IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v90y2009i4p868-885.html

Personal Values and Public Opinion

Author

Listed:
  • H. Whitt Kilburn

Abstract

Objective. Social science considers values a key motivator of human behavior, yet studies of values in public opinion have tended to focus on more limited political values. I investigate how a general theory of human values (Schwartz, 1992) shapes public opinion. In one dimension, individuals are motivated by a desire for independent thought and action versus conformity to traditional social norms; in the second, individuals are motivated by a desire to care for others versus control or achieve superior social status over them. Methods. Statistical analysis of the European Social Survey, nationally representative surveys in 15 western European nations. Results. Human values are systematically related to a citizen's left‐right self‐identification, displaying appropriate sensitivity to party system context in Scandinavia, and explaining attitudes toward ethnic minority immigration, even when controlling for reasonable alternate explanations. Conclusion. Personal values along these two dimensions of social conflict merit further attention as sources of public opinion.

Suggested Citation

  • H. Whitt Kilburn, 2009. "Personal Values and Public Opinion," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(4), pages 868-885, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:90:y:2009:i:4:p:868-885
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6237.2009.00667.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2009.00667.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2009.00667.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barker, David C. & Tinnick, James D., 2006. "Competing Visions of Parental Roles and Ideological Constraint," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 100(2), pages 249-263, May.
    2. Macdonald, Stuart Elaine & Listhaug, Ola & Rabinowitz, George, 1991. "Issues and Party Support in Multiparty Systems," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1107-1131, December.
    3. William G. Jacoby, 2006. "Value Choices and American Public Opinion," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 706-723, July.
    4. Paul Goren, 2005. "Party Identification and Core Political Values," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(4), pages 881-896, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Agnieszka Turska-Kawa & Irena Pilch, 2022. "Political beliefs and the acceptance of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic restrictions. The case of Poland," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(3), pages 1-25, March.
    2. Tausch, Arno, 2015. "Hofstede, Inglehart and beyond. New directions in empirical global value research," MPRA Paper 64282, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 11 May 2015.
    3. Rodney C. Runyan & Jeffrey G. Covin, 2019. "Small Business Orientation: A Construct Proposal," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 43(3), pages 529-552, May.
    4. Cem Baslevent & Hasan Kirmanoğlu, 2012. "Do Preferences for Job Attributes Provide Evidence of 'Hierarchy of Needs'," Working Papers 201201, Murat Sertel Center for Advanced Economic Studies, Istanbul Bilgi University.
    5. Cem Başlevent & Hasan Kirmanoğlu, 2013. "Do Preferences for Job Attributes Provide Evidence of ‘Hierarchy of Needs’?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 111(2), pages 549-560, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Branden B. Johnson & Brendon Swedlow, 2021. "Cultural Theory's Contributions to Risk Analysis: A Thematic Review with Directions and Resources for Further Research," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 429-455, March.
    2. Abdul‐Rahman Khokhar & Hesam Shahriari, 2022. "Is the SEC captured? Evidence from political connectedness and SEC enforcement actions," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(2), pages 2725-2756, June.
    3. Fung, Timothy K.F. & Choi, Doo Hun & Scheufele, Dietram A. & Shaw, Bret R., 2014. "Public opinion about biofuels: The interplay between party identification and risk/benefit perception," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 344-355.
    4. Hiroki Takikawa & Takuto Sakamoto, 2020. "The moral–emotional foundations of political discourse: a comparative analysis of the speech records of the U.S. and the Japanese legislatures," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 547-566, April.
    5. Jae‐Hee Jung, 2020. "The Mobilizing Effect of Parties' Moral Rhetoric," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(2), pages 341-355, April.
    6. Heyna, Philipp, 2024. "Can TikTok Drive Support for Populist Radical Right Parties? Causal Evidence From Germany," OSF Preprints yju9n, Center for Open Science.
    7. Thomas, Melanee & DeCillia, Brooks & Santos, John B. & Thorlakson, Lori, 2022. "Great expectations: Public opinion about energy transition," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    8. Kenneth Benoit & Michael Laver, 2005. "Mapping the Irish Policy Space - Voter and Party Spaces in Preferential Elections," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 36(2), pages 83-108.
    9. Meng Yuan & Brendon Swedlow, 2024. "Chinese cultural biases, value congruence, and support for and compliance with protective policies during the COVID‐19 pandemic," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 41(3), pages 415-447, May.
    10. Arnstein Aassve & Gianmarco Daniele & Marco Le Moglie, 2018. "Never Forget the First Time: The Persistent Effects of Corruption and the Rise of Populism in Italy," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1896, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    11. N/A, 1997. "Individual Perception and Models of Issue Voting," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 9(1), pages 13-21, January.
    12. R. Duane Ireland & Laszlo Tihanyi & Justin W. Webb, 2008. "A Tale of Two Politico-Economic Systems: Implications for Entrepreneurship in Central and Eastern Europe," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 32(1), pages 107-130, January.
    13. Guillermo Owen & Bernard Grofman, 2006. "Two-stage electoral competition in two-party contests: persistent divergence of party positions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 26(3), pages 547-569, June.
    14. Andreas Kuhn, 2009. "In the eye of the beholder: subjective inequality measures and the demand for redistribution," IEW - Working Papers 425, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    15. Marcelo de-Oliveira & Claudio Marcio Almeida & Emerson Wagner Mainardes, 2022. "Politics and social media: an analysis of factors anteceding voting intention," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 19(2), pages 309-332, June.
    16. De Donder, Philippe & Hindriks, Jean, 2007. "Equilibrium social insurance with policy-motivated parties," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 624-640, September.
    17. Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde & João V. Ferreira, 2020. "Conflicted voters: A spatial voting model with multiple party identifications," Post-Print hal-02909682, HAL.
    18. Neundorf, Anja & Cavaille, Charlotte, 2016. "The price of sharing: support for universal and equal access to health care in diversifying neighborhoods," ISER Working Paper Series 2016-10, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    19. Alan S. Gerber & Gregory A. Huber & Ebonya Washington, 2009. "Party Affiliation, Partisanship, and Political Beliefs: A Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 15365, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Niklas Harring & Sverker C. Jagers & Simon Matti, 2017. "Public Support for Pro-Environmental Policy Measures: Examining the Impact of Personal Values and Ideology," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-14, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:90:y:2009:i:4:p:868-885. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.