Basic Personal Values, the Country’s Crime Rate and the Fear of Crime

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to investigate the relations between basic personal values, drawn on Schwartz’s value theory, and the expression of the individual fear of crime by analysing the moderating role of contextual cues (i.e., crime rates). We performed a multinational, multilevel study using the 2008 European Social Survey dataset (N = 53,692, nested in 27 European countries). The fear of crime, which is a generalised insecurity about personal safety, showed a positive association with conservation (i.e., tradition, conformity and security) and a negative association with openness to change (i.e., hedonism, stimulation and self-direction) and self-transcendence values (i.e., benevolence and universalism). With the exception of self-transcendence, all the associations between basic values and the fear of crime were amplified by the country’s crime rate: the higher the crime rate, the stronger the relation between values and the fear of crime. The implications and limitations of these results and possible further research directions are discussed.