Rokeach Value Survey (RVS)

Abstract

The Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) is one of the most foundational and widely cited psychometric instruments designed to assess the structure, hierarchy, and content of human value systems. Developed by social psychologist Milton Rokeach in 1973, the instrument operationalizes values as enduring, core prescriptive or proscriptive beliefs concerning desirable end-states of existence and preferred modes of conduct. The RVS consists of 36 distinct value items evenly categorized into two functionally independent dimensions: 18 Terminal Values (representing ultimate life goals or idealized end-states, such as A world at peace, Salvation, and Freedom) and 18 Instrumental Values (representing operational modes of behavior or means to achieve those ends, such as Honest, Ambitious, and Forgiving). Administered primarily via an ipsative rank-ordering procedure from 1 (most important) to 18 (least important) for each respective set, the RVS forces respondents to make explicit cognitive trade-offs, mirroring real-world decision-making. Psychometric investigations reveal robust median test-retest reliability estimates across short intervals (3 to 7 weeks), typically ranging from .78 to .80 for terminal values and .70 to .72 for instrumental values when using the physical sorting method (Form D), and slightly lower coefficients (.74 and .65, respectively) for the fixed paper-and-pencil version (Form E). Validity studies have documented significant convergent associations with psychological need profiles (e.g., Thematic Apperception Test measures), semantic differential evaluative dimensions, and behavioral criteria spanning political affiliations, civil rights participation, religious commitments, and cross-cultural orientations. Despite methodological debates surrounding ipsative scoring and non-parametric data distributions, the RVS remains a cornerstone in social psychology, cross-cultural research, organizational behavior, and moral development.

Keywords

Rokeach Value Survey, Milton Rokeach, human values, terminal values, instrumental values, value systems, ipsative measurement, rank-ordering, social psychology, psychometrics, value hierarchy, moral reasoning

Authors

The Rokeach Value Survey was created and standardized by Milton Rokeach, Ph.D. (1918–1988), a distinguished Polish-American social psychologist renowned for his pioneering contributions to the empirical study of dogmatism, open and closed belief systems, cognitive consistency, and the psychological architecture of human values. Rokeach held academic appointments at Michigan State University and subsequently served as a Professor of Sociology and Psychology at Washington State University, continuing his research as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Inquiries regarding archival permissions and historical test materials have historically been coordinated through Consulting Psychologists Press (CPP, Inc., now The Myers-Briggs Company), which served as the primary distributor of the standardized testing forms.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Rokeach Value Survey is to provide an empirical methodology for identifying, measuring, and comparing the internal hierarchies of human values that guide decision-making, ideological positions, social attitudes, and overt behavior. Prior to Rokeach’s seminal monograph, The Nature of Human Values (1973), psychological literature frequently conflated values with attitudes, interests, social norms, and personality traits. Rokeach sought to establish values as a distinct, central, and higher-order cognitive construct. In this framework, while an individual may hold thousands of specific attitudes toward disparate objects or situations, they possess only a relatively modest constellation of fundamental values that serve as the cognitive engine governing those attitudes.

In applied research, the RVS serves multiple empirical objectives:

• Cross-Cultural and Societal Comparisons: It allows researchers to quantify normative value orientations across diverse cultural, demographic, national, and socio-economic cohorts, elucidating macro-level shifts in societal priorities over time.
• Organizational and Occupational Diagnostics: In industrial and organizational psychology, the RVS is frequently deployed to evaluate person-organization fit, leadership styles, corporate ethical culture, and occupational value profiles (e.g., contrasting the terminal and instrumental priorities of managers, military personnel, artists, and healthcare professionals).
• Attitudinal and Behavioral Prediction: The survey functions as an explanatory tool for socio-political action, religious commitment, consumer behavior, environmental conservation, and intergroup prejudice. Rokeach demonstrated that differential rankings of a single value pair (e.g., Freedom vs. Equality) could accurately predict voting patterns, civil rights activism, and political ideology.
• Experimental Value Self-Confrontation: Rokeach utilized the RVS in clinical, educational, and experimental interventions through a technique termed Value Self-Confrontation (VSC). By presenting individuals with feedback revealing contradictions between their cherished values and their actual attitudes or societal group comparisons, researchers induce a state of cognitive dissonance, catalyzing long-term, enduring changes in values, attitudes, and real-world behaviors.

Crucially, Rokeach posited that the RVS is designed primarily for group-level comparative analysis, structural modeling, and tracking longitudinal value change, rather than diagnostic individual psychopathology screening. Because the survey employs an ipsative format where every rank assignment directly restricts and determines subsequent ranks, individual profiles highlight relative priorities rather than absolute, isolated psychological traits.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct underlying the RVS is Rokeach’s rigorous definition of a value: “an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence” (Rokeach, 1973, p. 5). Once internalized, a value becomes an integrated standard that guides actions, judgment, ideological positions, self-presentation, and evaluation of oneself and others. Rokeach distinguished values from attitudes; an attitude is an organization of several beliefs focused on a specific object or situation, whereas a value is a single, overarching prescriptive or proscriptive belief that transcends specific situations.

Rokeach conceptualized an individual’s total value system as a hierarchical, organized continuum along which values are ranked in order of relative priority. This system is structurally partitioned into two primary, theoretically distinct categories:

1. Terminal Values (End-States of Existence)

Terminal values reflect the idealized, ultimate goals or existential outcomes that an individual or society strives to achieve over the course of life. They represent the “ends” in human teleology. Rokeach identified 18 universal terminal values derived from extensive socio-cultural reviews, which can be further sub-classified into:

• Personal (Self-Centered) End-States: Values centered on internal, individual contentment, private fulfillment, or self-actualization, such as A comfortable life, Happiness, Inner harmony, Pleasure, Salvation, and Wisdom.
• Social (Other-Centered) End-States: Values focused on interpersonal, collective, or planetary conditions, such as A world at peace, A world of beauty, Equality, and National security.

2. Instrumental Values (Modes of Conduct)

Instrumental values encompass the desirable ways of behaving, behavioral traits, and operational means by which individuals pursue terminal end-states. They represent the “means” of life. Rokeach identified 18 primary instrumental values, which divide into two distinct psychological modalities:

• Moral Values: Modes of conduct that focus predominantly on interpersonal behavior and possess an ethical obligation; violating them typically induces feelings of guilt or wrongdoing. Examples include being Honest, Forgiving, Helpful, Loving, and Polite.
• Competence (Self-Actualization) Values: Modes of conduct focused on personal mastery, efficacy, and intellectual or functional capability; failing to manifest them evokes feelings of inadequacy, shame, or personal failure rather than moral guilt. Examples include being Ambitious, Capable, Independent, Intellectual, and Logical.

Rokeach maintained that while humans possess a potentially vast universe of operational behaviors, cognitive processing limitations constrain the functional number of guiding values. An average person holds relatively few terminal values (approximately 18 to 24) and a moderately larger pool of instrumental values (approximately 60 to 72). Reducing each category to 18 distinct, maximally differentiated, non-synonymous items allowed the RVS to capture the essential core of human motivational systems within the limits of human working memory.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework of the Rokeach Value Survey is rooted in cognitive-consistency theory, structural functionalism, and phenomenological human motivation, synthesizing perspectives from Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory, Kurt Lewin’s field theory, and humanistic psychology. The instrument relies on five foundational theoretical assumptions delineated by Rokeach (1973):

1. The total number of values an individual possesses is relatively small.
2. All individuals across all cultures possess fundamentally the same values, though they prioritize them to vastly different degrees.
3. Values are organized into an integrated cognitive structure known as a value system.
4. The antecedents of human values are traceable to culture, society, institutions, and idiosyncratic personal experiences.
5. The consequences of human values are manifested in virtually all phenomena that social scientists investigate, including attitudes, choices, ideologies, and behavioral trajectories.

At the center of Rokeach’s theoretical framework is the conceptualization of the self-concept. The self-system is hierarchically organized: the central core consists of one’s self-conceptions and self-esteem, surrounded immediately by values, which in turn govern attitudes, which finally determine specific behavioral intentions and behavioral manifestations. Values serve a protective and expressive function for the self-concept. An individual’s ranking of values represents a psychological compromise between internal biological needs and external societal, normative demands.

Another critical theoretical pillar is the dynamic nature of value hierarchies through cognitive awareness. Rokeach posited that value systems are not entirely static; they maintain functional stability while retaining the capacity for structural reorganization when an individual experiences self-dissatisfaction. When an individual discovers that their actual attitudes or conduct are inconsistent with their prioritized values, or that their value hierarchy deviates from their internalized ideal self-image, cognitive dissonance is generated. This theoretical mechanism serves as the foundation for experimental interventions aimed at modifying prejudicial attitudes and reinforcing egalitarian behaviors through value realignment.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the RVS has been comprehensively evaluated across decades of empirical testing, addressing construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive criteria:

Construct and Evaluative Validity

Early validation work by Homant (1969) examined the construct validity of the RVS by comparing value rankings with Charles E. Osgood’s semantic differential evaluative factor. Homant demonstrated that value rankings correlated substantially with semantic differential ratings of goodness, potency, and evaluation, proving that the RVS accurately assesses the positive evaluative dimension of psychological meaning. Furthermore, in his 1973 manual, Rokeach demonstrated content and face validity through exhaustive lexicographical and empirical reductions, ensuring that the 36 items represent distinct, mutually exclusive, and socioculturally meaningful psychological markers.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Convergent validity was evaluated by examining the relationships between RVS dimensions and fundamental psychological needs. Rokeach correlated RVS profiles with need measures derived from the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), revealing moderate, theoretically coherent associations between specific values (e.g., A sense of accomplishment, Ambitious) and Murray’s Need for Achievement (nAch), as well as between Mature love, True friendship, and Need for Affiliation (nAff). However, correlations were not high enough to indicate redundancy, affirming that values represent higher-order cognitive standards rather than raw unconscious biological drives.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

The criterion-related validity of the RVS is exceptionally strong across sociological and political domains:

• Political Orientation and Civil Rights: Rokeach (1973) famously formulated the two-value model of political ideology, demonstrating that major political systems and individual voting behaviors could be classified based on the relative rankings of just two terminal values: Freedom and Equality. Socialists ranked both high; capitalists ranked freedom high and equality low; communists ranked equality high and freedom low; and fascists ranked both low. Empirical studies during the American civil rights movement showed that participation in pro-civil rights demonstrations was powerfully predicted by the prioritized ranking of Equality.
• Religious and Moral Behavior: Longitudinal studies (e.g., Feather, 1973, 1988) confirmed that individuals with high church attendance and strong orthodox religious affiliations consistently ranked Salvation and Forgiving significantly higher than non-religious cohorts, while ranking Pleasure and An exciting life lower.
• Moral Reasoning: Diessner, Mayton, and Dolen (1993) documented significant associations between advanced stages of moral reasoning (measured via Kohlbergian paradigms) and higher rankings of universal, post-conventional values such as Wisdom and Equality over parochial, conventional values.

Reliability

The reliability of the Rokeach Value Survey has been scrutinized primarily through test-retest methodology, which is considered the psychometrically appropriate metric given the ipsative, non-independent nature of rank-ordered data:

Test-Retest Stability Coefficients

Because respondents rank 18 items hierarchically, internal consistency metrics such as Cronbach’s alpha cannot be computed in the standard manner across the entire set. Reliability is therefore indexed via Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients ($r_s$) computed across repeated administrations over specified time intervals:

• Form D (Removable Sticker / Card-Sorting Version): Rokeach (1973) documented that for Form D, median test-retest reliabilities among college student cohorts ranged from .78 to .80 for Terminal Values and from .70 to .72 for Instrumental Values across short time intervals (3 to 7 weeks). When intervals were extended to 2 to 4 months, reliability coefficients exhibited modest decreases of only .03 to .05, demonstrating enduring stability of the central value system over time.
• Form E (Standard Paper-and-Pencil Ranking Version): In Form E, respondents write numbers directly beside the printed values. Test-retest reliabilities for Form E are slightly lower, yielding median stability coefficients of .74 for Terminal Values and .65 for Instrumental Values across comparable time frames.

Methodological Differences Between Forms

Rokeach attributed the superior stability of Form D to the cognitive affordances of physical manipulation. In Form D, respondents manipulate stickers or cards, allowing them to visually compare, adjust, and re-sort values iteratively until their arrangement matches their subjective psychological hierarchy. In Form E, individuals must write digits 1 through 18; correcting an earlier decision requires crossing out and renumbering multiple items, which introduces cognitive fatigue, clerical errors, and premature satisficing.

Consistently across all empirical investigations, terminal values demonstrate higher test-retest stability than instrumental values. Psychometricians attribute this finding to the construct level: terminal end-states (e.g., Freedom, Wisdom) are more cognitively crystallized, stable, and central to self-identity, whereas instrumental modes of conduct (e.g., Polite, Clean, Obedient) are more sensitive to situational context, social desirability, and changing developmental demands.

Factor Analysis

The dimensional structure of the RVS has been a subject of extensive empirical modeling and psychometric debate. Because the instrument requires respondents to rank-order items from 1 to 18, the resulting data are ipsative—meaning that the total sum of ranks for any individual is a mathematical constant ($\sum = 171$). Consequently, the raw correlation matrix suffers from negative correlation bias (zero-sum dependency), which violates standard assumptions of classical exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

Exploratory Factor Analytic Solutions

Despite these mathematical challenges, numerous researchers (e.g., Thompson, Leviton, & Mieden, 1982; Feather, 1973, 1988; Crosby et al., 1990) conducted factor analyses using ipsative data, ipsative-to-normative transformations, and inverted Q-factor techniques. Across these studies, several stable, higher-order factors consistently emerge:

• Personal Contentment vs. Social Commitment: A prominent terminal factor that contrasts individualistic self-actualization (high loadings on Inner harmony, Wisdom, A comfortable life) with communal, prosocial welfare (high loadings on A world at peace, Equality).
• Self-Direction vs. Conformity: A powerful instrumental factor that opposes autonomy and intellect (high loadings on Independent, Imaginative, Broadminded, Intellectual) to conventional obedience and restraint (high loadings on Obedient, Polite, Clean).
• Immediate Hedonism vs. Transcendent Spiritualism: A terminal dimension contrasting present, sensory gratification (high loadings on Pleasure, An exciting life) with long-term, transcendental pursuits (high loadings on Salvation, Family security).
• Competence vs. Moral Concern: An instrumental factor that separates task-oriented capability (high loadings on Capable, Ambitious, Logical) from interpersonal benevolence (high loadings on Forgiving, Helpful, Loving).

Structural Transitions to Modern Models

The structural investigations of the RVS directly inspired Shalom H. Schwartz to develop the Schwartz Theory of Basic Human Values. Schwartz observed that the forced rank-ordering of the RVS obscured whether two values were prioritized together or opposed. By adapting the items of the RVS into Likert-type importance scales (the Schwartz Value Survey), Schwartz utilized Smallest Space Analysis (SSA) and Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) to confirm that human values arrange in a circular, motivational continuum defined by two orthogonal higher-order dimensions: Openness to Change vs. Conservation and Self-Transcendence vs. Self-Enhancement.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Type: Psychometric Value Inventory / Self-report preference assessment.
• Administration Format: Available as a physical sticker/card-sorting task (Form D) or a paper-and-pencil / digital numerical rank-order inventory (Form E).
• Item Count: 36 items total, grouped into two distinct, independently administered sections:
  • Terminal Values: 18 items (assessing ultimate end-states of existence).
  • Instrumental Values: 18 items (assessing desirable modes of conduct).
• Administration Time: Typically 10 to 20 minutes for both sections.
• Target Population: Adolescents and adults (standardized norms span ages 11 to 90 years; national representative adult samples over 21 years).
• Response Format: Strict ipsative rank-ordering from 1 (“most important to you”) to 18 (“least important to you”), executed separately for the terminal list and the instrumental list. Ties are theoretically not permitted in the standard administration.
• Scoring and Statistical Analysis:
  • Measures of Central Tendency: Because rank orders represent ordinal-level, non-parametric, interdependent data, the median and composite rank order distributions serve as the primary descriptive parameters.
  • Inferential Statistics: Non-parametric tests, such as the Median Test, the Mann-Whitney $U$ test, and the Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance, are the psychometrically indicated procedures for comparing groups. When sample sizes are sufficiently large ($N > 100$), researchers frequently utilize means, $t$-tests, and ANOVAs, which yield highly consistent findings with non-parametric tests due to central limit approximations.
  • Interpretation Direction: A numerical rank of 1 denotes the highest possible priority and personal value commitment, whereas a rank of 18 denotes the lowest relative priority within that value domain.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Rokeach Value Survey was originally designed, standardized, and published by Milton Rokeach in his foundational 1973 volume, The Nature of Human Values (New York: Free Press). Standardized testing forms (Forms D and E) and user manuals were subsequently distributed commercially by Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc. (CPP), located in Palo Alto, California. While the commercial printed forms and manual materials historically required license and purchase fees through CPP, the conceptual framework and scale items published within Rokeach’s academic monograph have been broadly accessed and adapted for non-commercial educational, scientific, and psychological research globally. Researchers seeking to implement the survey should adhere to institutional ethical guidelines, cite Rokeach’s original 1973 work, and verify current licensing requirements through the copyright holders for commercial deployments.

References

• Allen, M. W. (1994). Reliability and accuracy of cultural-level judgments of personal values. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 79(1), 16–18. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1994.79.1.16
• Conoley, J. C., & Impara, J. C. (Eds.). (1995). The twelfth mental measurements yearbook. University of Nebraska Press.
• Crosby, F., Bitner, L. O., & Jevonce, P. (1990). The ipsative dilemma in the measurement of value priorities. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 50(2), 295–304. https://doi.org/10.1177/00131644905000206
• Diessner, R., Mayton, D., & Dolen, M. A. (1993). Values hierarchies and moral reasoning. The Journal of Social Psychology, 133(6), 869–871. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1993.9713953
• Faase, T. P. (1982). International differences in value ranking and religious style among Jesuits. Review of Religious Research, 24(1), 3–18. https://doi.org/10.2307/3511241
• Feather, N. T. (1973). Value change among university students. Australian Journal of Psychology, 25(1), 57–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049537308255828
• Feather, N. T. (1988). Moral judgements and human values. British Journal of Social Psychology, 27(3), 239–246. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1988.tb00824.x
• Gibbons, K., & Walker, I. (1993). Multiple interpretations of the Rokeach Value Survey. The Journal of Social Psychology, 133(6), 797–805. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1993.9713944
• Homant, R. (1969). Semantic differential ratings and rank-ordering of values. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 29(4), 885–889. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316446902900412
• Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. Free Press.
• Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60281-6
• Thompson, B., Leviton, J. E., & Mieden, P. A. (1982). Validity of the Rokeach Value Survey. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 42(3), 899–905. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316448204200324

Items of the Scale