Bringing Values Back In: The Adequacy of the European Social Survey to Measure Values in 20 Countries

The Schwartz (1992) theory of basic human values has promoted a revival of empirical research on values. The semi-annual European Social Survey (ESS) includes a new 21-item instrument to measure the importance of the 10 basic values of the theory. Representative national samples in 20 countries responded to the instrument in 2002–3. We briefly describe the theory and the ESS instrument and assess its adequacy for measuring values across countries. Using multiple-group confirmatory factor analyses, augmented with mean-structure information, we assess the configural and measurement (metric) invariance of the values—necessary conditions for equivalence of the meaning of constructs and scalar invariance—a…