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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 165 (2015) 195 – 201

CPSYC 2014

Validation of "Schwartz Values Scale" for Spanish Adolescents

Population

J. Paez a*, A. De-Juanas a*

a
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Juan del Rosal st., 14, Madrid 28040, Spain

Abstract

The Schwartz value scale (SVS) has shown strong potential in assessing the value system modeled on Universal Values Schwartz
in different cultures and populations. But it is necessary to know if the "SVS" meets the psychometric characteristics necessary to
assess the value system of population of different ages. The objective of this research is to understand the potential of SVS to
assess adolescents axiological system.
For validation of the scale has been used an incidental sample comprised 1262 adolescents of both sexes aged between 12 and 22
years old from 14 spanish secondary schools.
The reliability of the adaptation of "SVS" for spanish adolescents shows a high internal consistency of the items (Cronbach's
alpha =, 892).
However, the reliability of various subscales are lower than those established in the interpretation criteria.
The adaptation of the Schwartz Values Scale for adolescents spanish population allow assess with high reliability and validity the
value system of adolescents.
In addition, the subscales obtained with the ten factors allow individually measure each of the ten values Schwartz model.
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of CPSYC 2014.
Peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of CPSYC 2014.
Keywords: Values; scale; validation; adolescents

1. Introduction

Taking as starting point the theory of values Rokeach, Schwartz (1992) proposed as axis formation of the
universal value system needs. Thus, Schwartz understands the values and beliefs inexorably linked to emotions that
act as evaluative guide actions and judgments. These social constructs can be sorted in order of importance or
priority, which forms the system's own values of each individual.

* Facultad de Educación. UNED. C/Juan del Rosal. Madrid. Tel.: +34-913-986-979

E-mail address: [email protected]

1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of CPSYC 2014.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.12.622
196 J. Paez and A. De-Juanas / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 165 (2015) 195 – 201

For him the structure of the value system is based on three universal requirements. Namely: 1) the role of
mankind as being in the social world and nature: submit, comply or explode; 2) the relationships established
between individual and group bidding to keep the balance between autonomy and dependency group; 3) the
responsible social conduct that addresses the ways to encourage individuals in respect of the welfare of others and
coordination between them.
Of these three basic needs a spectrum of ten types of universal values common to all cultures arises circular
arranged in a continuous, standing close together those whose achievement are related. Conversely, represented
faced with those domains whose content value conflicts and whose simultaneous achievement is incompatible.
Therefore, it is considered to be a dynamic system. This character is clearly reflected in the graph model
representing the theory. (Lindeman and Verkasalo, 2005).

Fig. 1. Relationship between values on the Schwartz’s model

This loop system is organized into four higher order values opposing each other 'two to two' (Schwartz, 1992;
Musitu, 2000).
A summary of the value domains that encompass the values of higher order and motivational content of each of
them gives a scheme like the one presented below (Musitu, 2000, Balaguer, Castillo, García-Merita, Guallar and
Pons, 2006; Cayon and Pérez, 2008)
- Openness to change:
• Self-Direction: This value is related to independence of thought and decision-making.
• Stimulation: Self-affirmation and the search for novelty and stimulation of vital challenges are the basic
behaviors of subjects defined by this value.
• Hedonism: It involves seeking positive affective experiences that get pleasure and personal gain.
- Storage:
• Security: Security seeking people who abound in this value is related to harmony and social, family and
physical stability, good interpersonal relations, social order accepted by common agreement.
• Conformity: The freedom and space of the other limits the action itself, therefore the avoidance of harm to
others or shared social norms guiding behavior of these subjects.
• Tradition: The expression of group solidarity and uniqueness. It is about respect and commitment of the
customs and ideas of traditional culture.
- Auto-benefit:

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• Achievement: competition for resources and social approval in compliance with agreed standards is the key
feature of this profile.
• Power: means having a social position and prestige and control over the people who belong to the same
level micro or macro-social.
- Self-transcendence:
• Benevolence: Part of the need to have a positive interaction with others to promote the good of the group.
• Universalism: arises from the need to ensure the survival of individuals and groups when the resources on
which life depends are scarce and shared.
The values given by Schwartz own intrinsic meet a need, therefore it is important to know the motivational
content comprising each. To this end, Schwartz is empirically corroborate the structure of the ten types of values
proposed in the model. This produces the "Schwartz Values Survey" (hereafter SVS) (Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987).
The SVS is a tool for assessing the values and priorities of people.
In their studies, Schwartz collected samples from more than 40 countries of different cultures, finding in the
empirical results support the theoretical model. Using techniques of multidimensional scaling and confirmatory
factor analysis, the author obtained a spatial representation of the distribution of values.
Subsequent revisions (Ros and Grad, 1991, Feather, 1995; Schwartz & Boehnke, 2004) have been adapted both
the number of items as the formulation and answer format (Castro and Nader, 2004; Gouveia, Clemente and Vidal,
1998), performing all checks of validity and reliability indices for different ages and cultures.
However, the evaluation of the potential scale of universal values has been little studied in adolescents. Balaguer,
Castillo, García-Merita, Guallar and Pons (2006) performed the validation of this instrument for this age, finding
empirical adequacy with the model.
However, the evolutionary characteristics of moral development in adolescence and maturation process of the
value system in this age determine very specific traits to which it is important to know if the "SVS" meets the
psychometric Characteristics Necessary to assess it the value system of adolescents.
Therefore, the objective of this work is to study the psychometric properties of the scale Schwartz Values for
Spanish adolescents. This is to check the validity of the items that comprise well as the underlying factor structure.
Similarly it is intended to check the similarity of the results obtained with the theoretical model proposed by
Schwartz.

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2. Methodology

2.1. Sample

The validation was carried out with an Comprised 1262 sample (N = 1262) adolescents of both sexes (men =
52.5%, Female = 47.5%) aged between 12 and 22 years old (M = 15.55, SD = 1.62) from 14 spanish secondary
schools.
There has been an incidental sampling. This scale has been applied to students in schools that agreed to
participate in the study. The sample is distributed in courses as follows: 2nd ESO = 367 students (29.1%), 4th ESO
= 580 students (46.0%) and 2nd Baccalaureate students = 315 (25%).

2.2. Questionaries

In carrying out the present study we have used the Spanish adaptation of the SVS by Balaguer, Castillo, García-
Merita, Guallar and Pons (2006), composed of 45 items. To facilitate understanding of the items, they were
accompanied by an explanatory statement of content axiológico same.

2.3. Procedure

The application of the instrument was conducted during school hours. Before applying the sample subjects were
explained the purpose of the research, the voluntary nature of participation in it and the instructions to complete the
items. Similarly given the opportunity to ask any questions before or during application of the instrument, so there
was always this responsible in the classroom.

2.4. Data analysis

For the reliability analysis has been used to study the internal consistency of the items through Cronbach's alpha.
Was performed reliability analysis of both total and individual scale values considering these independent subscales.
The validity study was performed using the method of confirmatory factor analysis. This has been the underlying
factors extracted by the principal components method and Varimax rotation.
The analysis of the psychometric properties of the instrument was Performed with SPSS 20.0.

3. Results

3.1. Reliability Analysis

The full scale values adapted from Schwartz has high internal consistency (α = .89). That is, the instrument
shows clearly the differences between subjects, with high discriminative power on the importance of value domains
in the value system of individuals.
However the items "social power", "Wealth", "Moderate" and "Devoted" have a lower correlation to 0.2 with the
total scale. The elimination of these elements increases, even slightly, the alpha value and increase the
discriminatory power of the instrument. If these items were removed, to increase reliability ,890 (α = 0.898),
reaching excellent standards as proposed by George and Mallery (2003) criterion.
However, analyzing separately the reliability of the subscales of the instrument, we found that the internal
consistency of the items that compose not reach high values.
Taking as a criterion the interpretation of Cronbach's alpha of George and Mallery (2003), the subscale with
acceptable reliability index is "Compassion" (α = .755). The subscales "Stimulation" (α = .689), "Self-direction" (α
= .618), "Compliance" (α = .681), "Achievement" (α = .636), "Power" (α = .671) and "Universalism" (α = .686) are
greater than 0.6, so its ability to capture individual differences is questionable according to the criteria previously
used. On the lower level subscales "Hedonism" (α = .527) and "Security" (α = .573) are generally found, whose
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discriminative power is poor. Finally, the reliability of the subscale "Tradition" (α = .473) is unacceptable to reach
such a low value on the Cronbach alpha coefficient.

Table 1. Reliability of the ten value domains

Cronbach's
Domain value
alpha
Hedonism ,527
Stimulation ,689
Self-Direction ,618
Security ,573
Conformity ,681
Tradition ,473
Achievement ,636
Power ,671
Universalism ,686
Benevolence ,755

3.2. Validity Analysis

Extracting the scale factors is performed by factor analysis to obtain a ratio greater than KMO 0,9 (KMO = .918).
Furthermore, analysis of significance by Bartlett's test of sphericity (x2 / df = 22941, 621/990 = 23.17) is perfect as
the level of significance is less than 0,05 (p. = .000) so we can say that the study of the ideal factors using factor
analysis.
The unrotated factor matrix can be seen that the first component explains 20.18% of the variance, but do not
saturate it all items with a higher positive weight to 0.3, reaching the ninth factor to find these minimum levels
saturation, so it can be considered that at this scale nine dimensions shown.
The factorial analysis by the method of principal factors Varimax rotation extracts 9 factors. However, the items
making up each of the factors does not correspond exactly to the items in the factors of the original scale.
However, if we analyze the distribution of items in the original scale factors of the universal model of Schwartz
values, we can see that these are distributed almost consecutively in continuous circular pattern representing said.

4. Conclusions

The overall objective of this research was to determine the adequacy of the adaptation of the scale of values by
Schwartz Balaguer, Castillo, García-Merita, Guallar and Pons (2006) for assessing the value system of values from
study of its psychometric properties. For this we have employed an incidental sample comprised 1262 adolescents of
both sexes aged between 12 and 22 years.
The analysis of the overall reliability of the scale shows a high value of the statistic, and this implies the ability of
the instrument to capture individual differences in the value system of the subjects of this age. The items that
comprise the scale accurately distinguish differences in the value system of adolescents. This value is in line with
that achieved by Balaguer, Castillo, García-Merita, Guallar and Pons (2006) in their adaptation to Spanish
population.
However, if looking at the chart correlations of each item with the total scale, it can be seen that the items "social
power", "Wealth", belonging to the domain of value "Power" and "Moderate" and "Devotee "both belonging to the
domain of value" tradition "are less than 0.2 correlation, which lowers the value of the reliability index of full scale.
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The disposal of such items is not a statistically significant increase, but it achieves the value 0.9 and, therefore,
consider this value as excellent as assessed by George and Mallery (2003). For this reason it is considered
appropriate to eliminate these elements.
In the validation work carried out by Balaguer, Castillo, García-Merita, Guallar and Pons (2006), a low
correlation of item "Devoto" was found, still taking the decision to remove that item. However, the same results for
the other three items elimindos in this paper were not found.
The study of the reliability of the domains of values taken individually shows the major problems. Only the
"Benevolence" value reaches an acceptable level. All other domains are located below this value, finding three
domains whose discriminative ability is poor or unacceptable.
However, comparison of these results with previous studies show similar to ours (Feather, 1995; Balaguer,
Castillo, García-Merita, Guallar and Pons, 2006) results. Adaptation and validation conducted by values above ,7
found in five of the ten domains value and below this criterion in the remaining five domains. Similarly, the lowest
value found in this previous study is for the value "tradition", which agrees with that found in our study.
Similarly, other validation work performed this instrument values found internal consistency less than ,7 in most
value domains (Sagiv and Schwartz, 1995, Gouveia, Martinez, Meira and Lemos, 2001) .
These results on the internal consistency of the value domains of SVS may be due to the low number of items
composing each subscale. In the same line indicate the results found by Schwartz, Melech, Lehmann, Burgess,
Harris and Owen (2001) and Balaguer, Castillo, García-Merita, Guallar and Pons (2006).
The study of the validity of the instrument shows very different results proposed in the theoretical model
development and subsequent validation performed (Schwartz, 1992; Gouveia, Clemente and Vidal, 1998; Knafo &
Schwartz, 2003). The work done by Balaguer, Castles, García-Merita, Guallar and Pons (2006) also show
differences in the outcome of the validation of the factorial structure of the SVS.
The unrotated factor matrix revealed the presence of 9 factors (one less than the theoretical model) with a
communality greater than unity. These nine factors do not explain high levels of variance (s = 50,612), however
equal variance shows that such items are grouped equally by what they have in common.
However, when viewed in figure 2 how the items are distributed according to the weights in the rotated matrix of
the resulting nine factors, you can see that the items are located near the original factors appendages. These results
are consistent with the theoretical model principle, under which lie close together those values realized and faced
relate to those domains whose content value comes into conflict.

Fig. 2. Saturation of the original items in the new factors (resulting factors indicated by number before each item)
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This difference structure may be marked by the maturation process of the value system of adolescents, since their
value preferences are not yet definitively determined.
In conclusion, the adaptation of Spanish adolescents SVS to be assessed with a high level of system reliability
values of adolescents. However, the evaluation of the instruments taken individually is not possible due to low
internal consistency results obtained by these.
Similarly, the difference in the factor structure of the instrument can not determine the value preferences of
adolescents according to the original theoretical model.
These results invite to replicate the study on future occasions, establishing categories for age and sex variables to
pinpoint the source of the differences.

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