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Schwartz's 10 Basic Human Values Explained

People prioritize different things in life. Here are the 10 basic values psychologist Shalom Schwartz identified across cultures worldwide.

Self-Direction

The value placed on thinking and acting independently, and choosing and exploring one's own goals. It's linked to creativity, freedom, independence, and curiosity, and is the most representative value on the 'openness to change' axis described below.

Stimulation

The value placed on excitement, novelty, and challenge in life. It's linked to a preference for a varied life, daring, and diverse experiences, and sits alongside self-direction on the openness-to-change axis.

Hedonism

The value placed on pleasure and sensuous gratification for oneself. It's treated as sitting at the boundary between the openness-to-change and self-enhancement axes, since it involves both seeking enjoyment and prioritizing one's own satisfaction.

Achievement

The value placed on personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards. It's linked to ambition, competence, and influencing valued outcomes, and forms the self-enhancement axis together with power.

Power

The value placed on social status and prestige, and control or dominance over people and resources. It's linked to authority, wealth, and social recognition, and is a core value on the self-enhancement axis alongside achievement.

Security

The value placed on safety, harmony, and stability in society, in relationships, and within oneself. It's linked to national security, social order, and family safety, and forms the 'conservation' axis together with tradition and conformity.

Conformity

The value placed on restraining actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others or violate social expectations. It's linked to politeness, self-discipline, and obeying rules, and is a core value on the conservation axis.

Tradition

The value placed on respect for, commitment to, and acceptance of the customs and ideas provided by one's culture or religion. It's linked to humility, devotion, and acceptance of one's lot, and is closely related to conformity, though the two are distinguished by whether the source of what's being accepted is social expectations or long-standing custom.

Benevolence

The value placed on preserving and enhancing the welfare of people one is in frequent personal contact with. It's linked to honesty, loyalty, responsibility, and friendship, and forms the 'self-transcendence' axis together with universalism.

Universalism

The value placed on understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and of nature. It's linked to equality, social justice, environmental protection, and broad-mindedness, and is a core value on the self-transcendence axis.

What the theory of basic human values says, and its two organizing axes

Based on large-scale surveys across many cultures, psychologist Shalom Schwartz argued that the motivations people universally pursue can be organized into 10 basic values. The key idea is that these 10 values aren't an independent list -- they're arranged on a circular structure, where values positioned next to each other tend to be pursued together, while values on opposite sides of the circle tend to conflict. The 10 values also group into two broader, opposing axes: 'openness to change' (self-direction, stimulation) versus 'conservation' (security, conformity, tradition), and 'self-enhancement' (power, achievement) versus 'self-transcendence' (universalism, benevolence). Hedonism sits at the boundary between two of these axes. For example, someone who strongly values security tends to find it harder to also pursue exciting novelty -- a structure that illustrates the natural tension between certain values.

How it's measured, and how it holds up across cultures

Schwartz and his colleagues developed instruments like the Schwartz Value Survey and the Portrait Values Questionnaire to measure this theory, which have been widely used as reference tools in organizational culture research, generational comparisons, and cross-cultural studies. While the relative priority given to each value can differ from one culture to another, the overall 10-value structure and its circular arrangement have reportedly been replicated across many different countries, which is a major reason the framework is so widely used in cross-cultural research.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can someone hold several of these values as important at the same time?

Yes. Values that sit next to each other on the circle -- benevolence and universalism, or achievement and power, for example -- are commonly pursued together. It's harder to strongly pursue two values on opposite sides of the circle at the same time, such as tradition and stimulation.

Do these 10 values look different across countries and cultures?

The relative priority given to each value can vary by culture, but the 10-value structure itself and how the values relate to each other in the circular arrangement have been found to replicate fairly consistently across many countries, which is why the framework is widely used and trusted in cross-cultural research.