The Schwartz Value Model

Why values sit in a circle, why some of them cannot both win, and how to read a client's ranked list against a cross-cultural baseline.

A client names freedom and security in the same breath, hears themselves do it, and apologizes for being inconsistent. They are not inconsistent. Those two sit on opposite sides of a circle that has been mapped in 82 countries, and the pull between them is the structure working exactly as it should.

That circle is Shalom Schwartz's Theory of Basic Human Values. It defines a value as a goal that reaches across situations, varies in importance from person to person, and acts as a guiding principle in someone's life. What it gives a coach is a way to read the list a client already made.

What counts as a value here

Three features of Schwartz's definition earn their place in a coaching room.

Values transcend situations. That is what separates a value from an attitude or a norm: an attitude is about one object, a value shows up at work, at home and on holiday.

Their influence is rarely conscious. Values surface when a decision has conflicting implications for two of them at once. Most of the time they run quietly underneath. This is why "what do you value?" asked cold gets you a job description, and why a card sort at a real fork in the road gets you something true.

What guides behavior is the relative importance of several values at once, never one in isolation. This is the reason a values exercise ranks rather than rates. Ten values all marked "very important" tell you nothing.

One more distinction, because it does a lot of work with clients: traits describe what a person is like; values describe what a person considers important. You can value creativity without being especially creative. A value is chosen, not measured.

The nine families on the metaFox wheel

Schwartz's own model has ten families. The tenth is Tradition, and the metaFox deck folds tradition-flavored cards into Security and Conformity, and calls Hedonism Pleasure. That is not a shortcut we are hiding: Schwartz describes the ten-way split as an arbitrary convenience and says the continuum can reasonably be cut more or less finely depending on what you need it for. Nine families is our cut.

The printed version is the "What Really Matters!" Values Cards: 80 cards in nine color-coded categories, in five languages, at metafox.eu.

Why it is a circle and not a list

Because acting on one value has consequences that fit some values and clash with others.

Pursuing achievement usually obstructs benevolence: the hours you spend proving competence are hours you did not spend on the people close to you. Pursuing achievement reinforces power, because both are about standing. Pursuing novelty undermines custom. None of that is a moral claim. It is what the actions themselves do.

So the geometry means something. Closeness on the circle is similarity of motivation; distance is antagonism. The bridges between neighbors are worth naming out loud in a session, because they explain the shape of someone's list:

• Power and Achievement both rest on social superiority and esteem.
• Stimulation and Self-Direction both rest on an intrinsic interest in novelty and mastery.
• Conformity and Tradition both rest on putting the self below what is socially expected.

And the line that relieves most clients: people absolutely can pursue competing values. Just not in the same act. They do it through different acts, at different times, in different settings.

A second way to read the same circle

Two cuts across the wheel that almost nobody writes about, and both are useful in session.

Personal focus against social focus. Power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation and self-direction regulate personal interests. Benevolence, universalism, tradition, conformity and security regulate how someone relates to others. Security and universalism straddle both.

Self-protective against growth. Conformity, tradition, security and power are ways of coping with anxiety. Hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism and benevolence are anxiety-free growth values. Achievement does both jobs.

That second cut changes a conversation. A top three heavy in Conservation reads very differently as "this person is protecting something" than as "this person is conservative". So ask what is being protected.

Reading a result against the baseline

Across societies the average ranking is remarkably consistent: benevolence, universalism and self-direction near the top, power and stimulation near the bottom. That gives you a reference point, and it is the most under-used thing in the model.

A top three full of benevolence and universalism is close to the human average: interesting, but not yet distinctive. Power ranked first, or benevolence ranked last, is distinctive and worth a question. Schwartz's explanation for the baseline is adaptive rather than moral: societies suppress the values that make group life harder. It is not a scoreboard of good people.

What the model does not tell you

The circle describes how value labels relate to each other on average, across a great many people. It says nothing at all about what this client means by "freedom". That is why a good values exercise makes someone restate each value in their own words, and it is why the companion guide on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy exists.

Adjacent values overlap and share items. That is a consequence of the continuum, not sloppy work. Schwartz's own 2012 refinement into 19 finer values exists partly to handle it. That refinement was tested largely on well-educated respondents in higher-income countries, and its improved prediction was shown for attitudes and beliefs rather than for behavior.

It is also not the only theory in the field. Gouveia and colleagues propose a rival functional theory of human values, and Schwartz has replied in print. Both are below.

And the important one: the 82 countries validate the structure, not your client's result. A card sort is a conversation, not a psychometric score. Say that to the client before they treat their own list as a verdict.

Where this shows up in metaFox

5 min

• Values Discovery: your client picks from the same 80 cards on their own, puts the values in their own words and ranks them. The report places the list on the nine-family wheel and names up to three possible value conflicts across the circle: Values Discovery.
• The Values Cards (cc-VAL): 80 printed cards in the nine categories, with the Values Wheel and Values Grid for laying them out: metafox.eu.
• The Values Compass (cs-VAL): a laminated A4 chart in EN and DE, organized by the four higher-order dimensions, with an "Is this my value?" description and related skills for each value: metafox.eu.
• In the app, the values cards run on the whiteboard through the Word Cards tool. See the Values Cards guide.

Further reading

• Schwartz, S. H. (2012). An Overview of the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture. Open access, and the source for most of this page.
• Schwartz, S. H., et al. (2012). Refining the Theory of Basic Individual Values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The same circle, cut into nineteen.
• Schwartz, S. H., & Bardi, A. (2001). Value Hierarchies Across Cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. Where the pan-cultural baseline comes from.
• Gouveia, V. V., Milfont, T. L., & Guerra, V. M. (2014). Functional theory of human values. Personality and Individual Differences. A rival account, with Schwartz's reply.
• The companion guide on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: where the idea of a value as a direction rather than a destination comes from.