VALUE PROFILE

Abstract

The Value Profile is a comprehensive psychometric instrument developed by Bales and Couch (1969) to measure the fundamental values that govern interpersonal relations. The scale development began with an extensive collection of 872 normative statements, derived from social scientific treatments of values and unpublished dissertations. These statements were reduced to 252 items for initial self-report administration using a 6-point agreement scale without a midpoint.

Following preliminary analyses to eliminate redundant or low-variability items, the remaining 143 statements underwent factor analytic procedures. The final instrument was designed to create four independent measures, resulting in 40 items (10 items per factor), each loading exclusively onto one dimension. This scale is recognized for its comprehensive representation of a large domain of value positions upon which individuals differ, making it a valuable tool in social psychology research.

Keywords

Value Profile, interpersonal values, Acceptance of Authority, Equalitarianism, Individualism, Need-Determined Expression, authoritarian personality, social psychology, self-report questionnaire

Authors

Robert F. Bales, Albert S. Couch

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Value Profile is to provide a comprehensive record of the core values held by individuals that guide their interactions and attitudes in social contexts. The questionnaire is specifically designed to measure the extent to which a person endorses several general social attitudes or values common within society.

The instrument was developed with the goal of identifying distinct and independent dimensions of interpersonal value commitments, allowing researchers to categorize and quantify differences in fundamental belief systems across diverse populations.

Construct

The Value Profile measures four distinct dimensions of interpersonal values, established through methodical interpretive and factor analytic procedures:

• Acceptance of Authority: This factor measures values typically associated with the authoritarian personality. High scores reflect a strong belief in the importance of obedience, respect for authority figures, patriotism, and strict discipline.

• Need-Determined Expression versus Value-Determined Restraint: This dimension captures the tension between hedonistic pursuit and moral restraint. High scores indicate an active pursuit of immediate pleasure and a belief that values should meet the needs of the moment, rather than adhering to eternal moral rules.

• Equalitarianism: Defined by the strong affirmation of social equality. This factor measures the belief that everyone should have an equal chance and an equal say, emphasizing group harmony, cooperation, and the elimination of discrimination and poverty through systemic change.

• Individualism: This final factor assesses the value placed on self-reliance, solitude, and internal reflection. High scores reflect the belief that personal superiority is achieved by “standing alone,” avoiding dependence on others, and focusing on one’s own inner life and nonconformity.

Validity

Initial evidence for the validity of the Value Profile was limited but directionally clear. In the original Bales and Couch study, the Acceptance of Authority factor demonstrated a strong loading with authoritarianism as measured by the F Scale. However, the authors noted that the implications of this finding remained somewhat unclear due to ongoing academic controversies regarding the meaning and interpretation of the F Scale itself (e.g., Ray, 1976).

Bales and Couch did not provide extensive additional data to testify to the instrument’s validity. Nevertheless, subsequent research has presented supportive evidence for the usefulness and validity of the Value Profile in differentiating value commitments, particularly in the psychology of religion (Watson & Morris, 1994).

Reliability

The original study by Bales and Couch did not report standard internal consistency (e.g., Alpha coefficients) or temporal consistency (test-retest) data. Reliability estimates must therefore be inferred primarily from the factor loadings reported during the scale construction process.

The factor loadings for the 10 items defining each scale varied across the four dimensions:

• Acceptance of Authority: Loadings ranged from 0.56 to 0.76.

• Need-Determined Expression: Loadings ranged from 0.20 to 0.62.

• Equalitarianism: Loadings ranged from 0.36 to 0.57.

• Individualism: Loadings ranged from 0.28 to 0.49.

Based on these loadings, Robinson and Shaver (1973) estimated that the average interitem correlation for Acceptance of Authority was approximately in the 0.40s, suggesting a relatively cohesive subscale. However, they estimated that the interitem correlations for the other three measures were considerably lower, presumed to be in the high teens, suggesting lower internal consistency for those factors.

Factor Analysis

The development of the Value Profile was heavily reliant on factor analytic procedures. Bales and Couch initially analyzed 143 refined items, aiming to identify broad, independent value domains. The key objective of the final instrument construction was to ensure that each item loaded exclusively on a single factor, thereby creating four conceptually and empirically distinct measures.

The resulting 40-item scale defined four factors: Acceptance of Authority, Need-Determined Expression versus Value-Determined Restraint, Equalitarianism, and Individualism. Subsequent research, particularly within the psychology of religion, has indicated that the goal of achieving four fully independent value domains may not have been perfectly realized, as some subscales have been observed to co-vary directly, suggesting some overlap in the constructs measured.

Instrument

Test Type:

Self-report questionnaire (Psychological Scale)

Format:

40 items, utilizing a 6-point Likert-style agreement scale (ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree) with no mid-point. Items are normative statements.

Language Available:

English (original version)

Population Group:

General population, initially standardized on university students and military personnel.

Age Group:

Adolescents and Adults (typically college-age and older, inferred from the original sample).

Population Details:

The standardization sample consisted of 552 individuals, including undergraduates from Harvard University, Radcliffe University, and Bennington College, along with a few faculty members, graduate students from Harvard, and officer candidates from an Air Force base.

Test Methodology:

Respondents read each general statement expressing an opinion and circle the response (1 to 7, where 4 indicated no response) that best represents their immediate reaction. Completion time is estimated to be between 25 and 40 minutes. Alternative response options (4- or 5-point scales) have been successfully used in subsequent research.

Keywords

R. F. Bales, A. S. Couch, social attitudes, value measurement, psychometrics, authoritarianism, equality, hedonism, nonconformity

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier:

Not provided in source material.

Affiliation Email addresses:

Not provided in source material.

Correspondence Address:

Not provided in source material.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year:

1969 (Date of primary publication).

Norms/Standardization:

Bales and Couch did not supply standardized norms, noting that the sample was not diverse enough for general theoretical purposes, especially given the marked cross-cultural variation in values.

Permissions/Fee:

Information regarding modern licensing or fees is not provided in the source material. The items are published in the 1969 academic paper.

Reference’s

• Bales, R. F., & Couch, A. S. (1969). The Value Profile: A factor analytic study of value statements. Sociological Inquiry, 39, 3-17.

• Ray, J. J. (1976). Do authoritarians hold authoritarian attitudes? Human Relations, 29, 307-325.

• Robinson, J. P., & Shaver, P. R. (1973). Measures of Social Psychological Attitudes (Revised ed). Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research.

• Tyson, G., Doctor, E. A., & Mentis, M. (1988). A psycholinguistic perspective on bilinguals’ discrepant questionnaire responses. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 19, 413-426.

• Watson, P. J., Folbrecht, J., Morris, R. J., & Morris, R. W., Jr. (1990). Values, “irrationality,” and religiosity. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 18, 348-362.

• Watson, P. J., & Morris, R. J. (1994). Communal orientation and individualism: Factors and correlations with values, social adjustment, and self-esteem. Journal of Psychology, 128, 289-297.

• Watson, P. J., Morris, R. J., & Hood, R. W., Jr. (1989). Sin and self-functioning, Part 5: Antireligious humanistic values, individualism, and the community. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 17, 157-172.

Items of the VALUE PROFILE

This questionnaire is designed to measure the extent to which you hold each of several general attitudes or values common in our society. On the following pages you will find a series of general statements expressing opinions of the kind you may have heard from other persons around you. After each statement, there is a set of possible responses as follows:

strongly disagree, disagree, slightly disagree, slightly agree, agree, strongly agree

You are asked to read each of the statements and then to circle the response which best represents your immediate reaction to the opinion expressed. Respond to each opinion as a whole. If you have reservations about some part of a statement, circle the response which most clearly approximates your general feeling.

Acceptance of Authority

1. Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn.
2. There is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel a great love, gratitude, and respect for his parents.
3. What youth need most is strict discipline, rugged determination, and the will to work and fight for family and country.
4. You have to respect authority and when you stop respecting authority, your situation isn’t worth much.
5. Patriotism and loyalty are the first and the most important requirements for a good citizen.
6. Young people sometimes get rebellious ideas, but as they grow up they ought to get over them and settle down.
7. A child should not be allowed to talk back to his parents, or else he will lose respect for them.
8. The facts on crime and sexual immorality show that we will have to crack down harder on young people if we are going to save our moral standards.
9. Disobeying an order is one thing you can’t excuse-if one can get away with disobedience, why can’t everybody?
10. A well-raised child is one who doesn’t have to be told twice to do something.

Need-Determined Expression vs. Value-Determined Restraint

1. l. Since there are no values which can be eternal, the only real values are those which meet the needs of the given moment.
2. Nothing is static, nothing is everlasting; at any moment one must be ready to meet the change in environment by a necessary change in one’s moral views.
3. Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
4. The solution to almost any human problem should be based on the situation at the time, not on some general moral rule.
5. Life is something to be enjoyed to the full, sensuously enjoyed with relish and enthusiasm.
6. Life is more a festival than a workshop or a school for moral discipline.
7. The past is no more, the future may never be, the present is all that we can be certain of.
8. *8. Not to attain happiness but to be worthy of it is the purpose of our existence.
9. *9. No time is better spent than that devoted to thinking about the ultimate purposes of life.
10. *10. Tenderness is more important than passion in love.

Equalitarianism

1. I. Everyone should have an equal chance and an equal say.
2. There should be equality for everyone because we are all human beings.
3. A group of equals will work a lot better than a group with a rigid hierarchy.
4. Each one should get what he needs-the things we have belong to all of us.
5. No matter what the circumstances, one should never arbitrarily tell people what they have to do.
6. It is the duty of every good citizen to correct antiminority remarks made in his presence.
7. Poverty could be almost entirely done away with if we made certain basic changes in our social and economic system.
8. There has been too much talk and not enough real action in doing away with racial discrimination.
9. In any group it is more important to keep a friendly atmosphere than to be efficient.
10. I0. In a small group there should be no real leaders-everyone should have an equal say.

Individualism

1. To be superior, a man must stand alone.
2. In life an individual should for the most part “go it alone,” assuring himself of privacy, having much time to himself, attempting to control his own life.
3. It is the man who stands alone who excites our admiration.
4. The rich internal world of ideals, of sensitive feelings, of reverie, of self-knowledge, is man’s true home.
5. One must avoid dependence upon persons or things; the center of life should be found within oneself.
6. The most rewarding object of study any man can find is his own inner life.
7. Whoever would be a man, must be a nonconformist.
8. Contemplation is the highest form of human activity.
9. The individualist is the man who is most likely to discover the best road to a new future.
10. A man can learn better by striking out boldly on his own than he can by following the advice of others.