2010 Presentation - The Values Q-Set

Editor's Notes

• #2: Thank you all for being here. As you can see, the topic of my presentation is my new measure of values…but first, I’d like to start with a little syllogism.
• #3: Within the field of personality, *many of you probably think of my lab’s focus as the study of goals. *This is essentially true.Since this is true, and *it is the lab to which I belong, *you might guess that *goals are the focus of my research; but it’s a little more complicated than that.*Another way of framing my interests * that is only slightly immodest is to say that I study * importance itself.To the extent that this makes my research sound like importance incarnate, I’m definitely not ready to make this claim.Yet.What I mean to say is that I’m interested in the psychological perception of importance.
• #4: To phrase this in the form of a question, Worth 500 dollars (hold card Jeopardy style), *What do we care about? Why do we care? What good does it do us to care selectively?And ultimately, if we have a choice, what would be best to care about?The answer is bound to be multi-faceted, so I like to think of my goal as a cost-benefit analysis of values,which will guide the development of an empirical system for optimizing our priorities.
• #5: Goals represent what is on people’s minds, which is one immediate indication that their content is psychologically important.My work has focused on goals that aren’t necessarily on people’s minds, but were on many people’s at one point or another, enough so to make it into the relatively comprehensive list of goals we now call the PGQ.*The 65 items of the PGQ are representative of the goals participants list in their own words.The PGQ directly asks how important these goals are—*and they’re definitely important.Practically everyone rates at least one goal item as “Among my most important,”and usually it’s closer to a quarter of the goals.
• #6: In conducting a factor analysis of the PGQ, I’ve attempted to model the underlying structure of what people care about.I’ve found groups of goals that tend to correspond in importance, which is a hint that they share common motives.The list boils down to about 6 or 7 in undergrads, *so answering the question of “what people care about” succinctly may not be as hard as it sounds.I’ve also found that if a person cares more about one of these latent motives, they’re likely to care less about another.*This tells me there are some interesting dynamics within this set of motives, which begins to get at the causes and effects of caring about things;but I DO mean begins.
• #7: The question of why we care about our goals is a tough nut to crack,because there are clearly many different influences that shape them.One would be the social environment.*On average, students list a lot of academic goals andrate them as their most important.The difference is almost a standard deviation compared to other goals.Then there’s this goal. * How many of you would say this is one of your more important goals?Among undergrads,this goal is slightly more important than average too.If the sample was 10 years younger or older, this would probably not be the case.Many other goals reflect the sort of needs that we all share, such as these. *As social creatures with hedonistically wired reward systems, having pursuits like these is justhuman nature.Those last two also reflect another thing about human nature: individual differences.*Some personality types seem to affect how insatiable these natural appetites can be. *Other personalities seem to generate goals to compensate for themselves.Aside from the Big 5, other individual differences such as religiousness * seem to affect goals.
• #8: Clearly, whenstudying motivation, the importance of individual differences must not be underestimated.Think of what we know as psychologists about *conditioning…Did your mind go first to B. F. Skinner, or to Pavlov and his dogs?Next, think of *personality…Are you thinking of the Big 5?As the first-years have been reading recently, personality psychology also incorporates the study of motivation.This alone speaks to the importance of individual differences in questions of motivation,since personality is largely a matter of individual differences.It also speaks to the importance of motivation in the study of personality.We can’t understand personality by only assessing traits any more than we can understand learning by only using classical conditioning,because traits are to motivation as classical conditioning is to operant:I can begin by studying how people perceive and react to their environments,but next I have to ask, “How do people actively, voluntarily engage their environments?”The answer is as hard to formulate as people are to generalize about, but here * are two last points as to why it’s important to try:If we as a society are to achieve great things, our motivation has to be in concordance.To achieve an outcome of any consequence, we have to want it badly enough, and keep wanting it.We have to avoid undermining ourselves and each other, and we have to sustain ourselves in the process.*vast individual differences complicate all these points.We don’t all begin with the same strength, consistency, and clarity of motivation,and we certainly don’t end up with it after all life puts us through.We don’t even agree on the basic, inherent goodness of all our motives.In arguing that differences in motivation are important to understand, I would go so far as to say * that disagreements in ideals fundamentally threaten the global peace process.If we all want the same scarce things, efficiency is the solution.If we approach a problem from different perspectives, time and tolerance will lead to the common goal,and we might even have a better solution in the end. If, on the other hand, we want different things in the end, this ultimately permits only compromise or conflict. Until such disputes are resolved, cooperation is at best temporary, or externally supported.From this perspective, it seems that having a clear, common objective would be very beneficialbut seeing as we did on the previous slide how much goes into determining our objectives,I’ve decided to begin with a more decontextualized look at motivation by studying what ideals are made of.
• #9: As we judge the quality of objects by their similarity to our ideals,so we evaluate the quality of actions by how well they serve our values, or so the theory goes according to Schwartz, who basically wrote the book on values.I don’t think he’s actually written any books, but he’s certainly written some serious articles:and in this one, he introduced his list of values, which is now basically THE list of values.It’s a 56-item list of values that were rationally developed and compiled from literature.Here are some example items. *For each, participants rate their agreement with the statement,“This value is very important to me.” The original version used a 9-point scale, but the last time my lab used the measure, we used a 5-point scale, so I went with that.In both versions, the neutral point is the second lowest rating,and if participants disagree or actually devalue the item, we don’t ask them how much.These items are then grouped into 10 scales, and the item ratings are averaged within the groups to create scale scores.*In my lab’s use, this measure has shown worse scaling problems than the PGQ,which is partly the reason I developed a new measure.
• #10: The Values Q-Set25 items such as…“Being morally good”“Being or falling in love”“Choosing and pursuing a career”Derived from Schwartz (1992), Rokeach (1973), Klinger (1977), Mathews & Mister (1987), etc.Ps sort items by importance into 5 groups of 5“Most – More – Medium – Less – Least”Better discriminator among highly important values
• #11: 154undergraduates at UC Riverside39% freshmen, 30% sophomores, 21% juniors, 10% seniors95% full-timers (Mean credits = 14.4, SD = 3.2)Young adults (Mean = 19.3; SD = 1.8; range = {17 – 31} )71% female (110 females, 44 males)Ethnically diverse & representative of UCR population42% East Asian 2. 17% Hispanic 3. 14% Caucasian4. 10% African 5. 9% South Asian 6. 9% Other / MixedDiverse religious affiliations50% Christian 2. 28% Atheist/Agnostic/Irreligious3. 12% Buddhist 4. 6% Muslim 5. 4% Other70% single (105 singles, 45 spoken for)
• #12: Holy missing data, Batman! (N = 108 / 154 = 70%)
• #13: Frustrating at first, but good in the end?To be interpreted with caution: For each demographic variable, ran tests on 25 items at a time. Increases likelihood of type 1 error. Here’s where it would be nice to know how to do a randomization test!Unequal variances for last two sex effects, Satterthwaite’sp reportedUnbracketed income r = -.19, p = .072Income bracket & “Belonging to my family” (r = -.24, p =.02)Sex“Having a pleasurable life” (M> F, r = .18, p = .03)“Being a skilled, capable person” (M> F, r = .16, p = .05)“Experiencing and appreciating nature” (M> F, r = .23, p = .01)“Exploring or strengthening my religious identity”(F> M, r = .19, p = .01)Romantic involvement“Being or falling in love” (r = .18, p = .03)“Raising children (now or in the future)” (r = .17, p = .05)Age & “Being or falling in love” (r = -.17, p = .04)Class year affects this even more..? (r = -.28, p = .002)Course load (i.e., # of credits)“Having or gaining knowledge and wisdom” (r = .18, p = .05)“Being or becoming independent” (r = .21, p = .02)“Helping people” (r = -.20, p = .02)“Understanding my cultural heritage” (r = -.26, p = .004)Also related to high school GPA (r = -.23, p = .01)
• #14: Religious affiliation is one demographic difference for which I do not doubt the effect.Christians & Muslims > None, Christians > BuddhistsWilks’ Lambda = .01,Pillai’s Trace = .06, Hotelling-Lawley Trace = .002, Roy’s Greatest Root <.0001
• #15: Top 10 best-estimated Q-Set values Adj. R SV scale“Living in accordance with my religious beliefs” .562 Benev./Tradit.“Having a pleasurable life” .500 Hedonism“Becoming a respected or powerful person” .487 Power “Exploring or strengthening my religious identity” .471 Benev./Tradit.“Being or falling in love” .415 Benev./Hedon. “Experiencing and appreciating nature” .381 Universalism “Helping people” .362 Benevolence “Belonging to my family” .354 Conformity “Being or becoming independent” .338 Self-Direction “Becoming famous, popular, or well-known” .320 Power 11? Having / gaining an understanding of people & cultures .306 (-) Power
• #16: Choosing and pursuing a career Adjusted R² = -.003Being or becoming independent & INDEPENDENT r = .37Now that we’ve gone over some evidence that I’ve got a pretty good measure here, let’s look at what it says about my sample…
• #17: Q-Set value Mean SD f “most”Belonging to my family4.32 1.06 63%Being or becoming financially secure 3.99 1.19 46%Choosing and pursuing a career 3.97 .96 35%Being healthy and energetic 3.73 1.07 28%5. Having or gaining knowledge and wisdom3.66 1.04 25%5. Being or falling in love3.66 1.33 38%Having a pleasurable life 3.60 1.33 33%Being morally good 3.59 1.19 29%Gaining and maintaining friendships 3.57 1.05 23%10. Helping people 3.47 1.10 21%
• #18: These are the best positive predictors in multiple regression.Other values may have stronger bivariate correlations, and other negative predictors may be more significant.Schwartz value scale Mean SDAchievement 4.16 .60Adjusted R = .522, “Belonging to my family”Benevolence 4.04 .55Adjusted R = .553, “Belonging to my family”Self-Direction 4.00 .58Adjusted R = .382, “Being unique, different, my own individual”Conformity 3.91 .67Adjusted R = .543, “Belonging to my family”Hedonism 3.86 .78Adjusted R = .511, “Being or falling in love”
• #19: Q-Set value Mean SD f “least”Becoming famous, popular, or well-known1.45 .92 74%Experiencing and appreciating nature 1.99 1.04 41%Having or gaining an understanding 2.11 1.06 33% of people and culturesUnderstanding my cultural heritage 2.12 1.22 42%5. Exploring or strengthening my religious identity 2.13 1.42 50%6. Leaving a legacy or having 2.24 1.34 40% a memorable impact on the world Having or using my imagination and creativity 2.26 1.10 26%Living in accordance with my religiousbeliefs 2.35 1.54 46%Becoming a respected or powerful person 2.46 1.43 38%Being unique, different, my own individual 2.68 1.19 15%
• #20: Schwartz value scale Mean SDPower 2.94 .84Adjusted R = .604, “Becoming a respected or powerful person”Stimulation 3.26 .90Adjusted R = .363, “Being a skilled, capable person”Traditionalism 3.29 .64Adjusted R = .555, “Being morally good”Universalism 3.59 .64Adjusted R = .401, “Being unique, different, my own individual”Security 3.78 .62Adjusted R = .498, “Belonging to my family”
• #21: Q-sorting creates bipolar componentsRating one value high means rating another lowScree test suggested 3 components30% of variance accounted forVarimax rotation1. Spiritual vs. Secular ProprietySolitary vs. Intimate Self-ActualizationSocial Distinction vs. IntegrationUsing oblimin rotation, inter-factor correlations are {.03 – .003}  practically orthogonal already
• #22: Q-Set value Component loadingLiving in accordance with my religious beliefs .74Exploring or strengthening my religious identity .66Helping people .54Being morally good .31Having or creating many memories -.21Being healthy and energetic -.39Being or becoming independent -.44Choosing and pursuing a career -.47Having a pleasurable life -.48Being or becoming financially secure -.63
• #23: Q-Set value Component loadingHaving or using my imagination and creativity .62Being a skilled, capable person .60Experiencing and appreciating nature .49Having or gaining knowledge and wisdom .36Being unique, different, my own individual .18Being or falling in love -.35Belonging to my family -.39Raising children (now or in the future) -.59
• #24: Q-Set value Component loadingBecoming famous, popular, or well-known .65Becoming a respected or powerful person .64Leaving a legacy or having .62 a memorable impact on the world Finding or maintaining inner peace and harmony -.18Gaining and maintaining friendships -.33Understanding my cultural heritage -.33Having or gaining an understanding -.48 of people and cultures
• #25: A quick, off-the-cuff interpretation from what I would guess just by looking at the itemsHow to live, grow, and interactSlightly different than the existing view of value structure
• #26: Key goes clockwise from midnightIt will also be helpful to think of this as a compass.Here in the west, we’re so open to experience that we’re borderline nutty.In the east are all the stodgy puritanical conservatives (no offense!)Up north where I’m from, it’s so cold that we have to transcend ourselves, or else we’d be miserable.Here in the south, we have to enhance ourselves so we look good in our bathing suits.(Anyone notice the swimming pool that opened up by the side door of the building this week?)
• #27: This suggests there’s little if anything out of the ordinary going on with my sample’s data
• #28: But what about my fancynew Q-Set components?
• #29: Roughly NE vs. SW, but the SW side fans out into the E & N a littleConservative self-transcendence vs. Openness & Self-enhancement
• #30: Roughly W-NW vs. NE, so an E vs. W thing with a northern biasOpenness vs. Conservation, but biased toward self-transcendence
• #31: Roughly S vs. N, but slightly biased toward ESelf-enhancement vs. self-transcendence, with a conservationist bias
• #32: 1. Spiritual vs. Secular Propriety = NE vs. SWSame as Schwartz scale component 1! (Stimulation + Hedonism)– (Benevolence + Conformity + Traditionalism ) r = -.41, p < .0001Solitary vs. Intimate Self-Actualization = W-NW vs. NE (Self-Direction + Universalism)– (Benevolence + Conformity)r = .26, p = .002Social Distinction vs. Integration = S vs. N(Achievement + Power)– (Universalism + Benevolence)r = .42, p < .0001
• #33: Doesn’t really change things, but adds some interesting bits to what’s already thereGoing to have to get deeper into the analyses to say for sure, but so far things look good for the circumplex.
• #34: Probably not, because there’s lots more data to crunch on from this study.
• #35: Now that I have a good handle one what kinds of things people care about, I get to start looking at potential causes & consequences, and there’s lots of good stuff to work with!
• #36: Lastly, I want to extend my gratitude to everyone behind the scenes,To Dan, for making it all possible, and almost easyTo my RAs for all their hard work in providing me with my data,Particularly these two, who have consistently gone above and beyond the call of duty, shown great enthusiasm and reliability. Watch out for them, they’re going places.To my dear friends and family, for all their effects on my motivation, both positive and negativeTo all my participants for taking this whole enterprise seriously and letting me pick their brainsAnd to all of you for sitting through my spiel and making it such a pleasure to be here.