplified version of Weltglücklichkeitsmaßstabs based on WVS data. The WVS website itself, but allows a more advanced level of analysis, as well as the comparison of the lucky development for each country over time and between different socioeconomic groups. One of the most striking shifts of happiness measurement, was the significant decline in the feeling of happiness of the Russian population, as well as some other populations of Eastern European countries during the 1990s.

The Culture Card

The Culture Card is another result of the WVS survey. Some variables have been to two dimensions of cultural variation summarized (known as " traditional values ​​vs.. Secular- rational values ​​" and " survival values ​​vs. Selbstentfaltung values ​​"). Based on this two-dimensional spectrum, countries could be divided into distinct cultural regions. The WVS claims: These two dimensions explain more than 70 % of the cross-national variance in a factor analysis of ten indicators. These results also confirm the theses of Max Weber sociology of religion, according to which culture is strongly influenced by religion.

Development to democracy

Ingelhart discovered that self- convolution values ​​lead to a desire for democracy. The survey found that trust and democracy were those values ​​that exceeded the most cultural boundaries. Furthermore, the survey showed that gender equality one of the major differences between the Western and other cultures.

Taking and critique

The Dutch researchers Geert Hofstede Interculturalism takes the WVS results to positive. Specifically, based on Inglehart's two-dimensional reduction of its results, as shown in the Inglehart - card, claiming Hofstede that it supports his own work.

" Inglehart's key cultural dimensions corresponded very my dimensions. Well-being versus survival was strongly correlated with individualism and masculinity; Secular - rational versus traditional authority was negatively correlated with power distance. "

However, Inglehart's two dimensions are not identical to Hofstede's five dimensions. Given the differences in methodology ( Hofstede was based on surveys of IBM employees ), it is hardly surprising that it of the World Values ​​Survey are differences between his results and those.