The Dynamics of Human Values
Authors:   , Leijen Ingmar Johannes Carolus 
Published: December 2024

Human values are at the core of people’s personality and are related to countless attitudes and behaviors. These human values are people’s abstract, core, guiding principles or beliefs about what is most important in life. In this dissertation they are measured using Schwartz values framework, which is widely used and has been extensively validated, in almost a 100 countries across the world. In 3 different studies we look at the dynamics of these values: how they change over time, and how values and attitudes influence each other, and how culture influences the relation between values and preferences.
Addressing a long-standing debate on whether personality differences are due to generational differences or age, we show in the first essay (chapter 2) how values change over the lifetime of 1599 individuals. Using a representative sample from The Netherlands (N = 1599; aged 16 – 84 at the start), we focused on human values, following the same individuals for 12 years. Distinguishing four generations we found clear differences across generations in human values. For instance, we found that Millennials value hedonism more than all other generations. Furthermore, value change within individuals was mainly evident in the Millennials. Some values (achievement and conformity) were stable within individuals and did not differ between generations. Change within individuals occurred mainly in Millennials, but not all values were subject to change. Some values were stable in adults (e.g., hedonism, conformity) while other values still increased (e.g., security, self-direction) or decreased (e.g., power, stimulation) in importance. In adults older than Millennials change was much less, and change was absent in the oldest generation. Hence, age differences in values seem to exist both due to generational differences, as well as due to internal change, although the latter mainly in young adults.
In the second essay we investigated how the effect of values on behavior changed between countries, i.e. the relation between human values and preference for professional vs. non-professional or informal healthcare for non-acute medical situations, and how that is influenced by social norms in a country. Healthcare preferences were related to human values as well as to societal tightness (i.e., tightness-looseness scores by Gelfand). Stronger conservation increased, whereas self-transcendence and openness to change decreased preference for professional healthcare. In socially tight countries, we found a higher preference for professional healthcare. Furthermore, we found interactions between social tightness and human values. Higher tightness resulted in a stronger positive effect of conservation, as well as a stronger diminishing effect of self-transcendence. These results suggest that the way human values are related to behavior is to a certain extend depending on the context (e.g. the culture) people live in.
In the third essay we focus on the dynamic interplay between values and attitudes, showing how changes in human values and changes in attitude (toward euthanasia, income equality, marriage, and foreigners) mutually impact each other. Using Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Modeling with a sample of 1044 individuals followed between 2008 to 2020 (ages 16 to 84 in 2008), we found evidence that both value changes were causing attitude changes, as well as vice versa. As both values and attitudes were fairly stable, these effects were small. Nevertheless, values as well as attitudes evolved gradually over time. No clear picture emerged in dominating causal paths; both value change caused attitude change, as well as vice versa. Most cross-lagged effects were found for attitude toward marriage and income equalities, and least effects for attitude toward foreigners and euthanasia. Our findings contribute to a nuanced understanding of the intricate relationship between values and attitudes, highlighting their gradual dynamics.