Abstract
Human values are a central component in understanding individuals’ choices. Using the Schwartz’s Values instrument, this study aimed to identify patterns of human value priorities of 35,936 participants across 20 European countries and analyse their relations with subjective well-being (SWB), subjective general health (SGH), social life, and depression indices in Europe. A hierarchical cluster analysis of data from the seventh European Social Survey (ESS) round 7, based on the higher order dimensions of the Schwartz values model, allowed identifying four European groups with distinct indicators. Indices of SWB, SGH, social life, and depression showed statistically significant differences among the four different sociodemographic groups. The graphical representation of the monotonic correlations of each of these indices with the value priorities attributed to the ten basic human values was ordered according to the Schwartz circumplex model, yielding quasi-sinusoidal patterns. The differences among the four groups can be explained by their distinct sociodemographic characteristics: social focus, growth focus, strong social focus, and weak growth focus. The results of this study suggest a rehabilitation of the notion of hedonism, raising the distinction between higher and lower pleasures, with the former contributing more to well-being than the latter.
Highlights
As known, human values are socially approved desires and goals (Mukerjee 1965)and standards of judging worth (Shaver 1965)
The present study aims to identify patterns of the human value priorities using the Schwartz value theory and analyse their relations with Subjective Well-Being (SWB), Subjective General Health (SGH), social life, and depression indices
This study provides further insight into this subject by using the Schwartz (2012) value theory to analyse the relationships between personal value priorities and cognitive-affective (SWB, SGH, social life, and depression) aspects across Europe, finding association patterns consistent within and cross-countries
Summary
Human values are socially approved desires and goals (Mukerjee 1965)and standards of judging worth (Shaver 1965). Human values represent a central concept in human behavioural sciences, such as sociology, anthropology, and psychology (Borg et al 2017; Schwartz 1992). These disciplines view human values as central to explaining how people select their options and justify their actions, assessing individuals and events and characterising cultural groups and societies (Schwartz 1992, 2012). The way that we think and act in society, and even our values, are socially constructed and influenced by our living environment
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