VaLiGo—Measuring Basic Human Values and Life Goals With a Nested 30–20–10-Item Inventory (German Version)
Authors: Partsch Melanie Viola , Schmidt Isabelle , Haehner Peter , Lechner Clemens M. 
Published: April 2023

Values and life goals are powerful individual difference constructs to understand a broad range of human experiences and behaviors. Therefore, many large-scale surveys assess value constructs. The most comprehensive and empirically supported value theory is Schwartz’ Theory of Basic Human Values comprising 10 universal values arranged in a circle. Despite the high demand from survey programs, there is a shortage of scales measuring the 10 Basic Human Values that are tailored to the needs of large-scale surveys (i.e., high validity and reliability combined with high efficiency and low respondent burden). For that purpose, we developed the Values and Life Goals Inventory (VaLiGo) that measures the 10 Basic Human Values identified by Schwartz in the form of abstract personal life goals with a modular concept: A 10-item ultra-short version, a 20-item version offering higher reliability and construct coverage at the level of individual values, as well as a full 30-item version that ideally lends itself for planned-missingness (incomplete-block) designs. The shorter versions are nested into the longer versions, allowing flexible applications across survey waves. Based on all VaLiGo versions, researchers can compute both 10 values scores and 4 higher-order value quadrants (i.e., Self-Enhancement, Openness to Change, Self-Transcendence, and Conservation). In this preprint, we evaluate the psychometric properties of the German-language VaLiGo inventory based on a large, heterogenous sample from the German population (N = 565)—always in comparison with the 21 items from the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ-21) applied in the European Social Survey for the measurement of the 10 Basic Human Values. Thanks to their concise and simple wording, VaLiGo items on average only require 66% of the response time of a PVQ item, thus reducing assessment time and respondent burden. Multidimensional scaling of the 30 VaLiGo items—both separately and jointly with the PVQ-21—yielded a circular order consistent with the theoretical circumplex model. We report highly satisfactory descriptive statistics for all 30 items and both value and quadrant scales for the 10-, 20-, and 30-item version of the VaLiGo. Furthermore, value and quadrant scale scores of all versions show satisfactory test-retest correlations. Moreover, we showed good convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity of the quadrant scales based on all VaLiGo versions by locating them in a nomological net with PVQ-21-based quadrant scales, the Big Five, specific traits (e.g., political orientation), and different criteria (e.g., income, civic engagement). We found similar evidence for the validity of the 10 value scales based on all VaLiGo versions. Finally, we evaluated the joint explanatory power of always all VaLiGo items, value scales, and quadrant scales in each version (i.e., using them as independent variables in multiple regressions) showing among others that VaLiGo-30 and VaLiGo-20 perform on average equivalent to the PVQ-21—despite being more efficient in terms of processing time. We conclude that survey programs and individual researchers may readily use either version of the German VaLiGo in their surveys to measure Basic Human Values in an efficient, reliable, and valid way.