The 56 most influential global values

Story attributed to Visual Capitalist.

Our basic values can inform ideals, interests, political preferences, environmental views, and even career choices.

With sweeping data covering half a million surveys in 152 languages, Valuegraphics identifies 56 values that influence human behavior. It uncovers what people care most about around the world, through a contextualized dataset.

No.	Value	No.	Value	No.	Value
1	Family	2	Relationships	3	Financial Security
4	Belonging	5	Community	6	Personal Growth
7	Loyalty	8	Religion/Spirituality	9	Employment Security
10	Personal Responsibility	11	Basic Needs	12	Harmony
13	Health/Well-Being	14	Experiences	15	Respect
16	Compassion	17	Social Standing	18	Creativity & Imagination
19	Trustworthiness/Honesty	20	Security	21	Education
22	Tradition	23	Balance	24	Love
25	Material Possessions	26	Patience	27	Morality
28	Righteousness	29	Friendships	30	Authority
31	Positive Environments	32	Happiness	33	Ambition
34	Self-Control	35	Self-Expression	36	Environmentalism
37	Independence	38	Wealth	39	Politeness
40	Generosity	41	Equality	42	Service to Others
43	Dependability	44	Courage	45	Cooperation
46	Tolerance	47	Leisure	48	Influence
49	Intimacy	50	Political Freedom	51	Peace
52	Money	53	Unselfishness	54	Confidence
55	Freedom of Speech	56	Determination

Individual motivations and values are universally organized. That said, research shows that the hierarchy of these values varies significantly.

While it may not be surprising that family emerges as the most important value globally, it’s interesting to note that a number of other ‘connectedness’ values—such as relationships and belonging—emerged in the top 10.

Values of loyalty, and religion/spirituality ranked #6, and #7, respectively.

At the same time, security-related values, including financial and employment security, score highly around the world.

From a business and leadership context, values are interesting in that they can guide how people and consumers make their decisions. As people interact with the world, different experiences can ‘engage’ their most closely-held values.

If you can understand what your target audience cares about, what they spend their lives chasing, now you have an actual chance to use data to understand how to engage and influence and motivate them.
~David Allison, Founder of Valuegraphics

Windows of Insight

Across nine regions, the value of social standing stood at #17, while environmentalism came in at #36. Interestingly, both values of wealth (#38) and money (#52) ranked lower on the spectrum.

Meanwhile, respect (#15) and compassion (#16) values fell closer to the top.

While many similarities exist across cultures, a number of fascinating differences emerge.

Take morality, for example. Across all regions, it illustrated some of the widest variance—it was the second-most important value in the Middle East, whereas it came in near the bottom in Central and South America. Another notable outlier surrounds the value of patience. The African region placed the value within its top five. By contrast, it ranked globally about mid-way (#26) through the list.

Another fascinating discovery is how both North America and the Middle East ranked the value of authority—both ranked it equally (#17), significantly higher than the global average of #30. Meanwhile, the value of tradition saw the highest ranking in Central & South America, but the lowest in Europe.

As the world becomes increasingly complex, understanding how values impact our attitudes and behaviors can help us deepen our understanding across several avenues of life. Consumer research, marketing, leadership, psychology, and many other disciplines all fall within the broad spectrum of the influence of what humans value.

References

The Valuegraphics Database

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