Values
A 21-item assessment measuring your personal values across 10 dimensions defined by Schwartz: Self-direction, Power, Universalism, Achievement, Security, Stimulation, Conformity, Tradition, Hedonism, and Benevolence.
Each statement briefly describes someone. For each, rate how much that person is or isn't like you. There are no right or wrong answers - answer based on what genuinely matters to you.
Personal values are the broad, enduring goals that guide how you judge what matters and what you strive for across situations. The theory developed by Shalom Schwartz identifies ten basic values that recur across cultures and organizes them by the motivations behind them. This test measures where each of those ten values sits in your own priority structure.
This 21-item version asks you to rate how much short descriptions of a person resemble you, and takes about 6 minutes. Because values are about relative priority - what you put first when goals compete - your results are most informative as a ranking: which values lead for you and which you are willing to trade off. There are no better or worse value profiles, only different ones.
Schwartz showed that the ten values are not an arbitrary list but form a circle, or circumplex, defined by motivation. Values that share a motivational basis sit next to each other and tend to rise and fall together, while values driven by opposing motivations sit across the circle and tend to conflict. Pursuing self-direction and stimulation (openness to change) pulls against conformity, tradition, and security (conservation); pursuing achievement and power (self-enhancement) pulls against universalism and benevolence (self-transcendence).
This is why your profile is best read as a pattern of trade-offs rather than ten independent scores. Most people endorse benevolence and self-direction highly and power less so, so what distinguishes your profile is the relative emphasis among values and where your priorities fall on these two underlying tensions.
The Schwartz value theory is one of the most extensively validated frameworks in cross-cultural psychology. The ten-value structure and its circular motivational order have been recovered in samples from dozens of countries, which is what lets the same value map be applied across very different populations. A refined version later subdivided the circle into more fine-grained values while preserving the same continuum of compatible and conflicting motivations.
Values measured this way predict attitudes and behavior in coherent ways - political and environmental attitudes, prosocial behavior, consumer and occupational choices - and the predictions follow the structure of the circle, with adjacent values relating similarly and opposing values relating in opposite directions. Two caveats are worth keeping in mind. Values describe broad guiding priorities, not specific actions, so they shape behavior probabilistically rather than dictating it. And a brief survey estimates your relative priorities; it does not diagnose anything or judge your character, and is intended for reflection and self-understanding.
Read more about our standards: How our tests are built and validated.
Yes. Taking the 21-item test is free, with no account required to start, and your free result shows your strongest of the ten values and its band, while the other values are named and covered in the report. The full report, free with an account, interprets your full value profile and the motivational trade-offs within it.
They are Self-Direction, Stimulation, Hedonism, Achievement, Power, Security, Conformity, Tradition, Benevolence, and Universalism. Schwartz arranged them in a circle so that neighboring values are motivationally compatible and values on opposite sides tend to conflict, which is why your results emphasize relative priority rather than ten separate scores.
No. Every value in the model reflects a legitimate human motivation, and no profile is healthier or more mature than another. The test describes what you prioritize, not whether your priorities are correct. Its purpose is self-understanding, not evaluation.
A personality test like the Big Five or HEXACO describes how you typically behave; a values test describes what you consider important and strive toward. The two relate but are not the same - you can value something you do not always act on. Used together, traits and values give a fuller picture of a person.
Core values are fairly stable in adulthood, but they are not fixed. They can shift gradually with age, major life transitions, or significant experiences, and the relative emphasis among them tends to move more than the rank order. Retaking the survey after a meaningful life change can reveal those shifts.
A short survey gives a dependable read on the broad shape of your value priorities and the motivational tensions in your profile, which is what the theory is designed to capture. Longer instruments resolve finer distinctions among closely related values, but the overall pattern - which values lead and which they trade off against - is well estimated here.
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