THE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF APPROACHES TO EVALUATION OF VALUE-BASED ORIENTATIONS FOR SOCIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN THE FIELD OF CORRUPTION

The topicality of the research is stipulated by the growing necessity to investigate the degree of corruption perception in societies capable to reveal the motives, cultural and socialpsychological tendencies to corruption offences to develop a set of measures aimed at eliminating social and cultural reasons of the corruption. The current paper suggests applying methods of personal and societal value-based orientations estimation as such investigations. The paper is aimed at analysis comparing four most known and successful techniques on value-based orientations estimation (Schwartz value survey, Rokeach value survey, the Diagnostics of person value orientations structure by S.Bubnova, and the World assumptions scale by R. Janoff-Bulman adapted by O.Kravtsova) in the context of its applicability to determine the degree of the corruption perception. The paper shows advantages and disadvantages of the analyzed methods for the corruption perception researches. It was determined that for the use in corruption perception researches, some of the considered methods require the inclusion of additional issues on corruption component. The authors propose the formulation of such issues by Schwartz survey and adapted Janoff-Bulman scale. The results of the research represent the evaluation of each of the considered techniques from 1 to 4 points scale by the following criteria: survey scale, complexity of survey, complexity of analysis and interpretation of results, complexity of corruption perception issues integration.

Do personal values explain variation in satisficing measures of risk?

PurposeThe role of personal value systems as antecedents to risk has been largely ignored. Following Gigerenzer's view of ecological rationality, the authors argue an individual's personal value system serves as concrete motivations that guide risky choices and facilitate adaptation to one's environment.Design/methodology/approachThe authors elicit risk attitudes using a satisficing-based risk elicitation method that exploits the idea of worst-case aspiration or minimum portfolio returns given a portfolio comprising a safe and risky prospect. The elicited worst-case aspiration allows for more descriptive and natural ways of characterizing attitudes to risk (i.e. satisficing measures of risk). Using the Schwartz Value Survey, the authors assess the relative importance individuals place on value systems, such as personal focus versus social focus. The authors argue that preference to value systems has linkages with the worst-case aspiration setting emphasized in the satisficing task.FindingsThis study’s findings suggest that individuals who are willing to give up higher potential returns to protect their downside risk (by setting higher worst-case aspiration) are positively associated with personal focus—concern about own outcomes than social focus—concern about the outcomes for others or established institutions.Research limitations/implicationsCurrently, the study’s setting is in the domain of financial decision-making. Going forward, milestones could be set for studying risky real-world choices by simply changing the risk measure in different contexts, such as job choices, education, health and social interactions.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the discussion on the psychometric structure of risk. Prescriptive benefits of satisficing as a positive heuristic, which is interpreted as setting achievable goals or aspiration levels, are extensive and recognized in various industries ranging from agriculture, airlines, insurance to financial advising. More recently, cognitive processes, such as emotions and personal value systems, are recognized as a type of social cognition that subserve heuristic functions that can guide behavior quickly and accurately.

Soft skills in young people in regions

This article is devoted to the problem of studying soft skills in young people in regions. For this study, the authors subdivide soft skills into four categories: behavioural group, values-related group, group of needs and motives and emotional group. The empirical research, conducted in 2020 in Chelyabinsk (Russia), involved 371 young people from the Chelyabinsk region aged 17 to 30 years and older. To assess the development level of the identified groups of soft skills, the authors created a questionnaire, applied Schwartz Value Survey and used the Mann-Whitney U test for the quantitative comparison of two groups and the Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance for the quantitative comparison of three or more groups. The results of empirical research showed that the soft skills of the behavioural group and the group of needs and motives are more developed. Most of the respondents noted that they had developed communicative skills, stable behaviour, the ability for self-development and self-improvement. The authors also note that the development of soft skills increases with age among the respondents older than 30 years old.

Explorations in Reported Moral Behaviors, Values, and Moral Emotions in Four Countries

University students (n = 758) from Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, and Portugal were given a list of morally relevant behaviors (MRB), the Schwartz Value Survey (PVQ40) and Tangney’s TOSCA, measuring empathic guilt, guilt over norm-breaking, and shame. A factor analysis of MRB yielded 4 dimensions: prosocial behaviors, interpersonal transgressions, antisocial behaviors and secret transgressions. Prosocial behaviors were predicted by self-transcendence–self-enhancement (SET) value contrast only while the three transgression categories were associated with both SET and openness to change–conservation (hedonism–conformity) contrast. Norm-breaking guilt was more strongly associated with behaviors than were empathic guilt and shame. However, shame was (positively) associated with secret transgressions in three countries, after controlling for values. The associations were strongest in Bulgaria and Estonia while fewer associations were found in Finland and Portugal. The implications of the findings for the cross-cultural psychology of morality are discussed.

Reinventing the Universal Structure of Human Values: Development of a New Holistic Values Scale to Measure Indian Values

This article investigates the universal values scale, Schwartz Value Survey (SVS) for its applicability to measure cultural context-specific values. The study establishes a need to construct a new scale by identifying and incorporating Indian culture-specific values in SVS. Deriving data using self-assessment questionnaires from 709 respondents in 2 studies and analysing them using principal component analysis and structural equation modelling, the article reconceptualizes Schwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ) and the 10 motivational value factors and develops a new 76-item Holistic Values Scale (HVS) to measure Indian values using well-established scale development methods. The article further presents the research and policy implications and future research areas in this domain.

Value and activity-based orientations of university students: The choice between safety and innovativeness

Introduction. The study addresses the issues of value and activity-based orientations in order to understand and explore personal and professional development processes in in the current higher education context with the main focus on innovativeness. The study aims to reveal the specifics of the relationship between value and activity-based orientations of university students in terms of their choice between safety and innovativeness. Materials and Methods. The research methodology involves questionnaires grouped according to three research vectors: 1) university students’ cultural value orientations (R. Inglehart’s Survey) and individual value preferences (Schwartz Value Survey); 2) activity-based orientations (psychological characteristics of activity) were evaluated using the authors’ scale of personal readiness for activity based on E. Y. Mandrikova, D. A. Leontiev and E. N. Osin, E. Diener’s questionnaires; c) to evaluate university students’ innovative orientations, N. M. Lebedeva and A. N. Tatarko’s technique was applied. The study was conducted in Tomsk universities and involved 260 students. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and regression analysis. Results. The factor and regression analyses revealed that choosing the ‘innovativeness vector’ by university students in the context of their personal and professional development is determined by personal qualities associated with innovativeness: creativity, risk for success and orientation to the future. Choosing the ‘safety vector’ is more inherent in modern university students and is determined by the degree of their adherence to traditional values and by their personal readiness for activity, the core of which is purposefulness and consistency in achieving the life goals. Conclusions. The results obtained indicate the necessity for developing appropriate programmes of psychological support for university students in their personal and professional development processes in order to involve them in research, innovative and entrepreneurial activities.

Basic values of Russian and foreign students (comparative aspect)

The article deals with the comparison of the basic values of modern students (Russian and foreign). The authors examine and compare basic values held by modern students (Russian and foreign). The study is based on the typology of basic values of Russians (research project "Tomskaya initsiativa", 2001) and the list of values from the S. Schwartz Value Survey. The respondents are asked to choose 10 key values out of 40 basic values and assess them using the S. Schwartz scale. The surveys performed by the authors at the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute and Moscow Automobile and Road Construction State Technical University are used as the materials for the study.

Kabiru’s Value Survey: A New Optimized Method of Values Measurement

Qualitative and quantitative values estimation is a crucial aspect of social data science and plays a vital role in social and psychological research. Numerous methods of personal values measurement such as Schwartz Value Survey (SVS) and its re-modified versions have been proposed and invented, but many are challenged with one or more limitations. In this article, an alternative approach in a new paradigm of values measurement called Kabiru’s Value Survey (KVS) was proposed to measure the relative degree of importance or significance attached to particular value-actions of an individual(s) in a given population over a period. The methodological innovations in KVS unlike other existing methods of human value measurement include the use of habitually reported practices associated with a particular value-action in place of judging the series of Schwartz hypothetical statements, the use of multiple dependent variables rather than a single coded hypothetical statement. In terms of data analysis, a new approach of multivariate compression is introduced which merges the chain of multiple dependent variables into one coded scale. Psychometric result interpretation is also another innovative aspect of KVS methodology. Finally, the proposed methodology however solved some of the criticized limitations of the other methods of human value measurement.

COMMUNICATING EUROPEAN VALUES THROUGH CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY: CASE OF ERASMUS+ JEAN MONNET MODULE "EUROPEAN VALUES IN LITERARY ARTS"

The article is prepared based on the results of the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Module «European Values in Literary Arts» (599918-ЕРР-1-2018-1-UA-EPPJMO-MODULE EUVOLIA). The study explores the impact of the course «European Values in Literary Arts» (EUVOLIA) on its target audience (Bachelor and Master students majoring in Humanities, Natural and Exact sciences) in terms of raising awareness of European values. The relevance of the study is determined, on the one hand, by the necessity to articulate сorrectly the European values dimension in the HEI curricula, and, on the other hand, by the lack of a methodological basis for a value-based approach in the teaching of the Humanities. While Ukrainian students’ perception of European values is fragmented due to controversial social and political contexts (i.e., conflicting attitudes to Ukraine’s European integration and growing disillusionment in EU institutions’ functionality), a critical media literacy toolkit developed by EUVOLIA can significantly increase their sensitivity to values-related issues and deepen their understanding of European values as an integral axiological construct. The impact of the EUVOLIA course, which was presented in Zaporizhzhya National University during 2018–2020 for five mixed groups of students (126 students in total), was measured with the help of formalized questionnaires and surveys. The target audience’s portrait of values was created according to the Schwartz Value Survey on the research of value orientations. The results showed that the methodological toolkit used in the EUVOLIA project not only increases students’ awareness of European values but also contributed to the development of critical perceptions of cultural products and materials of mass media, overcoming the phenomenon of «double-think» and strengthening the sense of belonging to the European cultural paradigm.

Neural responses reveal associations between personal values and value-based decisions

Personal values are thought to modulate value-based decisions, but the neural mechanisms underlying this influence remain unclear. Using a Lottery Choice Task functional brain imaging experiment, we examined the associations between personal value for hedonism and security (based on the Schwartz Value Survey) and subjective neurocognitive processing of reward and loss probability and magnitude objectively coded in stimuli. Hedonistic individuals accepted more losing stakes and showed increased right dorsolateral prefrontal and striatal and left parietal responses with increasing probability of losing. Individuals prioritizing security rejected more stakes and showed reduced right inferior frontal and amygdala responses with increasing stake magnitude, but increased precuneus responses for high-magnitude high-winning probability. With higher hedonism, task-related functional connectivity with the whole brain was higher in right insula and lower in bilateral habenula. For those with higher security ratings, whole-brain functional connectivity was higher in bilateral insula, supplementary motor areas, right superior frontal gyrus, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and lower in right middle occipital gyrus. These findings highlight distinct neural engagement across brain systems involved in reward and affective processing, and cognitive control that subserves how individual differences in personal value for gaining rewards or maintaining status quo modulate value-based decisions