Stability and Change in American Value Priorities, 1968-1981

Milton Rokeach and Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach

University of Southern California

ABSTRACT: In 1968 and 1971, the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) obtained national data for rankings of 18 terminal and 18 instrumental values. In 1974 and 1981, the Institute for Social Research (ISR) obtained additional data for the same 18 terminal values. In a 1985 study, Inglehart compared the 4 sets of terminal value rankings thus obtained and found them to be remarkably stable. These same data also show, however, that Americans underwent dramatic value changes during the same period. The most disturbing finding is that equality, the value previously found to be highly correlated with antiracist and liberal attitudes, decreased more than any other value. This and other value changes contradict well-established NORC, Gallup, and ISR findings showing (a) impressive increases in antiracist attitudes and (b) a "'much more variable" and (c) "much lower level of support"for attitudes toward implementation of integration. We propose a theoretical explanation of the three sets of contradictory findings. Moreover, we offer a theoretical explanation of naturally occurring stability and change in American value priorities.
The concepts of value and value system are among the very few social psychological concepts that have been successfully employed across all social science disciplines. Anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, and organizational and individual psychologists are all accustomed to speak meaningfully about values and value systems at different levels---cultural values, societal and institutional values, organizational and corporate values, and individual values. All this is in contrast to other psychological concepts that cannot as readily be employed across different levels, for instance, the concepts of trait, motive, attitude, attribution, intention, or expectation. Nonetheless, there is as yet little consensus about how to conceptualize and measure values and especially about how to do so in a manner that will be conceptually meaningful across levels of analysis, from the individual at the micro level to societal and cultural institutions at the macro level. Values have been written about in many ways. At one extreme, they have been referred to as mental entities that do not exist (Skinner, 1971) and at the other extreme, as broad preferences for philosophically different "ways of life" (Morris, 1956) or "value orientations" (Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck, 1961). Values have also been defined as being equivalent to very general attitudes (McGuire, May 1989 American Psychologist
Copyright 1989 by the Amcxican Psychological Association, Inc. 0003-066X/89/$00.75 Vol. 44, No. 5, 775-784

1969), or as referring to the value or importance of outcomes (Elizur, 1984) or utilities (Becker & McClintock, 1967), or to the valence of objects (Campbell, 1963), or to certain kinds of personality types (Allport, Vernon, & Lindzey, 1960), or as referring to individual or collective ideas that serve as standards or criteria of conduct (Williams, 1968, 1979) or "conceptions of the desirable" (Kluckhohn, 1951, p. 395). Our approach to the conceptualization and measurement of values has been most influenced by Williams's notion of values as standards of conduct and by Kluckhohn's ( 1951) definition of values as "conceptions of the desirable means and ends of action" (p. 395). These standards and conceptions are assumed to exist at macro as well as micro levels. Value Hierarchies What is still missing from many discussions of values, however, is the notion of value systems or hierarchies, the idea that societies and individuals can accurately be compared with other societies and individuals not only in terms of specific values but also in terms of value priorities. A hierarchical conception directs our attention to the idea that although the number of values that individuals and societies possess is relatively limited, values are capable of being weighed and arranged against one another to lead to a very large number of permutations and combinations of value hierarchies. This number is more than large enough to account for the seemingly endless variations in attitudes and behavior that are seen to be functions of differences in culture, institutional and structural influences, interpersonal relations, situational variations, socialization, and personality. Weighing one value against another to ascertain priority also implies a mental process, which humans undergo naturally, of engaging in cognitively driven paired comparisons over a lifetime rather than a mental process of simply assessing the importance of each value in absolute terms in isolation from one another. The fact that ranking measures are ipsative, and thus not independent of one another, is an unfortunate and annoying problem from a statistical point of view. We argue that this problem can best be overcome not by putting the methodological "cart" before the theoretical "horse," as has been suggested by some (e.g., Ng, 1982), but by devising measurement procedures that will take into account, and correct for, degree ofipsativity (Hicks, 1970) in assessing value priorities. The 775

methodological challenge is to measure values in a manner that will faithfully reflect the phenomenological reality of people engaging in value choice behavior.l We argue, in short, that people's value priorities can be more directly inferred from value rankings than from value ratings. Moreover, data based on methodologically purer value ratings are more prone to social desirability effects (Rokeach, 1973) and are no more superior (and, in fact, on the whole somewhat inferior) in predictive validity than data based on ipsative value rankings (Alwin & Krosner, 1985; Feather, 1973; Moore, 1975; Rankin & Grube, 1980; Ravlin & Meglino, 1987). In our research program we selected a wide array of h u m a n values to try to represent the total spectrum of individual needs, on the one hand, and on the other, to represent a highly parallel spectrum of societal demands that the main social institutions of any society are in the business of advancing and transmitting from generation to generation (Rokeach, 1973). Thus, we avoided any attempt to concentrate attention on any one particular set or subset of values, as Inglehart (1981) has done in his research on postmaterialist values. Instead, we favored a research strategy that would allow us to investigate and discover the value changes that a particular society might have been undergoing over time, such as those that men and women, Blacks and Whites, young and old, or rich and poor might be undergoing, as a result of changes in local, national, or international events. Finally, we favored a general approach that would allow us to ascertain both the values that different societies have in c o m m o n and those that are distinctive for different societies. The distinctiveness of a society's values implies continuity and points us in the direction of paying attention to value stability (Rokeach, 1974; Williams, 1979), yet it also points to the changes that a particular society might be undergoing within a broader context of value stability (Rokeach, 1985). Another way of putting all this is to say that we are interested in describing and explaining not only what we might mean when we speak of the American, Japanese, or Bulgarian way of life but also in describing and explaining the changes that such distinctive ways of life might be undergoing. This article was presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Research,Toronto,Canada, May 22, 1988. An earlier versionof this article was presented at the International Conference on Human Values, Tokyo,Japan, July 13, 1987. Milton Rokeach died on October 25, 1988. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach,Annenberg School of Communicationsor Department of Sociology,Universityof Southern California,UniversityPark, Los Angeles, CA 90089. i Valuechoice followingcognitivecomparisonsof valuesis not distinctive to the value domain: It can readily be extended to apply to all choice behavior. When shopping for a car, for instance, we first identify several cars we might be interested in buying. We then compare them with one another and arrange them in some order of desirability, affordability, and so on. We then choose the one ranked highest on our scale. Valuechoiceor behavioralchoiceis thus the end result of a ranking rather than rating process. As one of us has put it elsewhere: "Life is ipsative" (Rokeach, 1985, p. 162).

The Rokeach Value Survey (Rokeach, 1967) was designed with the anticipation that it would provide information both about value stability and change at macro and micro levels. Two sets of 18 conceptions of the desirable are presented in alphabetical order. The first set represents terminal values or the ultimate end-goals of existence, such as wisdom, equality, peace, or family security. The second set represents instrumental values, or the behavioral means for achieving such end-goals, for instance, the importance of being honest, ambitious, forgiving, or logical. The total n u m b e r of such instrumental and terminal values is assumed to be relatively small; there are just so m a n y end-goals and just so m a n y ideal modes of behavior for achieving them. In the Value Survey, each value is printed separately on a small label that, thanks to technological breakthroughs in the manufacture of glue, is easily movable and removable. These labels are presented alphabetically down the right-hand side of the page, with the instruction to arrange them in order of perceived importance with respect to one another into 18 boxes printed down the left-hand side of the page. Ranking the two sets of 18 values takes about 15 to 20 minutes for adults and has been successfully employed with people ranging in age from I l to 90. The pressuresensitive g u m m e d label technique, which is highly motivating and game-like (perhaps because it enables people to arrange and rearrange them without getting their fingers sticky), has been found to be technically superior to the more standard paper-and-pencil ranking procedure in a very important respect: The attrition rate among adult Americans varying in literacy and in motivation to fill out questionnaires has been reduced from about 5%-7% to about 1%-2%. Test-retest reliability has been assessed separately for each of the 36 values and also for the two sets of value systems (terminal and instrumental). Detailed data are reported in Rokeach (1973) for American samples. Among American college students, the test-retest reliabilities of 18 terminal values obtained with three- to seven-week time intervals range from .51 to .88, and for 18 instrumental values they range from .45 to .70. Employing a 14- to 16-month time interval, the median reliability of the value system considered as a whole is .69 for terminal value systems and .61 for instrumental value systems. Highly confirming reliability data have been reported by N o r m a n Feather (1975) for comparable Australian samples. There are now m a n y reports in the literature, too numerous to cite here, showing that the rankings of various terminal and instrumental values are significantly related to variations in socioeconomic status, age, gender, race, religion, and life-style. Values have also been shown to be significant predictors of m a n y social attitudes and behaviors, including consumer behavior (Pitts & Woodside, 1984). To cite some other examples, Toler (1975) has shown that persons addicted to heroin and alcohol, as compared with persons not so addicted, typically rank personal values as significantly more important and social values as significantly less important. "Fetlock (1986) has

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reported that the differences between the rankings of two terminal values, a comfortable life and equality, correlates .61 with opposition to higher taxes to assist the poor, and that the difference between the rankings of freedom and national security correlates .56 with opposition to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) surveillance of American citizens. Feather (1979) has reported multiple correlations of over .71 between 10 values in the Rokeach Value Survey on the one hand and, on the other, a measure of political conservatism or liberalism. Rokcach (1973) has shown that the rankings of two values alone, freedom and equality, separate fascist, capitalist, socialist, and communist ideologists from one another, and considering only the United States, that political activists identified with six presidential candidates in the 1968 elections ranging from extremely liberal to extremely conservative were neatly separated by their rankings of one value alone, equality, which ranged from an average of one on the liberal end to an average of 18 on the conservative end (Rokeach, 1973, p. 181). The Rokeach Value Survey Rokeach has previously suggested (1979) that there are at least five methods that may be employed to assess values and value systems at the macro rather than micro level. The terminal and instrumental values of a society, institution or organization may be uncovered (a) through a content analysis of the values contained in societal, institutional, or organizational documents, (b) through an assessment of the values espoused by societal, institutional, or organizational gatekeepers (e.g., priests, educators, or military leaders), (c) by assessing the values of persons aspiring to membership in a society, organization, or institution (e.g., seminary students, military cadets, or graduate students in physics), (d) through gatekeepers' perceptions of societal, institutional, or organizational values, and (e) through the clienteles' (or members') perceptions of societal, institutional, or organizational values. To all of these, we may now add a sixth method of measuring macro-level value priorities that is perhaps more direct than the five methods mentioned above and that is especially applicable via survey research methodology to the societal level of analysis, namely, measuring the values of random or representative samples of citizens within a nation or society. This method allows us to extend our analyses more easily from the individual to the societal level of analysis, to ascertain the extent to which the value priorities of a whole society are remaining stable or undergoing change over time, to monitor in various segments of society which values in particular are remaining stable or undergoing change, and to directly compare values and value priorities across cultures and societies. The Rokeach Value Survey containing both the terminal and instrumental lists of 18 values was administered for the first time to a representative national sample of adult Americans by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) of the University of Chicago in 1968, and it was administered once again by NORC in 1971.

Additional rankings of the 18 terminal values (but not the 18 instrumental values) were obtained by the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan from a national panel sample tested in 1974 and once again in 1981. Rokeach (1974) has published data comparing the terminal and instrumental value rankings that NORC obtained in 1968 and 1971. Inglehart (1985) has published data comparing the terminal value rankings obtained in 1968 and 1971 with terminal value rankings ISR obtained in 1974 and 1981. It is thus possible to examine these reports more closely to gain some insights not only about the value changes that Americans were undergoing from 1968 to 1981 but also about the extent of value stability during this same period. The data are shown in Table I.

Stability of V a l u e s
Consider first the question of whether American values remained stable over this time. Ingiehart (1985) described the terminal value rankings over the 13-year period as follows: The stability we observe is absolutely phenomenal. The six items that were ranked highest in 1981 are identical with the six items ranked highest in 1968 a n d . . , not one of the six items varies by more than one rank from its 1981 position in any of the three previous surveys extending across 13 years. The stability of the six lowest-ranking items is almost equally impressive: The six lowest items in 1981 are identical with those in 1968, and most of them do not vary by more than one rank from their 1981 positions in any of the three previous surveys. . . . Although the middle six items show greater volatility than the top or bottom six, they remain within the middle zone almost without exception. (p. 110) Data on the stability of instrumental values, which are also available for 1968 and 1971 (Rokeach, 1974) are consistent with the terminal value data obtained for 1968, 1971, 1974, and 1981. As shown in Table 1, the top and bottom six value rankings do not vary by more than one rank. Again, the middle values almost uniformly remain in the middle zone. Such highly stable findings would seem to suggest that there is little, if any, value change occurring in American society, at least over the 13-year period under consideration. Many social scientists would probably interpret such findings as confirming the widely shared view that human values are deep-lying components of collective belief systems and are thus inherently resistant to change. Inglehart (1985) concentrated his attention on the stability shown in the data from the four national surveys because his main theoretical purpose was to challenge, successfully in our view, Converse's thesis (1964) that the attitudes of mass publics are more or less random. In doing so, Inglehart ignored the question of whether the data showed that certain values of the national samples were also undergoing change. A closer inspection of Table 1 shows, however, that Americans were also undergoing value change during the same period, even though the value systems as a whole remained highly stable.
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Table

Average Rankings of 18 Instrumental and 18 Terminal Values by Four National Samples of Americans in 1968, 1971, 1974, and 1981
Values 1968 1971 1974 1981 Values 1968 1971 1974 1981

Instrumental Honest (sincere, truthful) Ambitious (hardworking, aspiring) Responsible (dependable, reliable) Forgiving (willing to pardon others) Broadminded (openminded) Courageous (standing up for your beliefs) Helpful (working for the welfare of others) Clean (neat, tidy) Capable (competent, effective) Self-controlled (restrained, selfdesciplined) Loving (affectionate, tender) Cheerful (lighthearted, joyful) Independent (self-reliant, self-sufficient) Polite (courteous, wellmannered) Intellectual (intelligent, reflective) Obedient (dutiful, respectful) Logical (consistent, rational) Imaginative (daring, creative) Terminal A world at peace (free of war and conflict)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1 3 2 4 5 6 7 10 9

Family security (taking care of loved ones) Freedom (independence, free choice) Happiness (contentment) Self-respect (selfesteem) Wisdom (a mature understanding of life) Equality (brotherhood, equal opportunity for all) Salvation (being saved, eternal life) A comfortable life (a prosperous life) A sense of accomplishment (lasting contribution) True friendship (close companionship) National security (protection from attack) Inner harmony (freedom from inner conflict) Mature love (sexual and spiritual intimacy) A world of beauty (beauty of nature and the arts) Social recognition (respect, admiration) Pleasure (an enjoyable, leisurely life) An exciting life (a stimulating active life)

2 3 4 5 6

2 3 6 5 7

1 3 5 4 6

1 3 5 4 6

7 8 9

4 9 13

12 10 8

12 9 8

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

11 8 13 12 14 15 16 17 18

10 11

11 10

7 9

7 10

12

13

11

13 14

12 14

11 14

13 14

15 16 17 18

15 17 16 18

15 18 16 17

16 18 17 15

Note:Dataare from representativenationalsamplesof adultAmericansby the NationalOpinionResearchCenter,Universityof Chicago,in 1968(N = 1,409)and

1971 (N = 1,430; see Rokeach,1974).and by two-wavepanelsurvey(N = 933) by the SurveyResearchCenter,Universityof Michigan,in 1974and 1981(see Inglehart,1985).

Changes in American Values

Most obvious and dramatic are the increases and then decreases in the importance of equality from 1968 to 1981. A great deal of research (Feather, 1979; Rokeach, 1973) has shown that how an individual ranks equality is a key predictor of the extent to which that person is politically liberal or conservative and antiracist or racist. Notwithstanding marked reductions in racist attitudes found in surveys carried out in the last 4 or 5 decades (Schuman, Steeh, & Bobo, 1985; Taylor, Sheatsley, & Greeley, 1978), the importance of the key political value of equality is shown

in Table 1 to have undergone a marked decline, from a composite average of 7 in 1968 and its increase to 4 in 1971 to a decrease to 12 both in 1974 and 1981. The increase (from 1968 to 1971) and then the disturbing decrease (from 1971 to 1974 and 1981) in value for egalitarianism, 2 contradicts well-established NORC, 2 These changes in egalitarian value are also at variance with the finding by Kluegel and Smith (1986) that the "individual explanation of economic inequality has been stable over the last three decades" (p. 288). Kluegel and Smith then went on to equate stability of individual explanation with stabilityof attitude toward economicequality overthe last three decades (p. 288). May 1989 American Psychologist

778

Gallup, and ISR findings showing, on the one hand, impressive increases in positive attitudes toward integration between 1942 and 1983. On the other hand, the decrease in egalitarianism also contradicts much more variable and generally lower levels of support to questions measuring attitudes toward implementation of integration through legislation, government aid, and so on (Schuman, Steeh, & Bobo, 1985). Thus, the trends obtained for the three sets of survey d a t a - - o n e concerning attitudes toward integration, 3 the second concerning attitudes toward implementation of integration, and the third concerning general value for equality--are inconsistent with one another. The first shows an increase in the trend, the second shows a more ambiguous or variable trend, and the third shows a decrease. Table 1 also shows that there are other values besides equality that underwent change in American society. Given the rather large n u m b e r of cases in each of the national samples, it is safe to assume that a difference of three or more ranks is significant or highly significant. Using this criterion, it will be noted that the rather large decrease in the importance of social equality from 1971 to 1981 is accompanied by increases in the importance of several other valuesmpersonal values emphasizing a comfortable life, a sense o f accomplishment, and excitement. At the same time, there is a decline in the importance of national security, perhaps as a result of the end of the war in Vietnam. All in all, the data from 1968 to 1971 generally suggest first an increase in social concern, an increase in the importance of equality accompanied by decreases in concern for a comfortable life and a sense of accomplishment, and from 1971 to 1981, a reversal-a return to self-preoccupation, highlighted by a marked decrease in value for egalitarianism. How can we account for these three sets of contradictory findings, especially when theoretical considerations would lead us to expect at least some consistency among values, attitudes, and behavior? We have already drawn attention earlier in this article to the proposition that any value (or, indeed, any valued object) can be evaluated either by rating it on some absolute scale in isolation from any other value or by ranking it for importance or desirability by comparing it to the importance or desirability of other specified values. Ratings of a single value in isolation can range anywhere from a dichotomous rating to ratings along increasingly extended scales.

Attitudes Toward Integration

An inspection of 11 survey questions that were repeatedly asked by survey researchers between 1942 and 1983 reveals dramatic increases in favorable attitudes toward integration (see Table 3.1 in Schuman, Steeh, & Bobo, 1985). We also discovered by examining these 11 survey questions that 9 of them are one-value questions, asking about integration (in schools, accommodations, etc.) in isolation from other values and typically requiring a simple yes-no, agree-disagree, or approve-disapprove rating response to the integration question. We would suggest that a main reason why such integration questions were increasingly endorsed over the years (1942-1983) is not because the respondents had become increasingly tolerant but because it had become increasingly normative to respond favorably to strangers (typically White strangers) requesting nothing more than yes-no, agree-disagree responses (ratings) to one-value questions requiring neither a process of value comparison nor value choice. The respondents were provided with an opportunity by the survey researchers to endorse a n o r m that had become increasingly pervasive over the years, but they were not provided with an opportunity to inform the survey researchers about their value priorities. The results thus uniformly show for the 11 repeated survey questions increasingly favorable attitudes toward integrationmwith one interesting exception. We will consider this exception shortly.

Attitudes Toward Implementation

In contrast to the one-value questions eliciting ratings of attitudes toward integration, consider next the nine other repeated survey questions (see Table 3.2 in Schuman, Steeh, & Bobo, 1985) that elicited responses measuring attitudes toward implementation of integration. Here the findings are m u c h more uneven, some of them showing increases, others decreases, and others showing no distinct trends. O f these nine questions, seven are two-value questions, offering the respondent an opportunity to choose (that is, to rank) the value that is the more important of the two. In these seven survey questions, the respondent is typically asked to choose between two values, in particular, equality and freedom (from government intervention), as, for example, in the following question: Some people feel that if black people are not getting fair treatment in jobs the government in Washington ought to see to it that they do. Others feel that this is not the federal government's business. Have you had enough interest in this question to favor one side over the other? (If yes) How do you feel? Should the government in Washington see to it that black people get fair treatment in jobs or leave these matters to the states and local communities? 1. Government should see to it. 2. Government should stay out. 3. No interest. A major, contributing reason to explain why the questions regarding attitudes toward integration uniformly show increases in trends that are so different from 779

3Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo (1985) called such attitudes toward integration "attitudes toward matters of principle" (p. 163) and then proceeded to interpret such "data on principles"(p. 171)as representing "fundamental changesin the valuesof white Americans"(p. 171). Thus, they apparently did not make any conceptual distinction between attitudes and values. We instead prefer to use the concept of value to refer onlyto a ~neral conceptionof an idealendstate ofexistence(e.g.,General Integration) or to an ideal mode of behavior, and to reservethe concept of attitude to refer only to an evaluation of a specificobject or situation (e.g., attitudes toward integration in schoolsor in accommodations).In our definition, ifx does not refer to an ideal endstate of existence or to an ideal mode of behavior it is not a value. May 1989 American Psychologist

those found for the questions about attitudes toward implementation is that the former are based mainly on a rating response to one-value questions, whereas the latter are based mainly on a ranking response to two-value questions. When respondents are confronted with the problem of having to choose between two positive normative values that are pitted against one another, the results are bound to be more variable; each value is bound to attract some support but usually (although not always) a lower level of support than would be the case when only one positive normative value is mentioned. Values. We assume that responses to two-value questions will come closer to the " t r u t h " than will responses to one-value questions because two-value survey questions will activate, as in real life, a person's value priorities rather than how the person feels about one value considered in isolation. The respondent's consciousness is raised by the survey researcher's invitation to consider two values in particular. Which of these two values should one choose in order to end up feeling good about oneself, and also to end up feeling one had made a good impression on the survey researcher who is doing the interviewing? We must further assume that the respondents' responses could possibly also derive from other values than the two that happen to be mentioned by the survey researcher. The two-value questions activate only two values from a person's total value repertoire, and the respondent is thus excused from having to cognitively ponder whether there are other values that might be implicated or that might underlie attitudes toward implementation. This brings us to the much longer lists of values in the Value Survey that respondents are asked to arrange in order of importance. These were selected because they are all socially desirable and because inherently it is more difficult for a respondent to figure out which values are more normative, more important, or more socially desirable than the others. As one member of the British House of Commons put it as he was asked to complete the Value Survey: " H m . . . it's rather like asking what's one's favorite sunshine" (Searing, 1978, p. 72). Because all values in the two lists are alphabetically arranged and are to be rearranged in order of importance, there are surely fewer methodological reasons than is the case with the typical survey question to be suspicious about them or to doubt the validity of the trends found concerning egalitarian values in American society. These data (Table 1) first show an increase and then a sharp decrease in egalitarian value, a decrease that is larger than that found for any other value, and the findings, based on a measure that assumes cognitive comparisons and choices among values, depart substantively from survey results obtained by NORC, Gallup, and ISR (Schuman, Steeh, & Bobo, 1985; and also by Kluegel & Smith, 1986). We should make it explicit that in this analysis we have relied almost exclusively on Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo's comprehensive report in their RacialAttitudes in America (1985) for trends regarding attitudes toward integration and implementation. It was thus perhaps in780

evitable, taking as we do a value theory approach, that we would be especially sensitized to the fact that the trends found for attitudes toward integration cannot be directly compared with trends found for attitudes toward implementation, as Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo have done, because the integration questions rely mostly on a one-value rating approach whereas the implementation questions rely mostly on a two-value ranking approach. To exacerbate the problem of comparability, most of the onevalue integration questions come from one survey research organization, NORC, whereas most of the twovalue implementation questions come from a second survey research organization, ISR. 4 Finally, we return to discuss the paradoxical findings reported by Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo (1985) for one of their 11 attitudes-toward-integration questions, which they called the General Segregation question, that contradicts the uniform increases found in the remaining 10 attitudes-toward-integration questions. Schuman et al. dismissed this finding as a "peculiar reversal" and an "oddity" (p. 86) and thus omitted it from further consideration in their summary discussion (see Figure 6.1, p. 194). The question reads as follows: Are you in favor of desegregation, strict segregation, or something in between? 1. Desegregation 2. Something in between 3. Strict segregation We reproduced Figure 3.3 (p. 85; Figure 1 here) from Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo (1985) showing the resuits for Northern college-educated Whites, results that these authors considered to be especially pronounced. They discussed this question and results as follows: T h e . . . q u e s t i o n . . , labeled General Segregation appears to embody the principles of racial desegregation at the most abstract level, and thus might be expected to show even more clearly the trends we have been discussing: continuous positive change over the entire time period. . . .

4 Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo (1985) were, of course, aware of the importance of comparability of question wording. In fact, they opened their discussion of "consistency of question wording" as follows: "There is no more important point in survey research than the need to keep the wording of questions constant for all comparisons" (p. 59). They then illustrated the absence of constancy by drawing attention in particular to two questions on Residential Choice, the first the NORC attitudes-toward-integration question using "one alternative" and the second the ISR attitudes-toward-integration question using "two alternatives." Their descriptive terms (one alternative and two alternatives) are intended to draw attention to an example of noncomparability and are similar to but by no means identical with our attempt in this article to draw attention to the noncomparability of"one-value" and "two-value" questions. Notwithstanding their appreciation of the importance of consistency in question wording, they did not inquire any further into the issue of whether there is sufficient consistency in question wording between the I l attitudes-toward-integration questions (see their Table 3.1 and Figure 6. l) and the 9 attitudes-toward-implementation questions (see their Table 3.2 and Figure 6.2) to allow the two sets of questions to be directly compared for differences in long-term trends.

May 1989 American Psychologist

Figure 1 Attitudes Toward Segregation as a Principle Among Northern, College-Educated Whites

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21 70
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Note. Reprinted from Racial Attitudes in America (p. 85) by H. Schuman, C.

Staeh, and L. Bobo, 1985, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Copyright 1985 by the Harvard University Press. Reprinted by permission. Data are based on answers to the following General Segregation question: "Are you in favor of desegration, strict segregation, or something in between?" 1. Desegration 2. Something in between 3. Strict segregation.

In fact, however, the r e s u l t s . . , run counter to these expectations . . . . Beginning about 1 9 7 0 . . . (we note) a striking curvilinear effect. . . . W e . . . sought other e v i d e n c e . . . (but) we found virtually no other such evidence for attitudes that concern principles of integration. For the moment we must leave open the issue of whether the General Segregation question points to a very important feature of change not captured by other items, or whether it indicates an idiosyncratic trend of little general importance . . . . Almost all of the (attitude questions concerning integration) show positive trends over time . . . . The one jarring note in all this is a peculiar reversal on a single item that deals with general attitudes toward integration--but in the absence of corroboration from other items this remains for the time being something of an oddity (Schuman, Steeh, & Bobo, 1985, pp, 84-86)
. .

Inglehart's findings (Table 1) suggest that the results shown in Sehuman, Steeh, and Bobo's Figure 3.3 (Figure 1 here) are no oddity. The respondent is asked to respond to the General Segregation question by choosing (ranking) the one of three value alternatives that is the most important (unlike the other attitudes-toward-integration items, which are mainly one-value questions that are rated agree-disagree, yes-no, etc.). Their Figure 3.3 (Figure 1 here) shows first an increase in the very general attitude toward desegregation from 1964 until 1970, and then a decrease from 1970 through 1978. These data obtained over the 14-year period, 1964 to 1978, parallel closely the Value Survey data obtained over the 13-year period, 1968 to 1981. In Table 1, we also see first an increase in ranking of equality from 1968 to 1971, and then a decrease from 1971 to 198 I. It is moreover difficult to agree with Sehuman, Steeh, and Bobo (1985) that the data shown in their Figure 3.3 are an "oddity" because they May 1989 American Psychologist

are based on a question put to several thousands of respondents tested on seven separate occasions between 1964 and 1978, and they are supported by data reported in Table 1 that are based on rankings obtained from several additional thousands of respondents tested in four more national samples between 1968 and 1981. We must conclude from these data that egalitarianism had undergone a decrease over these years, not an increase, as would be claimed from NORC data, nor a more variable trend, as would be claimed from ISR data (Schuman, Steeh, & Bobo, 1985). 5 The stability and change findings shown in Table 1 now challenge us to try to explain not only why certain values had undergone change among national samples of the American people considered as a whole but also why other values had remained stable. At the same time, they challenge us to examine whether some of the value changes that have been observed, especially the large decrease in equality, can be reversed under certain conditions. The ideal way to investigate such problems would be to design an experimental intervention through the mass media that, on theoretical grounds, can be expected to affect values, and then to ascertain if such an intervention can affect the values of a random sample of people in American society. In our own research program we employed a specially produced television program to try to bring about long-term increases in equality and in other selected values. By examining the mechanisms that may bring about experimentally induced increases in equality, we should be able to draw reasonable inferences about at least some of the reasons for the naturally occurring initial increase and subsequent decreases in equality in American society Because we were unable to obtain participants representing a national sample, we obtained instead a next-best randomly selected sample of adult Americ a n s - t h o s e living in one city in the state of Washington. We compared such a sample with a second random sample living in another city in Washington 85 miles away. Subjects in the sample in the experimental city were exposed to our television program and those in the sample in the control city were not. The television program, a half-hour long, was entitled "The Great American Values Test" and was shown simultaneously on all three commercial channels, without interruption by commercial advertisements. It was hosted by two television stars: Ed Asner, known particularly for his role as the leading character in the popular Lou Grant television series, and by Sandy Hill, a well-known anchorperson on ABC's morning news program. The theory and the technique we employed in this research had evolved as a result of many earlier investigations in laboratory settings, and these are described
s In personal correspondence, Howard Schuman cited several reasons why he has been unable to find our arguments convincing. We do not discuss these reasons here because they are not, in our opinion, relevant to the theoretical issue of explaining or reconciling the three sets of contradictory findings. More specifically, they do not address our question: Has egalitarianism increased or decreased or remained about the same in American society over the 13-year period, 1968 to 1981?

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and reviewed in Rokeach (1973, 1979) and, most recently and thoroughly, in Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach, and Grube (1984). Our experimental subjects, selected randomly from a telephone directory, were not contacted by us beforehand. They watched the program in the privacy of their own homes in the same way that they watched any other program. They were free to watch or not watch, they could turn to another channel, or they could turn the program off if they were not interested. The general purpose of the television program was to provide viewers with information about the value patterns previously obtained in American society in 1974, and more precisely, to show them the results obtained from the third survey, as shown in Table 1, thus providing them with an opportunity to compare their own value priorities with the value priorities of American society. There was also a more specific experimental purpose. Special attention was devoted in the program to the rankings previously found for three of the terminal values in particularhequality, freedom, and a world of b e a u t y - and an effort was made to induce an increase in their importance or to reinforce their importance among respondents who already cared a great deal about these values. In short, we attempted to arouse an emotional experience of self-dissatisfaction or self-satisfaction among viewers who, we assumed, would normally think of themselves as lovers of democracy or as lovers of natural beauty. For instance, one of the hosts of the television program told his television viewers, Americans feel that freedom is very important. They rank it third. But they also feel that equality is considerably less imp o r t a n t . . , they rank it t w e l f t h . . , what does that mean? Does it suggest that Americans as a whole are much more interested in their own freedom than they are in freedom for other people? (Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach, & Grube, 1984, p. 74) Somewhat later in the television program, the other host attempted to bring about an additional experience of self-dissatisfaction, or self-satisfaction, about the way the viewer might have ranked a world of beauty, as follows: Young people start out with a natural appreciation of beauty. But in the process of growing up we somehow knock this appreciation out of them. Eleven year olds rank a world of beauty seventh in importance . . . . And by the time they reach adulthood, a world of beauty has p l u m m e t e d . . , down the list to seventeenth in importance. (Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach, & Grube, 1984, p. 76) Measures of terminal values and related attitudes and behaviors were obtained before and after this television program was aired. Again, for a full description of the methodology that enabled us to monitor the changes and lack of change in values, attitudes, and behaviors of viewers and nonviewers, see Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach, and Grube (1984). We found that the rankings of the three values-equality, freedom, and a world o f b e a u t y m h a d increased four weeks after viewers watched the 30-minute TV program, but only for those viewers who watched the program without interruption. No significant value changes were 782

found for nonviewers or for viewers who were interrupted while watching by unforeseen circumstances beyond their control (e.g., a telephone call). Changes were also found several weeks later among uninterrupted viewers for three social attitudes that were logically related to the three target values--attitudes toward Black Americans, attitudes toward women, and attitudes toward protection of the environment. Attitudes toward these values all became more favorable, usually to a statistically significant degree. More important, these value and attitude changes were followed by changes in social behavior. Two to three months after the program was aired, all participants in the experimental and the control city were solicited for money by mail by three social organizations: an antiracist, an antisexist, and a proenvironmental organization. On the average, persons who viewed the program without interruption responded by sending back more money to all three organizations than did nonviewers or viewers who were interrupted. These findings suggest that it is not only possible to bring about long-term increases in such social values as equality through certain experimental interventions but also long-term changes in related social attitudes and behavior. Yet, not all participants changed their values. Those already high on the three target values did not undergo value change. How can we explain such stabilities and changes obtained following a viewing of our television program among a random sample of people in the state of Washington? Previous experimental findings (Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach & Grube, 1984; Rokeach, 1973) suggest that the basic motivational process that leads to value change or value stability is the arousal of feelings of selfdissatisfaction or self-satisfaction. These feelings may be aroused by providing a person with self-knowledge about inconsistencies or consistencies existing within his or her belief system, and especially about inconsistencies and consistencies that have implications for a person's motivation to think of himself or herself as a competent and moral human being. Value change is a result of experiencing such self-dissatisfaction, and it is initiated in order to reduce or eliminate such feelings of self-dissatisfaction; in contrast, value stability is a result of experiencing satisfaction and is thus a result of the reinforcement of one's existing belief system. Value change and stability in the more natural everyday world that survey researchers encounter, as documented in Table 1 and Figure 1, can also be generally conceptualized as arising from experiences of felt dissatisfaction or satisfaction. More specifically, value change may be a result not only of the socialization of youth under conditions of affluence that instigate them to become increasingly dissatisfied with strivings that merely meet their lower order needs, as Ingelhart (1981) has suggested, but it is also a result of dissatisfactions arising from consciousness raising, economic insecurity, perceptions of discrimination, or perceptions of reverse discrimination. Consider, for instance, the dissatisfactions among those who perceive themselves as increasingly disadvantaged by policies and laws that favor women or May 1989 American

Psychologist

Blacks. In our view, the extraordinarily large decline in the importance of the value for equality from 1971 to 198 l, and the concomitant increases in values pertaining to personal pursuits, may have been instigated by widespread feelings of insecurity and dissatisfaction in the 1970s and 1980s among those who saw themselves as threatened by recession on the one hand and disadvantaged by civil rights and the women's liberation movement on the other. These value changes may also have been encouraged and given legitimacy by the increasingly conservative and anticollectivist policies and rhetoric of the political administrations that became dominant as the 1960s came to an end. The overall shift away from social to personal values becomes particularly evident when we note the contextual significance of a decline in the importance of equality accompanied by the continuing high priority placed on freedom (ranked third in importance throughout the 1968-1981 study period). The contextual meaning suggested by a persisting high priority on freedom accompanied by a decreasing priority on equality is that value choice behavior in the political realm is more " m e " than "thee" centered. When the larger political and social context legitimates "me-centered" value choices in the service of self-satisfied pursuits of freedom, comfort, achievement, and excitement rather than the value choice of equality, there are fewer naturally occurring conditions that might lead people to question the morality of their value choice behavior. Such questioning and the feeling of self-dissatisfaction that may result would have to be generated from other quarters, such as the naturally occurring activation of self-dissatisfaction produced by the civil rights or women's liberation movement (Ball-Rokeach & Tallman, 1979).

factions originating from the simultaneous activation and frustration of values derived from different levels of human motivation (Maslow, 1954). Fifth, we have learned that empirical findings concerning stability and change in egalitarianism within American society can be profoundly affected by the way survey questions are put to respondents and, especially, whether the responses that are requested are rating responses to questions that activate one value to be judged in isolation, or ranking responses following the activation of cognitive comparisons between two, or more than two, values. Finally, our findings suggest that it is possible through certain kinds of television programs viewed in the privacy of the home to enduringly affect values, related attitudes, and behavior and even to reverse naturally occurring value changes in American society.
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Concluding Comments
In summary, we identify six conclusions that can be reasonably drawn from the various research findings we have discussed here. First, it is now feasible through such devices as the Value Survey to measure repeatedly the importance that such macro entities as a whole society would attach to a relatively broad array of h u m a n values, an array that with several carefully chosen modifications derived from a more systematic analysis of h u m a n motivation would qualify as a universal array of h u m a n values (Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987). Second, it is now feasible to assess directly not only the importance of various values considered singly but also their psychological functioning as value priorities. Third, repeated surveys over a 13-year period show impressive stability in American value priorities. Fourth, at the same time, they show that American society is undergoing change in certain values, as a result of naturally ongoing events that give rise to various kinds of dissatisfaction. The changes we found between 1968 and 1981 can perhaps be best described as a shift away from a collective morality value orientation to a personal competence value orientation. Such changes are probably taking place differentially in different segments of American society and are a result of dissatisMay 1989 American Psychologist

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