Political Psychology, Vol. 31, No. 3, 2010 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00764.

Basic Personal Values, Core Political Values, and Voting: A Longitudinal Analysis
pops_764 421..452

Shalom H. Schwartz The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Gian Vittorio Caprara University of Rome La Sapienza Michele Vecchione University of Rome La Sapienza

We theorize that political values express basic personal values in the domain of politics. We test a set of hypotheses that specify how the motivational structure of basic values constrains and gives coherence to core political values. We also test the hypothesis that core political values mediate relations of basic personal values to voting demonstrated in previous research. We measured the basic personal values, core political values, and vote of Italian adults both before (n = 1699) and after (n = 1030) the 2006 national election. Basic values explained substantial variance in each of eight political values (22% to 53%) and predicted voting signicantly. Correlations and an MDS projection of relations among basic values and political values supported the hypothesized coherent structuring of core political values by basic values. Core political values fully mediated relations of basic values to voting, supporting a basic valuespolitical valuesvoting causal hierarchy.
KEY WORDS: Personal Values, Political Values, Political Thought, Voting

Many studies in recent decades have examined the political attitudes of the general public and how these attitudes relate to one another (e.g., Feldman, 1988; Judd, Krosnick, & Milburn, 1981; Zaller, 1992). A left-right or liberalconservative ideological dimension has been proposed to structure political thought and reduce the complexity of political information (Conover & Feldman, 1981; Jacoby, 1995). However, the structure of political thought transcends the left-right or liberal-conservative divide (Converse, 1964; Feldman, 1988). No
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single ideological dimension is likely to organize political attitudes (Kinder, 1998). A multidimensional conception of ideology is needed for this purpose (Ashton et al., 2005; Heath, Evans, & Martin, 1994). There have been few systematic attempts to investigate what underlies the varied political attitudes of the electorate (Ashton et al., 2005; Pefey & Hurwitz, 1985). Feldman (2003) noted that one potentially valuable approach to the attitude organization problem that has not received sufcient attention . . . is based on the value construct (p. 479). Many have assigned a central role to values as organizers of political evaluations (e.g., Feldman, 2003; Gunther & Kuan, 2007; Knutsen, 1995a; Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz, 1994). Empirical studies are few in number, however, and have largely focused on a single or limited set of values. They have failed to consider how political attitudes systematically relate to the whole system of basic value priorities (Feldman, 2003). The validation of a theory that identies a comprehensive set of basic personal values and the near universal structure of relations among them (Schwartz, 1992, 2006) makes it possible to do this. This is the rst objective of the current study. One reason for the absence of investigations of the possible organization of political attitudes by basic personal values may be the different intellectual and disciplinary origins of studies of political attitudes and of basic personal values, political science and social psychology, respectively. Scholars in these two disciplines have had quite different types of values in mind. Political scientists largely focus on attitudes in the political domain which they call core political values such as egalitarianism, civil liberties, ethnocentrism, and limited government (e.g., Converse, 1964; Goren, 2005; Hurwitz & Pefey, 1987). They typically infer peoples core political values from agreement with prescriptions for how government or society should function. Most attempts to identify broad ideological principles that might constrain and organize these political values focus on liberalism-conservatism. Starting with Converses seminal study (1964), however, there is little support for this single source of constraint (Hurwitz & Pefey, 1987; Kinder, 1983). Researchers recognize that core political values are interdependent (e.g., Gunther & Kuan, 2007; Knutsen, 1995b). Yet progress toward identifying a coherent set of principles that constrain and structure them has been limited. We seek to ll this gap. Social psychologists focus on basic personal values, dened as cognitive representations of desirable, transsituational goals (Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz, 1992). Basic personal values are measured in terms of their importance as guiding principles in peoples own lives. Individuals have a relatively stable hierarchal system of value priorities (e.g., security > power = hedonism > conformity). Basic personal values serve as standards for judging all kinds of behavior, events, and people. They nd expression in all domains of life and therefore underlie all attitudes and opinions (Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz, 2006). Basic personal values are more abstract and fundamental than core political values. Schwartz (1994) argued that sets of basic personal values underlie politi-

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cal ideologies and attitudes.1 Our rst hypothesis is that basic personal values organize and give coherence to core political values. The pursuit of basic values leads people to favor the ideologies or policies that can promote them in a given societal context. People who attribute high priority to security and power values, for example, tend to favor nationalist policies because nationalism seemingly promises greater security and because it expresses power goals. We reason that basic personal values inuence political choice through their inuence on core political values. We therefore hypothesize that core political values mediate relations of basic personal values to voting. Earlier studies examined hierarchical models in which general political beliefs mediate relations of core political values to policy preferences (e.g., Hurwitz & Pefey, 1987). To our knowledge, this is the rst study to examine a hierarchical model in which core political values mediate relations of basic personal values to political behavior. To test our hypotheses, we adopt the Schwartz (1992, 2006) theory of basic values. The theory identies 10 basic personal values and species an integrated structure of motivationally compatible and conicting relations among these values. This structure enables us to hypothesize how basic personal values organize and constrain core political values in an integrated manner. Before explicating the hypotheses, we briey present conceptualizations of core political values and of basic personal values and describe pertinent ndings that relate basic values to voting. Core Political Values Core political values are overarching normative principles and belief assumptions about government, citizenship, and society (McCann, 1997). They serve as focal points for taking positions in an otherwise confusing political environment. Converse (1964) viewed them as a sort of glue to bind together many more specic attitudes and beliefs (p. 211). They underlie specic attitudes, preferences, and evaluations in the sphere of politics, thereby giving them some degree of coherence and consistency (Feldman, 1988; Hurwitz & Pefey, 1987). There is no clear consensus regarding the number and content of core political values in modern democracies, nor is there a theory to help identify the universe of political values. Feldman (1988) identied three core political values: equality of opportunity, economic individualism, and free enterprise. McCann (1997) specied two (egalitarianism and moral traditionalism); Heath, Jowell, and Curtice (1985) two (libertarian/authoritarian and socialist/laissez-faire); Goren (2005) four (traditional family values, equal opportunity, moral tolerance, and limited govern1

This corresponds to Converses (1964) contention that specic attitudes and beliefs in the political domain derive from more abstract and fundamental superordinate value(s) that constrain them.

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ment); Jacoby (2006) four (liberty, equality, economic security, and social order); and Ashton et al. (2005) two (moral regulation/individual freedom, compassion/ competition). Blind patriotism has not been labeled as a core political value, but it also ts the McCann (1997) denition above. To test our hypotheses, we selected items to measure the following six constructs that encompass those listed above and can be considered core political values. Law and order: enforcement and obedience to law, protection against threats to the social order. Traditional morality: traditional religious and family values versus newer, permissive lifestyles. Equality: egalitarian distribution of opportunities and resources. Free enterprise: minimal government involvement in the economy, economic individualism. Civil liberties: freedom for everyone to act and think as they consider most appropriate. Blind patriotism: unquestioning attachment to and intolerance of criticism of ones country.

Basic Personal Values The Schwartz (1992) value theory identies ten broad personal values that derive from universal requirements of human existence. These values may encompass the full range of motivationally distinct values recognized across cultures (Schwartz, 2006). The values, each dened in terms of the distinct motivational goals that it expresses, are listed below. Power: social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources. Achievement: personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards. Hedonism: pleasure and sensuous gratication for oneself. Stimulation: excitement, novelty, and challenge in life. Self-direction: independent thought and actionchoosing, creating, exploring.

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Figure 1. The motivational continuum of 10 basic personal values with exemplary items and two summary dimensions.

Universalism: understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature. Benevolence: preservation and enhancement of the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent personal contact. Tradition: respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that traditional culture or religion provide the self. Conformity: restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others and violate social expectations or norms. Security: safety, harmony, and stability of society, of relationships, and of self. The theory further species a structure of dynamic relations among the 10 values. Figure 1 depicts this structure as a circular motivational continuum. This motivational continuum reects the compatibility and conict among different values. The closer any two values around the circle, the more compatible their motivations and therefore the more likely that they can be attained through the same action or expressed through the same attitude. The more distant any two values, the more conicting their motivations and hence the less possible to attain

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them through the same action or express them in the same attitude. This integrated structure of values means that any behavior or attitude that is especially congruent with one basic value (e.g., free enterprise with power) should also be congruent with the adjacent values in the circle (security and achievement) but in conict with the opposing values (universalism, benevolence, and self-direction). Thus, the whole integrated structure of values relates systematically to other variables. In addition to the motivational compatibility and conict among values, the circular structure of basic personal values reects other differences among values that are also relevant to the way basic values constrain core political values. Thus, Schwartz (2006, 2009) brings evidence that the values in the bottom half of the circle (Figure 1) are based in the need to avoid or control anxiety and threat and to protect the self. Values on the bottom right emphasize avoiding conict, unpredictability, and change by submission and passive acceptance of the status quo. Those on the bottom left emphasize overcoming possible sources of anxiety by gaining dominance or admiration. In contrast, values in the top half of the circle are relatively anxiety free, expressing growth and self-expansion. Those on the top right emphasize promoting the welfare of others. Those on the top left emphasize autonomous, self-expressive experience. To simplify thinking about the circle of basic personal values, Schwartz described the values as arrayed on the two dimensions also shown in Figure 1. On one dimension, openness to change values (self-direction, stimulation) oppose conservation values (security, conformity, tradition). The former encourage independent thought, feeling, and action, and receptiveness to change, whereas the latter call for submissive self-restriction, preserving traditional practices, and protecting stability. On a second dimension, self-transcendence values (universalism, benevolence) oppose self-enhancement values (power, achievement). The former emphasize accepting others as equals and concern for their welfare, whereas the latter encourage pursuing ones own success and dominance over others. Hedonism values fall between openness to change and self-enhancement values because they share elements of both. Tests of the theory of basic personal values in more than 220 samples from 74 countries largely support both the content of the 10 values and the structure of relations among them (Schwartz, 2006). This motivational structure of basic personal values is the key to understanding the structure of individuals core political values.2 This is the rst study to examine relations of core political values to basic personal values.
2

To simplify, we will sometimes refer to the two descriptive dimensions rather than to specic basic personal values. However, the values that constitute the poles of these dimensions are not equally relevant to politics. Moreover, alternative pairs of dimensions, derived by rotating the axes of the circle, provide equally valid descriptions of the motivational continuum. A dimension that opposes universalism and self-direction to power and security, for example, captures a motivational opposition particularly relevant to politics.

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Research Relating Basic Personal Values to Political Choice Basic personal values have predicted political choice across cultural contexts and political systems (Barnea, 2003; Barnea & Schwartz, 1998; Caprara, Schwartz, Capanna, Vecchione, & Barbaranelli, 2006). Barnea (2003) found that personal values discriminated among supporters of different political parties in every one of 14 democratic countries. The specic values that discriminated party supporters depended on the issues at stake between the countrys parties. In all cases, the values that discriminated came from opposing sides of the motivational circle of values. In Hungary in the 1990s, for example, the central issue concerned preserving traditional morality and life styles versus rapid modernization (Swain, 1992). Accordingly, the basic personal values that discriminated most strongly were tradition and conformity versus stimulation, hedonism, and self-direction (cf. Figure 1). In Australia, where the parties differed strongly on economic egalitarianism versus free enterprise (Hughes, 1998), the key personal values were universalism versus power. Every one of the 10 values discriminated signicantly in at least four countries. This underlines the importance of considering the entire range of human values when trying to understand political attitudes (cf. Feldman, 2003). In the 2001 Italian elections, for example, voters for the center-left attributed higher priority to universalism and benevolence values; voters for the center-right gave higher priority to power, achievement, security, and conformity values (Caprara et al., 2006; Caprara, Schwartz, Vecchione, & Barbaranelli, 2008). These differences are congruent with the emphasis in left and liberal ideologies on equality, solidarity, and social justice, and with the emphasis in right and conservative ideologies on individual success and social order. Basic values accounted for a substantial proportion of variance in voting, whereas the Big Five personality variables and socio-demographic characteristics of gender, age, and educational level made marginal contributions. These studies used past or intended future vote to measure political choice. This weakens inferences about basic values as causal inuences on voting. Past vote is problematic because voting itself may inuence core political values (McCann, 1997). Intended vote is problematic because it may differ from actual vote, especially if the political situation changes (Jowell, Hedges, Lynn, Farrant, & Heath, 1993). The current study extends past research by measuring basic values ahead of an election and vote shortly following the election. Thus, we predict subsequent vote with earlier values.

Core Political Values Mediate Relations of Basic Personal Values to Voting To explain the nding that basic personal values predict voting, researchers argue that people tend to vote for parties or coalitions whose leaders and policies

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they perceive as likely to promote or protect their own personal values. This explanation assumes that people can discern consistent implications for their personal values in the rhetoric and actions of party leaders and platforms. Many people may be unable to discern such implications, however. Both their own cognitive limitations and the value-relevant information available to them make this difcult. The value implications of given policies are often far from clear. What, for example, are the value implications of cutting taxes? Would this increase or decrease security or justice? Further, competing candidates may appeal to the same basic value to justify contradictory ideas and actions (e.g., invoking peace to justify or to oppose military action). Moreover, to infer the implications of the political discourse in the media for ones basic values requires substantial attention to and analysis of many complex, confusing, and even intentionally obscure messages. People may lack the perseverance to attend carefully to the messages or the analytic capacity to discern their implications for basic values (Gordon & Segura, 1997; Zaller, 1992). An alternative way to understand the link between basic values and voting is to see basic personal values as mediated by core political values and more specic political attitudes. Basic personal values are abstract beliefs about desirable goals that transcend specic situations (Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz, 1992). They underlie the norms and attitudes that apply in concrete situations (Feather, 1995; Schwartz, 1977). Norms and attitudes express multiple basic values from opposite sides of the circular motivational structure. Both the congruent and opposing basic values shape and constrain the norms and attitudes. For example, universalism, selfdirection, stimulation, and hedonism values underlie willingness to accept immigrants, whereas security, tradition, and conformity values underlie opposition to this political attitude (Schwartz, 2006). Because norms, attitudes, and core political values are more specic than basic personal values, it is easier to perceive the implications of political rhetoric and policies for them than for basic values. As we have argued, the norms, attitudes, and core political values that appeal to individuals are largely constrained by the more abstract, fundamental, and stable basic personal values that underlie them. Hence, they can mediate relations of basic values to political choice. The idea that attitudes and norms mediate the relations of basic values to behavior has been around for a long time (e.g. Kahle, 1983; Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz, 1977). It is labeled the value-attitude-behavior hierarchy. The few studies to test it were limited to the environmental and consumer domains. The three studies of behavior measured self-reports of behavior and values in the same questionnaire (Homer & Kahle, 1988; Jayawardhena, 2004; Shim & Eastlick, 1998). The current research is the rst test of the valuesattitudesbehavior hierarchy that measures behavior at a later time. It is also the rst test in the domain of politics.

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The Current Research The current research tests three broad hypotheses: 1) The circular motivational structure that organizes relations among basic personal values also organizes and gives coherence to core political values. 2) Both basic personal values and core political values predict voting choice systematically. 3) Core political values mediate the effect of basic personal values on voting choice. To test these hypotheses, we developed a scale to measure core political values. To the six dened above, we added two political attitudes prominent in the 2006 Italian election, the context of this study: foreign military intervention and accepting immigrants. The former was largely understood as referring to the war in Iraq and the latter as referring to ethnically different immigrants (ITANES, 2006; Ricol, 2002). Adding these attitudes to the study enabled us to examine whether the structure of basic personal values also organizes relations of context specic political attitudes to core political values. To simplify our narrative, we refer to eight core political values even though the two we added are more specic political attitudes. The rst hypothesis is based on the assumption that core political values express basic values in the political domain. Hence, associations of core political values with one another and with basic values should reect the motivational oppositions and compatibilities among the basic values. Thus, the motivational structure of basic personal values provides a coherent structure to core political values. Each political value should relate positively to a set of basic values on one side of the motivational circle of basic values and negatively to a set of basic values on the opposite side (see Figure 1). To generate hypotheses specifying the basic personal values that underlie each political value, we asked whether the political value expresses or promotes attainment of the dening goals of each basic value or whether it conicts with the expression and preservation of these goals. The conceptual analyses lead to the following hypotheses regarding the motivationally opposed values that relate positively and negatively to each political value.3 (1.1) Traditional morality: positivetradition, conformity, and security because preserving traditional norms, beliefs, and modes of behavior provides certainty and avoids change; negativehedonism, stimulation, self-direction, and

To supplement the brief rationales we provide for each hypothesis, consider the congruence of the core political values with the denitions of the basic personal values and with their dynamic underpinnings described above.

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universalism because it opposes free, individual choice of how to think and behave and is intolerant of what is new and different. (1.2) Blind patriotism: positivesecurity, conformity, tradition, and power because uncritical attachment to and identication with ones country provide a sense of certainty and superiority; negativeuniversalism, self-direction, stimulation, and hedonism because blind patriotism is intolerant of outgroups and conicts with free, individual self-expression. (1.3) Law and order: positivesecurity, conformity, and tradition because law and order protect against threatening, anxiety-arousing disruption of the social order; negativeself-direction, universalism, stimulation, and hedonism because emphasizing law and order restricts individual freedom and discourages tolerance of differences. (1.4) Foreign military intervention: positivesecurity, conformity, tradition, and power because such military action protects against external sources of danger and change and does so through dominating power; negativeuniversalism and benevolence because they favor nding nonaggressive ways to handle problems and oppose actions that may harm others. (1.5) Free enterprise: positiveachievement and power because economic individualism allows unfettered pursuit of own success and wealth; negative universalism and benevolence because it allows exploitation of others and removes governmental regulation that can protect the weak. (1.6) Equality: positiveuniversalism and benevolence because equality expresses concern for others welfare; negativepower and achievement because equality conicts with enabling individuals to pursue their own interests even at the expense of others. (1.7) Civil liberties: positiveuniversalism and self-direction because favoring individuals freedom of thought and action requires high tolerance and low anxiety regarding all ideas; negativepower, security, and tradition because freedom for everyone to act and think as they deem appropriate risks unexpected threatening ideas and behavior that violate traditions. (1.8) Accepting immigrants: positiveuniversalism, benevolence, selfdirection, and stimulation because accepting immigrants expresses concern for their welfare and may expose people to new and exciting ideas and behavior; negativesecurity, tradition, and conformity because this may increase physical insecurity and challenge traditional ideas, norms, and practices. All the hypothesized correlations between the basic personal values and core political values t the motivational structure of basic values. Conrming them would support the claim that the coherent motivation structure that organizes basic values also organizes the relations among core political values. The hypotheses imply substantial positive relations among law and order, blind patriotism, and traditional morality: Their shared grounding in the three conservation values versus universalism and the three openness-to-change values should link them together. The hypotheses also imply substantial negative relations of these core

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political values with accepting immigrants because the same basic values underlie the latter in the opposite direction. The hypotheses suggest that the opposition between universalism and power values, in particular, underlies and unites the core political values of equality and civil liberties and relates them negatively to free enterprise. This implies that the primary motivational conict that guides these political values is self-interest versus concern for others interests. Military intervention relates positively with law and order, blind patriotism, and traditional morality and negatively with accepting immigrants because, like them, it is grounded in the three conservation values. Its grounding in power versus universalism and benevolence values links it to free enterprise. This set of hypotheses suggests that no single, overarching ideological dimension such as left-right organizes this varied set of core political values (Fuchs & Klingemann, 1990). Rather, the circular structure of the 10 basic values structures the core political attitudes. We therefore expect basic personal values to account for more variance in each of the core political values than left-right self-placement does. We tested the hierarchical, mediating hypotheses of basic personal values core political valuesvoting in the context of the April 2006 Italian national election. In that election, the center-right coalition, headed by Silvio Berlusconi, emphasized individual freedom, the market economy, and entrepreneurship as ways to generate wealth and provide people with the resources to protect their security (e.g., Caciagli & Corbetta, 2002). It also emphasized national security, limited government, and traditional family values. In contrast, the center-left coalition, headed by Romano Prodi, emphasized social justice, equality, and tolerance for diversity and advocated a welfare state. Given these policies of the Italian coalitions we hypothesized regarding values: (2a) Attributing importance to security, tradition, conformity, power, and achievement values leads to voting for the center-right. Policies that promise a strong national government committed to security, traditional family values, and a competitive market economy are likely to promote the goals of these basic values, especially of security, tradition, and power. (2b) Attributing importance to universalism, benevolence, and self-direction values leads to voting for the center-left. Policies that emphasize justice, equality, tolerance, and concern for others welfare are likely to promote the goals of these basic values, especially of universalism. Past research on Italians intended future and past votes in other elections supported similar hypotheses (Caprara et al., 2006; 2008). Regarding core political values, we hypothesized: (2c) Valuing free enterprise, law and order, traditional morality, blind patriotism, and military intervention lead to voting for the center-right. This follows from center-right policies encouraging a free market economy with minimal government intervention, favoring law and order over free expression and

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diversity, emphasizing traditional family values, building on Italian nationalism, and favoring demonstration of military might (Caciagli & Corbetta, 2002). (2d) Valuing equality, civil liberties, and accepting immigrants lead to voting for the center-left. The center-lefts policy emphases on tolerance of diversity, equality, and justice promote these core values. Moreover, the center-left proposed revoking a law passed by the right-wing government that had made immigration more difcult. Underlying the third hypothesis, that core political values mediate the effects of basic values on voting, is the view that political discourse typically revolves around issues captured by core political values. From party positions on these issues, voters can infer the possible impact of choosing a particular party on their core political values. Assuming that core political values are expressions of basic personal values, political values serve as a link between basic values and voting. Voters who consciously recognize the implications of party positions for their core political values may also implicitly (usually not consciously) sense the implications of party choice for attaining or protecting the basic values that underlie these core political values. Past research has demonstrated that basic personal values largely mediate the effects of demographic variables on voting (e.g., Caprara et al., 2006, 2008). If core political values mediate the effects of basic values, these two together should fully mediate the effects of demographic variables. We test this expectation in the current research. Method Respondents and Procedures Data were gathered in two waves. About one month prior to the Italian national election of April 2006 (T1), 1,699 respondents completed a questionnaire that measured basic values, core political values, left-right ideology, demographic variables, and intended vote. About one month after the election (T2), 1,030 of these respondents (61% of the T1 sample) completed the same questionnaire and reported their vote. Psychology students at a University in Rome collected the data. Each student collected data from six people equally distributed by gender and age. Students were briefed on the general aims of the study and instructed how to administer the instruments.4

We assessed effects of clustering respondents within interviewers by calculating design effects for each of the items. For 78 of the 80 basic value and political value items, design effects were small (<2), suggesting no need to take clustering in the data into account during estimation (Muthn & Sartorra, 1995). As a further check, we replicated the analyses of relations between basic values and political values using the pooled within covariance matrix that is not affected by the clustering of the data. Results were virtually the same as those reported below.

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Following are the sociodemographic characteristics of this convenience sample. The rst gure is for T1, the second for T2: Gender 45%/44% male; mean age 44.8/44.1 years (SD = 17.6/17.8); annual income <5,000 euro (3.4/3.0%), >80,000 euro (8.0/7.1%), modal income 15,000 to 29,000 euro (24.0/24.4%); educationelementary school 7.3/6.5%, junior high 10.4/9.7%, senior high 44.1/ 46.2%, college 38.2/37.5%. All dropouts at T2 were because some students did not continue the research or failed to contact their respondents a second time. Dropouts did not differ signicantly from T2 respondents on any socio-demographic variable. Measures Basic Personal Values. The Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ: Schwartz, 2006) measured basic values. The PVQ includes 40 short verbal portraits of different people matched to the respondents gender, each describing a persons goals, aspirations, or wishes that point implicitly to the importance of a value. For example, It is important to him to listen to people who are different from him. Even when he disagrees with them, he still wants to understand them describes a person who holds universalism values important. Three to six items measure each value. For each portrait, respondents indicate how similar the person is to themselves on a scale ranging from very much like me6 to not like me at all1. Respondents own values are inferred from the implicit values of the people they describe as similar to themselves. Multimethod-multitrait analyses of the 10 values measured with the PVQ and with the Schwartz Value Survey (Schwartz, 1992) conrm the convergent and discriminant validity of the PVQ indexes (Schwartz, 2006). Internal reliabilities of the basic personal values are necessarily low because the few items that measure each one are intended to cover the conceptual breadth of the value rather than a core idea (e.g., universalism includes tolerance and concern for nature and for the weak, tradition includes both self-restriction and faith). The alpha reliability coefcients at T1 in the current study ranged from .58 (tradition) to .83 (achievement). Despite some low reliabilities, there is substantial evidence that the PVQ indexes are valid.5 Test-retest correlations ranged from .65 (benevolence) to .75 (achievement and hedonism). Core Political Values. We drew upon items proposed by Feldman (1988), McCann (1997), Jacoby (2006), Gunther and Kuan (2007), and Schatz, Staub, and
5

For example, in studies across different countries, basic values, measured with the PVQ, related as hypothesized with human rights behavior, interpersonal violence, attitudes toward war, the Big Five personality variables, social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, age, gender, and education (Burr, 2006; Cohrs, Moschner, Maes, & Kielmann, 2005; Cohrs, Maes, Moschner, & Kielmann, 2007; Knafo, Daniel, & Khoury-Kassabri, 2008; Schwartz & Rubel, 2005; Wach & Hammer, 2003). Even tradition, the value with the lowest reliability, correlated with several of these variables as hypothesized.

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Lavine (1999) to measure the core political values of equality, free enterprise, traditional morality, law and order, blind patriotism, and civil liberties. We wrote new items for accepting immigrants and military intervention, using language that reected the terms of debate in the Italian political discourse. Table 1 lists the 34 items retained for use in this study. Responses were completely disagree-1, agree a little-2, agree somewhat-3, agree a great deal-4, and completely agree-5. To assess whether the 40 items in the initial scale yielded distinct factors for each of the eight political values, we split the T1 sample randomly into two subsamples (N = 849 and 850). We rst performed exploratory factor analyses in both subsamples, employing principal axis factoring as the extraction method. We used the oblique Promax rotation because we assumed that core political values are correlated. To determine how many factors to retain, we considered the replicability and interpretability of the factor structure. Following Everett (1983), we used correlations between factor scores computed from the factor score coefcients in each random subsample to serve as coefcients of factor comparability. The factor comparability coefcients exceeded the .90 criterion for replicability (Everett, 1983) for the rst eight factors (all >.97). Extracting nine factors yielded nonreplicable factors. The interpretability of the eight-factor solution (see below) also supported retaining eight factors. To cross-validate the results, we estimated an exploratory model on the rst sub-sample and a conrmatory factor model on the second subsample. The exploratory analysis suggested dropping six items.6 The eight factor solution accounted for 50.4% of the total variance in the remaining 34 items. Table 1 presents the eigenvalues of the extracted factors and the loadings of the items after rotation. The loadings suggest that Factor I measures law and order (9.8% of the total variance), Factor II traditional morality (7.5%), Factor III equality (5.8%), Factor IV military intervention (6.8%), Factor V free enterprise (5.2%), Factor VI civil liberties (5.2%), Factor VII blind patriotism (5.7%), and Factor VIII accepting immigrants (4.5%). We then performed a conrmatory factor analysis on the second subsample (n = 850), using maximum-likelihood estimation in the MPLUS program (Muthn & Muthn, 1998). The measurement model assigned the 34 items to the eight latent factors identied in the exploratory factor analysis. This model yielded a good t: c2 (499) = 1714.83, p < .001; RMSEA = .054 (.051, .056); SRMR = .059. The signicant chi-square reected the large number of respondents. All items loaded signicantly and substantially (>.40) on their intended latent factor, supporting the convergent validity of the scales. The same model also t the data for the T2 sample, c2 (499) = 2100.78, p < 001; RMSEA = .056 (.053, .058); SRMR = .058. Table 2 presents the intercorrelations, alpha reliability coefcients, and test-retest reliabilities for the eight scales.

Details available from the authors.

Basic Personal Values, Political Values and Voting Table 1. Exploratory Factor Analysis of Core Political Values
Factors I Law and Order 32. Political measures to increase security should be promoted at this time, even if it could mean sacricing the freedom of citizens 33. The police should have more powers so they can protect us better against crime 34. There should be limits on the freedom of speech of people who threaten society 35. The most important thing for our country is to maintain law and order 36. Its right for the government to take restrictive measures on civil liberties to guarantee the security of citizens 37. Order has to be preserved at any cost, even if this could reduce civil liberties 38. It would be a good idea to limit the liberty of expression if this can guarantee more order Traditional Morality 7. This country would have many fewer problems if there were more emphasis on traditional family ties 8. It is extremely important to defend our traditional religious and moral values 9. Homosexual couples should have the same rights as married couples 10. The right to life has to be guaranteed by law from the moment of conception 11. Newer lifestyles are contributing to the breakdown of our society Equality 12. If people were treated more equally in this country, we would have many fewer problems 13. Our society should do whatever is necessary to make sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed 16. The government should do more to guarantee an equal distribution of resources between rich and poor 17. The government should take responsibility to provide free health care to all citizens Foreign Military Intervention 27. Going to war is sometimes the only solution to international problems .55 II .02 III -.02 IV .24 V .07 VI -.01 VII -.07

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VIII .06

.50 .59 .44 .88

.08 .03 .10 -.05

.00 -.01 .00 -.01

.06 -.01 .08 -.04

.01 -.04 -.03 -.05

.08 -.09 .19 .00

.05 .06 .13 -.05

-.12 -.06 -.10 -.02

.76 .82

-.03 .00

-.02 -.01

-.10 -.08

-.03 .04

.01 -.10

.02 -.06

.13 .04

.05

.74

.08

-.05

.10

-.08

.04

.07

-.03 .04 -.05 .11

.83 -.51 .72 .54

-.02 .14 -.03 .09

.00 -.13 -.15 -.01

-.01 .15 .10 .01

-.01 .09 .06 -.10

.07 .06 -.03 -.04

.05 .16 -.03 -.06

.02

.03

.74

-.05

.06

.02

-.01

.06

-.04

-.01

.70

.08

.07

.14

-.11

-.05

-.01

-.05

.73

-.06

-.05

-.11

.05

.04

-.04

.07

.43

.02

-.17

.09

.00

-.08

.02

-.14

-.05

.68

.13

-.07

.00

.03

436 Table 1. (cont.)

Factors I 28. War is never justied 29. Italy should contribute forces to international peace-keeping efforts 30. Italy should join other democratic nations in sending troops to ght dangerous regimes 31. Any act is justied to ght terrorism Free Enterprise 2. It would be a good idea to privatize all of the public enterprises 3. The less government gets involved with business and the economy, the better off this country will be 4. There should be more incentives for individual initiative even if this reduces equality in the distribution of wealth 5. All high school and university education should be made private rather than controlled and supported by the government Civil Liberties 24. It is extremely important to respect the freedom of individuals to be and believe whatever they want 25. The most important thing for our country is to defend civil liberties 26. The right to individual freedom is inviolable and has to be maintained at all cost Blind Patriotism 21. It is unpatriotic to criticize this country 22. Its a duty of all citizens to honor the country 23. I would support my country right or wrong Accepting Immigrants 18. People who come to live here from other countries generally make Italy a better place to live 19. People who come to live here from other countries generally take jobs away from Italian workers 20. People who come to live here from other countries make Italys cultural life richer .08 .01 .03 II .08 .08 .01 III .09 .09 .07 IV -.65 .58 .79 V .07 .01 -.04

Schwartz et al.

VI -.06 -.06 -.08

VII .10 .04 .02

VIII .02 .02 .03

.23 -.03 -.01

.01 .13 .03

.01 -.10 .09

.50 .04 -.07

.06 .68 .57

.13 .12 -.01

.04 -.02 -.06

-.05 .10 -.03

.05

.04

-.03

-.02

.62

.09

-.05

-.13

-.06

-.07

-.02

.05

.67

-.14

.09

.04

.08

-.05

-.02

-.16

.03

.72

-.04

-.01

.03 -.13

.01 -.06

.07 .06

.06 .06

-.05 .06

.68 .67

-.03 .14

.11 -.11

-.01 -.01 .03

-.05 .19 .04

-.01 .05 -.08

-.10 .06 .00

.04 -.06 -.06

-.05 .11 .06

.82 .64 .82

-.06 .06 .08

.04

-.02

-.01

.04

.00

-.09

.11

.90

.13

-.12

.09

-.12

.14

-.18

.22

-.43

.08

-.06

.07

-.12

.03

.06

-.05

.59

Note. The eigenvalues of the unrotated factors were: 9.04, 3.40, 2.14, 1.59, 1.47, 1.20, 1.14, 1.04.

Basic Personal Values, Political Values and Voting Table 2. Correlations among Factors, Cronbach Alpha, and Test-Retest Reliabilities of the Core Political Values TM Traditional morality Blind patriotism Law and order Military intervention Free enterprise Equality Civil liberties Accepting immigrants Cronbach alphas 1.00 .76 .63 .55 .29 -.02 -.13 -.54 .80 BP .65 1.00 .65 .55 .36 -.05 .05 -.30 .80 LO .66 .70 1.00 .77 .55 -.18 -.25 -.45 .85 MI .43 .66 .69 1.00 .49 -.34 -.22 -.43 .78 FE .34 .46 .43 .63 1.00 -.43 -.28 -.24 .74 EQ -.05 -.10 -.14 -.38 -.38 1.00 .61 .39 .77 CL -.14 -.07 -.24 -.29 -.26 .58 1.00 .34 .78 AI -.48 -.47 -.49 -.48 -.25 .35 .33 1.00 .68

437

Test-Retest Coefcients .81 .78 .72 .76 .68 .63 .59 .74

Note. Coefcients below the diagonal are from the exploratory model (n = 849), those above the diagonal are from the conrmatory model (n = 850). The Cronbach alpha coefcients of reliability are based on the T1 sample (n = 1699), the test-retest reliabilities on the T1-T2 sample (n = 1030).

Left-Right Ideology. We used a standard item to measure this ideology (Knutsen, 1997): Considering your political ideas, would you dene yourself as extreme left-1, left-2, left-center-3, center-4, right-center-5, right-6, extreme right7. The mean was 3.72 (SD = 1.49) for the 91% of participants who responded. Voting. We measured political choice at T2 by asking participants which party they voted for in the April 2006 election: 35.9% (n = 370) voted for centerright parties and 50.4% (n = 519) for center-left parties. We excluded from the analyses 42 respondents (4.1%) who voted for other parties, 65 (6.4%) who did not vote, and 34 (3.3%) who did not report their vote. Results Basic Personal Values as Organizers of Core Political Values Hypothesis 1 proposed that the circular motivational structure that organizes basic personal values also organizes and gives coherence to core political values. The hypothesis for each political value specied one set of basic values expected to relate positively to the political value and another, motivationally opposed set, expected to relate negatively. Conrmation of the specic hypotheses would support the view that the motivational circle that organizes basic values organizes relations among core political values. Table 3 reports Pearson (zero-order) correlations between basic personal values and core political values. We centered basic values on each persons own mean value ratings to correct for individual differences in scale use as commonly done (see Schwartz, 2006). Of 48 hypothesized associations, 47 were signicant (all p < .01). The one exception was that power values did not correlate with blind

438

Table 3. Core Political Values: Correlations with Basic Personal Values and Variance Explained by Various Predictors Core Political Values Blind Patriotism .43** .35** .37** -.12** -.27** -.34** -.28** -.25** -.04 .04 42% 14% (2%) 8% 12% 14% 13% (2%) 8% (1%) 36% 30% 22% 4% (1%) 13% 30% 1% (1%) 9% .39** .30** .32** -.20** -.33** -.30** -.23** -.21** .02 .12** .30** .21** .20** -.24** -.40** -.21** -.14** -.11** .11** .23** .15** .12** .14** -.20** -.39** -.17** -.03 -.06 .14** .27** -.02 -.03 -.05 .23** .43** .06 -.07* -.08* -.19** -.33** Law & Order Military Intervention Free Enterprise Equality Civil Liberties -.08* -.08* -.21** .18** .32** .19** .03 .03 -.11** -.26** 27% 1% (0%) 5% Accepting Immigrants -.37** -.27** -.26** .20** .36** .25** .23** .09** -.06 -.08* 30% 6% (0%) 16% Schwartz et al.

Basic Values

Traditional Morality

Security Conformity Tradition Benevolence Universalism Self-Direction Stimulation Hedonism Achievement Power

.48** .45** .53** -.04 -.19** -.38** -.40** -.36** -.15** -.07*

53%

Variance Explained by: Basic Values Age/Gender/Education/ Income (not mediated by basic values) Left-Right Ideology

15% (1%)

9%

Note. Pairwise n = 166872 due to missing data. *p < .01; **p < .001.

Basic Personal Values, Political Values and Voting

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patriotism. These correlations strongly support the idea that the motivational structure that organizes basic values also organizes relations among core political values. In order to display the comprehensive structure of relations among the core political and basic personal values graphically, we performed a multidimensional scaling analysis (MDS). As input, we used a matrix of Pearson correlations among the 10 basic personal values and the eight core political values. The PROXSCAL program in SPSS 15.0 created proximities from the data and then performed an ordinal MDS on the z-transformed values, using Euclidean distances. Figure 2 presents the MDS analysis. Dashed lines encircle the core political values; the basic personal values are outside. It is rst important to note that the 10 basic personal values retain their theorized motivational order going clockwise around the circle from benevolence to tradition. Inclusion of the core political values in the analysis does not change the motivational structure of basic personal values.7 This suggests that relations of core political values to one another and to basic personal values are compatible with the motivational structure that organizes basic values. The locations of the eight core political values in the space reveal their relations both to one another and to the basic values. We next note what these locations reveal about the structuring of the core political values. Traditional morality, blind patriotism, and law and order correlated substantially with one another (Table 2) and were predicted by much the same basic values (Table 3). They cluster together on the left of Figure 2. Their correlations with basic values suggest that the opposition between the three conservation values that predict these three core political values positively and three openness to change values (including hedonism) that predict them negatively structures these political values. Their shared negative association with universalism values also points to a common underlying motivation. The location of accepting immigration on the right in Figure 2 reveals that its motivational underpinnings are opposite to those of these three core political values. It correlates most positively with universalism, self-direction, and stimulation and most negatively with the three conservation values. The locations of the core political values of equality, civil liberties, andin reverse directionfree enterprise in Figure 2 indicate that concern for others is the main motivational basis of the former two and self-interest the main motivational basis of the latter. The relative importance of universalism versus power values largely shapes individuals stances on these three core political values. Civil liberties correlates more positively with self-direction values and more negatively with tradition values than equality does, as reected in Figure 2. This points to autonomy and freedom from conventions as added motivational bases of civil liberties.
7

Compared with the orientation of the motivational circle in Figure 1, its orientation in Figure 2 is ipped over to the left and rotated 90 degrees clockwise. The order of relations among the basic personal values is the same.

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Schwartz et al.

1.0

Self-Transcendence
Benev Univer
0.5

Equality

Conservation

Tradit Conform Secur TrdnMor BlndPatr LawOrd M ilInt FreeEnt Stimul Hedon SelfDir CivlLibr AccpImg

Openness to Change

0.0

-0.5

Power

Achiev

Self-Enhancement
-1.0 -0.6 -0.3 0.0 0.3 0.6

Figure 2. Multidimensional analysis of eight core political values and ten basic personal values (Stress 1 = .063). Core Political Values: TrdnMor = Traditional Morality, BlndPatr = Blind Patriotism, LawOrd = Law and Order, MilInt = Foreign Military Intervention, FreeEnt = Free Enterprise, AccpImg = Accepting Immigrants, CivlLibr = Civil Liberties, Equality = Equality Basic Personal Values: Tradit = Tradition, Conform = Conformity, Secur = Security, Power = Power, Achiev = Achievement, Hedon = Hedonism, Stimul = Stimulation, SelfDir = Self-Direction, Univer = Universalism, Benev = Benevolence

Finally, the correlations of foreign military intervention (Tables 2 and 3) and its location in Figure 2 suggest that, like law and order, blind patriotism, and traditional morality, it is grounded in the three self-protective conservation values. Like them, and in contrast to accepting immigrants and civil liberties, it too conicts with universalism and self-direction values that foster tolerance for others

Basic Personal Values, Political Values and Voting

441

who are different. In addition, military intervention is linked to free enterprise by their shared motivation to control and dominate versus to promote others welfare, reected in their positive correlations with power and negative correlations with universalism. The fourth from last row of Table 3 gives the proportion of variance that the 10 basic personal values jointly explain in separate regressions for each core political value. The variance explained ranges from 22% (free enterprise) to 53% (traditional morality). The third from last row gives the variance explained by the four sociodemographic variablesage, gender, income, and educationalone. In parentheses in the next row is the variance explained by these variables that is not mediated by the basic personal values (i.e., the incremental R2 when adding the sociodemographic variables to regressions after the basic values). Evidently, basic values mediated almost all the variance in core political values explained by the sociodemographic variables. Basic Personal Values versus Left-Right Ideology Comparing the fourth from last and the last rows of Table 3 reveals that basic personal values accounted for substantially more variance than left-right ideology in every one of the core political valuesfrom almost two to more than ve times as much variance. To further assess the relative predictive power of left-right ideology and basic values, we regressed each core political value on both, once entering ideology in a rst block followed by basic values in a second block and once in the reverse order. The mean added variance accounted for by basic values after entering left-right ideology was 21% (range 13%-free enterprise to 38%traditional morality). The mean added variance accounted for by ideology after entering basic values was 4% (range 1%-civil liberties to 6%-accepting immigrants). In sum, the ideological dimension did less well than basic personal values in explaining core political values. A reviewer suggested that the left-right dimension might be more relevant to the political values of sophisticates. To assess this possibility, we repeated the above analyses within separate subsamples of respondents with some college education (N = 640) and less education (N = 1,035). Both left-right ideology and basic values explained more variance in core political values among those with more education. Left-right explained 1523% of the variance in the eight political values in the more educated subsample (M = 17%) and 311% in the less educated subsample (M = 7%). However, basic personal values were better predictors in both subsamples. Basic values explained an average of 30% of the variance in political values in the more educated subsample when entered rst (range 2541%). Left-right added an average of only 5% when entered second (range 19%). In the less educated subsample, basic values explained an average of 26% (range 1742%) and left-right added an average of only 3% (range 16%).

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Basic Personal Values and Core Political Values as Predictors of Voting Behavior Basic Values. We computed point biserial correlations between centered T1 basic values and T2 vote (coded 0 for center-right and 1 for center-left), controlling gender, age, income, and education. The ndings for vote replicated the associations found in research that measured past vote or intended future vote. As hypothesized, the more importance individuals attributed to universalism (.31, p < .001), benevolence (.12, p < .001), and self-direction (.11, p < .001) values, the more likely they were to vote for the center-left. The more importance they attributed to security (-.19, p < .001), tradition (-.17, p < .001), conformity (-.12, p < .001), power (-.12, p < .001), and achievement (-.08, p < .05) values, the more likely they were to vote for the center-right. To estimate the total effect of basic values on voting, we computed a binary logistic regression for dichotomous vote. Entered in a rst block, age, gender, education, and income did not predict voting (Nagelkerke R2 = .01 p > .10). Adding basic values (uncentered) substantially improved explanation (D Nagelkerke R2 = .19 p < .001).8 Three values contributed signicantly (p < .001): universalism, tradition, and security. We also performed separate analyses for those with some college education (N = 302) and less education (N = 529). As expected, assuming that inferring the implications of policies for ones basic values requires considerable analytic ability, values had higher predictive validity in the more educated group (D R2 = .28 vs. .17). Core Political Values. Point-biserial correlations between T1 core political values and T2 vote, controlling for gender, age, income, and education, were all signicant (p < .001). As hypothesized, voting for the center-left correlated with equality (.38), civil liberties (.21), and accepting immigrants (.45). Voting for the center-right correlated with law and order (-.41), traditional morality (-.42), free enterprise (-.47), military intervention (-.51), and blind patriotism (-40). To estimate the total effect of core political values on voting, we entered them in a second block after the demographic variables in a binary logistic regression. Core political values added signicantly to demographic variables in predicting voting (D Nagelkerke R2 = .54 p < .001). Thus, core political values predicted substantially more strongly than basic personal values. Core Political Values as Mediators of the Effect of Basic Personal Values on Voting As a rst test of hypothesis 3, we entered basic personal values into the regression following core political values. They did not add to the prediction (D
8

Nagelkerke R2 is scaled in the same manner as R2 from OLS regression, but it is not, strictly speaking, a measure of variance explained (Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003; Hosmer & Lemeshow, 2000).

Basic Personal Values, Political Values and Voting

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Nagelkerke R2 = .002 p > .95). We also performed this analysis without the two political attitudes specic to the context of the Italian election (military intervention and accepting immigrants). Basic personal values still did not add to the prediction (D Nagelkerke R2 = .002 p > .95). Thus, core political values fully mediated effects of basic personal values on voting. The above analyses used multiple regression. A structural equation model (SEM, Bollen, 1989) provides an overall test of the basic valuespolitical valuesvoting causal hierarchy.9 Core political values, basic values, and political choice were included as manifest variables. The factor scores from the exploratory factor model served as measures of the core political values. The mean uncentered ratings of the items that index each basic personal value served to measure it. Because political choice was dichotomous, we derived adequate parameter estimates with weighted least square estimators with robust standard errors and mean and variance adjusted chi-square test statistics (Muthn, 1978). In the hypothesized model, each basic value affected the eight core political values, which in turn contributed directly to political choice, mediating the inuence of basic values. The direct effects of basic values on political choice were xed to zero. The ten basic values were allowed to correlate, as were the eight core political values. The appendix presents the full parameter estimates and a matrix of correlations among all variables in the SEM analysis. The structural model yielded a good t to the data: c2 (8df) = 4.15; p = .84; CFI = 1.00, RMSEA = .00, WRMR = .15. The eight core political values explained 62% of the variance in voting and completely mediated effects of basic values. As shown in the last row of the appendix, six political values contributed independently to explaining voting: Equality and accepting immigrants predicted voting for the center-left; free enterprise, traditional morality, military intervention, and civil liberties predicted voting for the center-right. The nding for civil liberties (b = -.14) reversed its zero-order correlation (r = .21) and contradicted the political stances of the two coalitions. Civil liberties correlated highly with equality (r = .63). Because equality is in the model, the b for civil liberties refers to the aspect of civil liberties unrelated to equality. That aspect is an emphasis on freedom from government intrusion into individuals lives and from imposition of constraints to accommodate interests of other groups. The center-right coalition championed this view of freedom. This may explain the unexpected nding for civil liberties. Supporting this interpretation, when equality is dropped as a predictor, civil liberties no longer predicts voting for the center-right. Findings from the structural analysis in the Appendix reveal that the proportions of variance in the eight core political values explained by basic personal
9

We preferred SEM to the regression approach to detect mediation because regression would require specifying a series of separate steps for each core political value, whereas SEM allows a simultaneous test of the hypothesized paths and provides both formal signicance tests of indirect (mediated) effects and direct estimates of their size.

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values were similar to the proportions in the regression analyses. The pattern of betas relating basic values to political values was similar to the pattern of correlations from the regressions (cf. Table 3). Where two basic values adjacent in the motivational circle both correlated with a political value, however, only one of them showed a substantial beta due to their motivational redundancy. We examined direct effects of basic personal values on voting and indirect effects mediated through core political values using Sobels approximate signicance test (Sobel, 1982). These tests revealed no direct effects but signicant indirect effects for ve basic values (all p < .001): universalism, power, security, conformity, and tradition. Thus, the SEM analysis also indicates that core political values fully mediated the inuence of basic personal values on political choice.10 Discussion Structuring of Core Political Values by Basic Personal Values Eight political values, drawn from the political science literature and from the political discourse in Italy, accounted for substantial variance in voting. These political values, in turn, were explained by basic personal values. Moreover, the circular motivational structure that organizes basic personal values appears to give motivational coherence to the core political values that basic values constrain and through which they are expressed in the political domain. Before discussing how basic values structure political values, consider the possibility that their associations may be due to measuring both by self-report in the same T1 session. Perhaps, respondents desire to report consistent political and basic values inated intercorrelations? If so, we would expect weaker correlations between T1 basic values and T2 core political values. However, these correlations were almost identical to those with the two T1 measures. Of the 48 hypothesized associations, 47 were signicant (p < .01). Moreover, the average correlation across the T1-T2 time span was only .01 weaker than at T1 alone. It is therefore doubtful that the T1 correlations of core political values with basic personal values are much inated, if at all. The MDS graphic projection (Figure 2) of relations among basic values and core political values and the pattern of correlations between them reveal their shared motivational structure. These ndings suggest that the coherent structure of motivations that organizes basic values also structures core political values. The motivational opposition of security, conformity, and tradition values to selfdirection, stimulation, and hedonism values also underlies the core political
10

We also ran an SEM model excluding the two political attitudes specic to the Italian political context (military intervention and accepting immigrants). Model t was: Chi square (8) = 3.85, p = .87, CFI = 1.00, RMSEA = .00, WRMR = .17. The six core political values explained 57% of the variance in voting and completely mediated effects of basic values.

Basic Personal Values, Political Values and Voting

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values of law and order, blind patriotism, and traditional morality, producing coherence among them. Giving low priority to universalism values also underlies these political values and leads to their mutually positive associations. Accepting immigrants expresses the opposite set of priorities on these seven basic personal values. Thus, it is grounded in motivations opposite to law and order, blind patriotism, and traditional morality and correlates strongly negatively with them. Structuring by the three conservation versus three openness values implies that law and order, blind patriotism, and traditional morality are based motivationally in anxiety and fear of uncertainty, threat, and change, concern for protecting the self and preventing loss (Schwartz, 2006). The negative association of these political values with universalism values implies lack of concern for the welfare of those outside the ingroup. The contents of these political values express just such motivations. They refer to protecting oneself and ones extended ingroup from disorder and danger due to crime, disruptive and unconventional minorities, and new lifestyles and beliefs, and to believing ones country that protects against threats can do no wrong. As noted, accepting immigrants expresses, in the reverse direction, the same set of basic personal values as the three political values with which it correlates negatively. Its motivational underpinnings imply that accepting immigrants reects low anxiety, low fear of uncertainty, and a view of change and diversity as potential sources of gain, growth, and self-expansion, and that it entails concern for the welfare of others, even those quite different from oneself (Schwartz, 2006). The items that measure accepting immigrants clearly express its value-based motivations. They assert that immigrants (implicitly, people whose different life styles and unpredictable behavior may introduce change) are a source of benet rather than threat to society. The ndings suggest that the political values of equality, civil liberties, andin reverse directionfree enterprise express the motivational opposition of universalism and benevolence versus power and achievement values. This implies that the primary motivational issue relevant to these political values is concern for others interests versus self-interest. The especially strong associations with universalism suggest that the interests of others outside ones ingroup are most pertinent. The associations with power values indicate that these political values contrast readiness to exploit others for ones own benet with sacrice of own interests to benet others. The equality items express their underlying motivations by referring to giving benets to everyone, rich and poor, all citizens, although this may reduce own benets. The free enterprise items express an opposing ideal, reducing government restraints on pursuing individual self-interest even if some suffer. In addition to concern for others, the civil liberties items express the opposition between self-direction and tradition values by emphasizing respect for and protection of individual uniqueness, implicitly including those with nontraditional beliefs and life-styles.

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The analyses indicate that foreign military intervention expresses a combination of the motivations of security and power values versus universalism values. This suggests that support for foreign military intervention is anxiety-based and focused on self-protection and prevention of loss. It further suggests that the pursuit of self-interest serves to justify undertaking military action even if it may disregard or harm others well-being. Basic Personal Values and the Left-Right Ideological Dimension Fuchs and Klingemann (1990) described the left-right schema as an overarching, efcient taxonomic system for understanding, ordering, and storing political information, used both by elites and the masses. We therefore compared how well basic personal values versus the left-right ideological dimension structure the eight core political values. Basic values explained substantially more variance in every one of the political values than left-right self-placement did. This held for both more and less educated subsamples. However, this comparison of basic values and ideology may not be fair. We compared eight values, each indexed by a scale, with a single left-right item. Perhaps a more reliable multi-item indicator of ideology would have performed better. On the other hand, this one item indicator is commonly used in research, and everyday discourse in Italy refers to parties of the left versus the right. Our ndings do not mean that people consciously use their basic personal values to think about politics the way they use left-right. Basic values may provide the unconscious motivational grounding that constrains and organizes core political values. In contrast, left-right self-placement may summarize individuals and partys stances on political issues descriptively. Basic Personal ValueCore Political ValuesPolitical Behavior Causal Hierarchy Several past studies demonstrated that basic personal values relate systematically to voting. None, however, could test causality, because they measured values and past or intended future vote in the same session. The current study, by measuring values at T1 and voting at T2, provides the rst clear evidence that basic personal values may have a causal impact on voting. The causal link between basic values and voting was indirect. Core political values completely mediated the effects of basic values on voting. This nding supports the idea that voters can more easily infer the impact of political choice on their core political values than on their basic personal values. Age, gender, education, and income accounted for no additional variance in voting and almost none in political values. This reinforces the view that peoples values rather than their social locations are now more critical determinants of political choice.

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Limitations and Future Research The extent to which political values mediate effects of basic values on voting may depend on the elapsed time before the vote. Here, the interval was only about a month. At longer intervals, and especially if circumstances change, political values may be less adequate mediators of the effects of basic personal values. Basic values are less vulnerable to situational variation than are political values. Hence, as the interval increases or circumstances change, the political values that inuence voting are more likely to have changed by the time of voting. If so, political values may mediate effects of basic personal values on voting less fully than they did here. Indeed, over longer intervals, basic personal values might even predict voting more effectively than political values. Research to assess these possibilities has practical signicance for predicting voting behavior over extended time periods. This research studied only one national election. The generalizability of the associations among basic personal values and core political values is unknown. Our reasoning suggests that basic values structure and give coherence to political values in all political contexts. Moreover, particular political values should express the same basic values across contexts. What are likely to vary across political contexts are the particular political values that are most relevant (cf. Barnea, 2003). A current cross-national study is investigating these assumptions. The core political values in this study were among the most prominent core values in the political science literature. Other important political values are economic security, postmaterialism, humanitarianism, and social welfare. Research should study how the motivational structure of basic personal values constrains and gives coherence to these and other political values. Research should also study political attitudes uniquely relevant to the discourse in different countries. Attitudes relevant in the Italian context, toward accepting immigrants and toward foreign military intervention, added substantially to the prediction of voting by more abstract core political values. Linking such attitudes to basic personal values will help to clarify their motivational signicance and their relations to core political values. Ideally, one would address the issues of this study with representative national samples rather than the convenience sample used here. Our sample was more educated, wealthier, and urban than the Italian population. It is therefore encouraging that the ndings regarding the central question of the structuring of core political values by the motivational structure of basic personal values replicated in both more and less educated subsamples. It is also noteworthy that gender, age, and educational level inuenced voting only marginally in the general population in the 2006 Italian election (Maraf, 2007). Hence the lack of representativeness in our sample may not have seriously distorted this studys inferences about effects on voting.

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Conclusion This research contributes to the understanding of political choice. Basic personal values serve as anchors for core political values and, through them, indirectly inuence voting behavior. When basic values and political values were taken into account, various sociodemographic variables that reect peoples social locations had no additional impact on voting. This reinforces the view that individual differences are crucial for understanding political choices. Studying individuals basic personal values can yield an additional advantage for understanding politics. Basic value priorities are more stable and less vulnerable to the impact of current events than political attitudes, values, and opinions. Consequently, change in basic personal values can track more fundamental, long-term changes in the political atmosphere. Most importantly, this research provided insight into the organization of political thought. Diverse political values are grounded in an overarching motivational structure. The coherent structure of compatible and opposing motivations that organizes basic personal values into a circular motivational continuum appears to structure relations among core political values as well. This can explain how and why political values relate to one another as they do. By recognizing the motivational bases that support and oppose each core political value, political leaders might communicate more effectively with their supporters and the public at large. Most people are probably unaware of the links of their political views to their basic personal values because people are rarely aware of how their motivations inuence them. Nonetheless, the ndings support the claim that basic personal values provide a crucial grounding for political ideologies (Feldman, 2003; Schwartz, 1994). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Professor Shalom H. Schwartz, Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. E-mail: msshasch@ mscc.huji.ac.il or gianvittorio.caprara@uniroma1.it REFERENCES
Ashton, M. C., Danso, H. A., Maio, G. R., Esses, V. M., Bond, M. H., & Keung, D. K. Y. (2005). Two dimensions of political attitudes and their individual difference correlates: A cross-cultural perspective. In R. M. Sorrentino, D. Cohen, J. M. Olson, & M. Zanna (Eds.), Culture and social behavior: The Ontario Symposium (Vol. 10, pp.129). London: Erlbaum. Barnea, M. F. (2003). Personal values and party orientations in different cultures. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Barnea, M., & Schwartz, S. H. (1998). Values and voting. Political Psychology, 19, 1740.

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Appendix

Parameter Estimates from the SEM Analysis for Relations of Core Political Values to Basic Personal Values and Voting
Core Political Values Blind Patriotism .34** .10* .32** .00 -.17** -.03 .11* -.11* -.06 .05 41% .06 -.07 -.20** 35% 20% 18% -.25** 31% .33** .34** .05 .31** -.09 -.25** .00 .07 -.10* .03 .03 .23** .02 .13* -.06 -.27** .01 .01 -.07 .02 .15** .08 .09 .21** .02 -.26** .02 .14* -.12* .01 .17** .01 -.05 .04 .05 .49** -.02 .01 .03 .03 -.13** Law & Order Military Intervention Free Enterprise Equality Civil Liberties .01 .06 -.16** -.09 .36** .12* -.04 .04 .06 -.07 24% -.14* Accepting Immigrants -.28** -.09 -.09 .07 .37** .01 .09 -.04 -.10 .09 27% .20** Schwartz et al.

Basic Personal Values

Traditional Morality

Security Conformity Tradition Benevolence Universalism Self-Direction Stimulation Hedonism Achievement Power

.26** .06 .49** .04 -.22** .01 .02 -.14** .04 -.03

Variance Explained by Basic Personal Values Path to Voting

52%

-.28**

Note. Listwise n = 877 due to missing data. All parameters come from the standardized solution. *p < .01; **p < .001.

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