Development of the Brief Personal Values Inventory for sense of values in the Japanese general population

The Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ) is a widely used questionnaire for assessing sense of values; however, it has limitations, especially for children. Therefore, the present study aims to develop a questionnaire for sense of values, called the Brief Personal Values Inventory (BPVI), consisting of simple questions and a smaller number of items compared to the PVQ. We first created 12 items for the BPVI and then tested their validity and reliability in 167 Japanese general population (81 males, mean age (SD) [range]: 23.4 (8.2) [15-57] years). Each of these items was correlated with one or more values in the PVQ-57. The BPVI items covered all higher-order values in Schwartz’s theory (Openness to Change, Self-Enhancement, Conservation, and Self-Transcendence). In sum, the BPVI has an acceptable criterion-related validity and corresponds to higher-order values in Schwartz’s value theory. The BPVI is suitable for a reliable and direct comparison of sense of values between children and adults, which may be useful for elucidating the developmental pathway of personal sense of values.


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Our personal sense of values determines our decision making, attitudes, and 52 behaviors [1][2][3]. Values are thereby involved in all essential aspects of our lives including 53 building and maintaining social relationships, developing religiosity, and making career 54 choices that relate to our identity [3]. These aspects influence our quality of life, and thus, 55 defining and studying sense of values has been regarded as an important topic. 56 Schwartz and his colleagues have been the first to classify sense of values into a 57 systematic theory [2,[4][5][6]. They initially proposed a theory about 10 motivationally distinct 58 values founded on one or more universal human requirements for existence [6]. These values 59 were structurally organized in a circular continuum according to the motivational goals they Focus; Growth Anxiety-Free and Self-Protection Anxiety-Avoidance). The distinct values 63 were also categorized into four higher-order values: Openness to Change, Self-Enhancement, 64 Conservation, and Self-Transcendence. 65 Furthermore, they refined the value theory into more narrowly defined 19 values and 66 developed a self-report questionnaire to measure the 19 distinct values, called 57-item Portrait 67 Values Questionnaire (PVQ-57) [7]. The PVQ-57 was cross-culturally examined in 15 68 samples from 10 countries and showed a good cross-cultural validity. It became the most has been established (PBVS-C) [8]. However, a sentence-based questionnaire with simple and 74 common questions that can be effectively applied to children has not yet been established. A 75 previous study used different versions of PVQs to compare personal sense of values between 76 children and adults: the PBVS-C for children and the 21-item PVQ for their parents [9]. 77 However, reliable and direct comparisons of personal sense of values between children and 78 adults have never been performed.

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Personal sense of values is known to be transmitted within a family [10][11][12][13] 108 The PVQ-57 is a self-report questionnaire for assessing sense of values based on 109 Schwartz's refined value theory ( Table 1 in S1 Appendix) [7]. The items assess how similar a 110 participant is to the portrayed person (e.g., "It is important to him to form his views Growth Anxiety-Free and Self-Protection Anxiety-Avoidance) and higher-order values 115 (Openness to Change, Self-Enhancement, Conservation, and Self-Transcendence) [7]. The 116 internal consistencies for the 19 value scores in this study sample showed acceptable 117 Cronbach's alpha greater than or equal to .66, except for the values of Self-direction-Thought 118 (SDT) (.53) and Humility (HU) (.47) ( Table 2 in S1 Appendix). Therefore, we excluded the 119 values of SDT and HU from further analysis and finally scored for the 17 remaining values.

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The BPVI intends to provide a simple and easy assessment for sense of values that (AC), care (C), stable-lifestyle (SL), and leisure (L). We did not include the item for the value 127 of Tradition (TR) (e.g., "It is important to him to follow his family's customs or the customs 128 of a religion") because TR has been reported to be correlated with religiosity [14], and over 129 70% of Japanese people have been found to not have faith in only a specific religion [15]. We

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The PVQ-57 and BPVI scores are shown in Tables 1 and 2  Younger participants were more likely to ascribe greater importance to the higher-   Items B, I, AC, and L were associated with Openness to Change (Table 5). Items B, 205 I, and AC were also significant but weaker associated with Self-Transcendence, located 206 adjacent to Openness to Change and included in the dimension of Growth Anxiety-Free. Of 207 these, item B was most significantly associated with the value of Self-direction-Action (SDA, 208 r = .41, p < .001, Table 5), and items I and AC were most significantly associated with the   (COI, r = .56, p < .001), respectively. Item SL was also correlated with Self-Enhancement and 223 Self-Transcendence, and AT with Self-Transcendence.

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Items C and IS were correlated with Self-Transcendence, and the most significantly and IS with Openness to Change and Self-Enhancement.

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Compared with the absolute BPVI scores, positive correlations decreased and 229 negative correlations increased when using the relative BPVI scores ( Table 6). The strongest 230 correlations were not different, except for the items SI and GS (Table 7).

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This study aimed to examine the validity and reliability of the BPVI, which assesses The BPVI items SI, FS, GS, and PE were associated with the higher-order value of 257 Self-Enhancement in the Personal Focus and Self-Protection Anxiety-Avoidance dimensions.

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Item SI "To have social influence" was most significantly associated with the value of AC (e.g., "It is important to him to have the power that money can bring"), and therefore, item FS 263 is conceptually similar to POR. Item GS "To graduate from a prestigious school" was also 264 most significantly associated with POR. Younger participants ascribed greater importance to 265 item GS than older participants, whereas there was no difference in the value of POR. The 266 meaning of item PE can be considered similar to that of either the items in the higher-order 267 value of Self-Enhancement (e.g., "It is important to him that people recognize what he 268 achieves") or the value of FAC (e.g., "It is important to him that no one should ever shame 269 him"). A confirmatory factor analysis (S1 Appendix) revealed that FAC cannot be included in

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The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with respect to their authorship or the 322 publication of this article.