INDIVIDUAL VALUE CHOICES: HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE VERSUS AMBIVALENCE AND INDIFFERENCE William G. Jacoby Michigan State University David J. Ciuk Franklin and Marshall College January 2015 We would like to thank Cheryl Boudreau, Kim Hill, Jeffrey Koch, David Peterson, Paul Quirk, George Rabinowitz, James Rogers, Saundra Schneider, Laura Stoker, and the members of the Spring 2009 New York Area Political Psychology Seminar for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.
ABSTRACT Longstanding psychological theories have stressed that individual value preferences are very stable and arranged into clear preference orders. But, some recent research suggests that value choices may not be structured in a fully hierarchical manner for many people, due to ambivalence or indifference. In order to address the important issues raised by these potentially conflicting perspectives, this paper lays out an explicit model of individual value choice. Some unique data obtained from an internet survey are used to test predictions derived from this model. The empirical results show that most people do make consistent pairwise choices among values. Furthermore, most individuals sets of pairwise choices are fully transitive, meaning that they can be assembled into hierarchical structures. Those inconsistencies and intransitivities which do occur in the data appear to be due more to measurement error and indifference, rather than widespread ambivalence.
Political scientists have long believed that values comprise a fundamental element of public opinion. Despite their acknowledged theoretical importance, however, there is little scholarly consensus about the ways that ordinary people actually think about basic values. On the one hand, longstanding psychological theories have stressed that individual value preferences are very stable and highly structured. On the other hand, recent research suggests a quite different interpretation: The potential for value ambivalence and indifference raises questions about citizens abilities to differentiate among values in the first place. That, in turn, would limit the degree to which people can organize their value choices into the orderly arrangements that provide the basis for modern theories of human values. The existing empirical evidence is indeterminate. Therefore, it is not clear which of these two general perspectives provides the most accurate representation of core values. This paper develops an explicit model of the processes through which individuals choose between different values, and combine their choices into overall value structures. This model is advantageous because it generates hypotheses that can be used to test for the existence of ambivalence and indifference in people s feelings about values. Building upon this theoretical foundation, data for the empirical analysis are obtained from some unique items included on an internet survey. The results show that people do tend to make consistent pairwise choices among values, suggesting that the the latter represent meaningful judgments about the relative importance of different values. Furthermore, most individuals value choices are fully transitive, meaning that the pairwise choices can be assembled into rank-ordered structures. Finally, the inconsistencies and intransitivities which do occur in the data appear to be due more to measurement error and indifference, rather than to ambivalence. BACKGROUND For present purposes, values can be defined as an individual s abstract, general conceptions about the desirable and undesirable end-states of human life (Rokeach 1973). As such,
values provide criteria for evaluating external stimuli and interacting with other elements of the social environment. They effectively define what is good and bad in the world. Human values have been the focus of an enormous amount of research across a variety of disciplines, including political science (Kinder 1983; Kuklinski 2001; Feldman 2003), sociology (Hitlin and Piliavin 2004), economics (Katona 1975), marketing (Kamakura and Mazzon 1991), and philosophy (Hansson 2001). However, the modern, empirical study of values really began in psychology, particularly with the pioneering work of Milton Rokeach (1973; 1979). Subsequent research has proceeded in a wide variety of directions (Seligman, Olson, Zanna 1996). But, there is one general idea drawn from this research tradition that deserves particular emphasis: People are rarely affected by single values, in isolation from other values (Sniderman, Fletcher, Russell, Tetlock 1996; Davis and Silver 2004). Instead, rank-ordered value structures are the key to understanding human behavior (e.g., Schwartz and Bilsky 1987; Schwartz 1992; 1996; Verplanken and Holland 2002). There is a clear consensus in the psychological literature regarding the hierarchically structured nature of individuals value choices. However, recent research particularly, in political science has taken very different, and potentially conflicting, positions with respect to the characteristics of human values. For example, theories of value ambivalence (Feldman and Zaller 1992; Alvarez and Brehm 2003) hold that some individuals experience conflicting feelings about personally salient, but substantively contradictory, core principles. Alternatively, some people may experience value indifference, meaning that they either fail to recognize, or simply do not care about, substantive contradictions between various fundamental ideas (Maio and Olson 1998; Bernard, Maio, Olson 2003; Goren 2006). Although the underlying psychological processes are different, both ambivalence and indifference imply that those affected by these feelings would have trouble making or expressing reliable and consistent choices between values in the first place. Ambivalent choosers would experience difficulty selecting one value over another because they believe both values are 2
important. Indifferent choosers do not care about the two values under consideration so they exercise the mental equivalent of flipping a coin to determine their selection. I assume that an individual s value structure is constructed by aggregating his or her choices across the separate values. If ambivalence or indifference have a detrimental impact on the constituent value choices, then they also necessarily compromise the validity of the resultant value structures. In order to see the effects of ambivalence and indifference, it is useful to lay out an explicit theory of value choices. A Model of Value Choice Let us begin with a set of p values under consideration, designated V al 1, V al 2,... V al p. For any individual, each value has some level of subjective utility, or degree of personal importance. For value i, this would be shown as U(V al i ). 1 Note that this utility is assumed to be a global parameter (for any given individual) which is not dependent upon the particular context within which the value is invoked. This assumption follows from the theoretical position that values are nonspecific beliefs that... transcend specific situations (Schwartz and Bilsky 1987, p. 551). The transsituational nature of human values is a central characteristic that differentiates this concept from other psychological orientations and decision-making heuristics (Schwartz 1996; Jacoby 2002). Feelings about personal value importance represent internal states that are not directly observable. So, there will be a certain amount of measurement error associated with estimates of each value s degree of utility. This error is designated as e i for value i. It could represent an individual s lack of self-awareness or uncertainty about his or her own feelings. Or, it may represent mistakes that arise in the process of recording empirically a person s feelings about a particular value. In either case, the error is conceptualized as a random disturbance, with an expected value of zero. Measurement error will be present in any manifestation of feelings about a given value. For example, if a person is asked to state the importance of value i, then his or her response 3
will reflect both the utility of, and the error associated with, that value. This can be shown as U(V al i ) + e i. Empirically, it is impossible to separate the expression into its two constituent elements. For a given individual, the choice between any two values (say, i and j) is determined by comparing his or her feelings of importance about (or utility for) the two values. The actual choice would be generated as follows: V al i : U(V al i ) + e i > U(V al j ) + e j Choice(V al i, V al j ) = (1) V al j : U(V al i ) + e i < U(V al j ) + e j From expression (1), it is easy to see how the error associated with the two values can lead to an expressed choice that is inconsistent with a person s true relative utilities for those values. For example, if U(V al i ) > U(V al j ), but either e j is a sufficiently large positive value or e j is a sufficiently small negative value, then the sum of the utilities and the errors would lead to a choice that contradicts the comparison of the utilities, alone. One strategy for dealing with the error is to have the individual repeat the choice several (say, m) times, producing Choice(V al i, V al j ) 1, Choice(V al i, V al j ) 2,..., Choice(V al i, V al j ) m. We assume that the utility for each value is constant across the replications, but that the errors are random draws from their respective distributions. The dominant pairwise choice for that person would be obtained by summing across the m replications: V al i : mu(v al i ) + m ei > mu(v al j ) + m ej Choice(V al i, V al j ) Dom = V al j : mu(v al i ) + m ei < mu(v al j ) + m (2) ej Since the errors are random, the specific realizations of the error terms should tend to cancel out across replications. Therefore, each summed error in expression (2) should tend to be closer to the expected value of the error (that is, zero) than would any single error term. With replicated pairwise choices, the outcome is dominated by the summed utilities rather than the errors. Hence, an individual s dominant empirical choice between values i and j 4
should tend to be consistent with his or her relative utilities across those values, even if some of the specific replications produce choices that are inconsistent. Now, if a person has crystallized feelings regarding the p values under consideration, then two conditions should be met: First, the utility differences across separate values should be sufficiently large to distinguish between them. In other words, that individual recognizes which values are more important and which values are less important to him- or herself. Second, the absolute values of the various error terms should be small, since the person is quite sure about his or her feelings. And, the net result is that replicated choices for a pair of values Choice(V al i, V al j ) 1,Choice(V al i, V al j ) 2,..., Choice(V al i, V al j ) m should be consistent with each other, as well as with the underlying relative utilities. Stated differently, an individual who is certain about his or her personal value orientations should tend to make the same choice every time they are confronted with a specific pair of values. The situation is very different when either ambivalence or indifference is present. Again, ambivalence exists when a person cannot choose between two alternatives because he or she considers both of the alternatives to be very important. Therefore, if an individual is ambivalent about values i and j, then U(V al i ) = U(V al j ) and the level of utility is high (i.e., the specific quantification of U( ) is large). In contrast, indifference exists when a person cares so little about the alternatives that he or she cannot make a clear choice between them. If a person is indifferent about values i and j, then it is still the case that U(V al i ) = U(V al j ). Now, however, the level of utility is low (i.e., the specific quantification of U( ) is small). The impact of ambivalence or indifference on an empirical value choice can be seen very easily if we rearrange expression (1) as follows: V al i : U(V al i ) U(V al j ) > e j e i Choice(V al i, V al j ) = (3) V al j : U(V al i ) U(V al j ) < e j e i 5
Under ambivalence or indifference, the arithmetic differences between the utilities that appear on the left-hand side of the inequalities in expression (3) are all equal to zero. Therefore, the empirical choice between values i and j is determined completely by the error or, more specifically, the differences in the errors associated with each of the two values. Replicating the pairwise choice does not change the situation, because the individual s utilities are constant. Therefore, the utility difference for the two values is zero on each separate replication. But, the errors are random draws so their values will vary across the replications. Sometimes, the specific manifestation of e i will be larger than the manifestation of e j, so the person will choose value i over value j. Other times, the randomly-drawn e i will be less than the corresponding e j, leading to a choice of value j over value i. The net result is that both ambivalence and indifference will generate inconsistencies across separate pairwise value choices. Thus, inconsistent value choices could be an empirical manifestation of ambivalence or indifference with respect to the values under consideration. A Model of Value Structure Again, the traditional theoretical position maintains that individuals possess ordered value structures, in the sense that each person can rank the separate values according to their degree of subjective importance. With p values, each individual would array them as follows: V al 1 > V al 2 >... > V al p 1 > V al p Where V al 1 is the value that the person considers most important, V al 2 is the second-most important value, and so on, down to V al p which the individual considers to be the least important value out of the set under consideration. Once again, it is useful to consider an explicit theory about the process that generates this rank-ordering for an individual. We will assume that a person s value structure is constructed from his or her dominant pairwise value choices. In order to produce a fully-ordered hierarchy, the pairwise choices within every possible subset of three values must be transitive. The property of transitivity 6
means that there is a sort of cumulation across separate choices within a triad such that, given any two choices, the third choice is known. For example, assume that value i is chosen over value j, and that value j is chosen over value k. Transitivity occurs when i is also chosen over k. In contrast, the choices would be intransitive if (given the first two choices) k were chosen over i. In order to see why transitivity is required for the ordering, let us assign a score to each value, corresponding to the number of times that value is chosen over any other value. Assume that a person s choices among values i, j, and k are transitive, as laid out above. In this case, value i receives a score of 2 because it is chosen over two other values (j and k), value j receives a score of 1 because it is only chosen over one other value (that is, k), and value k is scored zero because it is not chosen over any other values. Thus, the three values can be fully ordered, or arranged hierarchically, according to their scores (Peffley, Knigge, Hurwitz 2001). Now, let us assume that the choices among values i, j, and k are intransitive, with i chosen over j, j chosen over k, and k chosen over i). In this case, i receives a score of 1, because it is chosen over j. Value j also receives a score of 1, because it is chosen over k. And, value k receives a score of 1 as well, because it is chosen over i. Hence, all three values receive the same score because each one is only chosen over one other value. As a result, the values cannot be ordered according to their scores. The idea of rank scores can be generalized across the full set of values. In other words, each value can be assigned a score ranging from zero to p 1, corresponding to the number of times that value is chosen over any of the other values. If an individual s choices are transitive in all distinct triads of values drawn from a set of p values, then each of those p values will be assigned a different rank score from the other p 1 values. If any subsets of three pairwise choices are intransitive, then the values within that triad will be assigned the same rank score; of course, this means that it is impossible to construct a full preference 7
ordering across the entire set of p values. In this manner, transitivity across pairwise value choices can be used as a strong test for the existence of hierarchical value structures If the traditional theoretical perspective is, in fact, a valid representation of human value choices, then the most likely sources of intransitivity lie in the errors that are inevitably involved in the expression of those choices. 2 The randomly-drawn error component on any particular pairwise choice could contradict the choices made on two other value pairs, thereby generating an intransitivity. So, for example, assume that an individual possesses an array of ordered utilities across three values, such that: U(V al i ) > U(V al j ) > U(V al k ) And, further assume that the person chooses V al i over V al j, and V al j over V al k. Finally, assume that the errors associated with the choice between V al i and V al k are such that: U(V al i ) U(V al k ) < e k e i As shown back in equation (3), the preceding configuration of utilities and errors would cause the individual to choose value k over value i, thereby generating an intransitivity within the triad composed of values i, j, and k. It is impossible to remove the error associated with any particular pairwise value choice. However, the net impact of the error should be minimized with the dominant pairwise choices, since the aggregated random noise should tend toward zero across the replications that go into each dominant choice. Still, the pervasive existence of measurement error probably means that this effect will never be eliminated entirely even if people possess starkly different utilities for the respective values. But, intransitivities should be particularly likely to occur in the presence of ambivalence or indifference. As explained earlier, either of these two conditions implies that the utilities across the affected values are equal, and the difference between them is zero. As a result, the individual pairwise choices and the dominant choice across the two values will both be 8
determined entirely by the error. The latter is determined by random draws from the relevant probability distributions, and there is no reason to predict transitivity in the resultant choices. Thus, another effect of ambivalence and indifference is a greater likelihood of intransitivity and the attendant inability to combine pairwise choices into fully-articulated, hierarchical, value structures. This, in turn, poses serious challenges for traditional psychological theories which hold that such value structures are a universal component of human behavior (Rokeach 1973; Schwarz and Bilsky 1987). Therefore, it is critically important to determine whether the recent challenges based upon ambivalence and indifference have merit, or whether the traditional theoretical understanding provides the more accurate depiction of individual value orientations. Previous Research The existing empirical evidence is ambiguous and largely indeterminate. First, and perhaps most fundamentally, the very existence of orderly value structures has never been rigorously tested (Hitlin and Piliavin 2004; Goren n.d.). Some studies simply focus on single values, taken separately from other values (e.g., Feldman 1988). In other cases, researchers ask subjects to rank-order a set of values (e.g., Rokeach 1973; Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach, Grube 1984). Both of these approaches bypass any direct assessment of consistency or transitivity in value choices. The one line of work that does attempt to construct preference orders from pairwise value choices (Jacoby 2002; 2006) is based upon a very limited dataset which precludes evaluation of the measurement error that undoubtedly exists in expressed statements of choices between values (Miethe 1985; McCarty and Shrum 2000). A second, and closely related, set of studies raises questions about the effectiveness of asking people to make explicit choices between values (Alwin and Krosnick 1985; Miller, Wynn, Ulrich, Marti 2001). This work points to both the practical difficulties involved in having subjects rank-order sets of values and the validity of the resultant distinctions between values (e.g., Schwartz 1994; Maio, Roese, Seligman, Katz 1996). Instead, these 9
analysts suggest that ratings of separate values provide superior measurement of individual value orientations. Third, most studies of ambivalence never directly test individual willingness or ability to make choices between specific values. Instead, they examine indirect evidence based upon the supposed consequences of value ambivalence. For example, Feldman and Zaller (1992) infer that self-professed liberals are more ambivalent than conservatives through the terms that they use to justify their own expressed opinions. Alvarez and Brehm (2002) argue that value ambivalence should induce heteroscedasticity in models of attitude formation, since ambivalent individuals should experience more difficulty in translating their value orientation into specific opinions toward stimulus objects like political issues. Finally, several lines of research have produced results which may call into question the widespread existence of stable value choices. For example, Maio and Olson (1998) argue that many people regard values as truism, or general beliefs that have very little in the way of cognitive underpinnings (also see Bernard et al. 2003). Accordingly, it is fairly easy to get people to change their expressed value preferences, thereby generating inconsistent choices (also see Goren, Federico, Kittilson 2006; 2009). In a similar vein, several issue framing studies indicate that varied presentations of a political controversy can affect support for different values in ways that lead to opinion change (e.g., Nelson et al. 1997; Grant and Rudolph 2003). More generally, priming specific values may increase the degree to which individuals choose those values over others (Seligman and Katz 1996). But, there is also opposing evidence: Nelson et al. (1997, p. 56) report that preference orders across multiple values do not exhibit systematic variability across different frames of an issue. And, Jacoby (2008) reports that priming specific values does not cause people to choose those values more frequently over other values. In summary, the existing evidence on ambivalence, indifference, and the existence of value hierarchies is inconclusive. 10
STUDY DESIGN AND DATA COLLECTION In order to analyze consistency and transitivity in value preferences, it will be necessary to observe replicated pairwise value choices. But, such data are not usually collected. Therefore, this study relies upon a new set of items, administered as part of an internet survey that was supported by the program for Time-Sharing Experiments in the Social Sciences. 3 As we will see, respondents made choices among subsets of values in a manner that enables empirical tests of consistency and hierarchical value structuring. Such tests are impossible with more traditional data collection strategies such as rating single values, rank-ordering a full set of values, or making comparisons between all possible pairs from a value set. Before proceeding, we need to consider exactly which values will comprise the pool from which we will ask people to make choices. This is a serious problem, because the potential range of values is very broad (e.g., Kuklinski 2001). For present purposes, we will focus on a set of five values with immediate political relevance. Two values, liberty and equality, are centerpieces of American political culture (e.g., McClosky and Zaller 1984; Feldman 1988). A third value, economic security, is widely believed to be a precondition for meaningful participation in the modern marketplace of socioeconomic interactions (e.g., Hochschild 1995). Social order is a fourth value which is drawn from the traditional conservative emphasis on strict norms of human behavior and social interaction (e.g., Rossiter 1962). And, morality is a value which drives much of the supposed culture war in modern American society (e.g., Hunter 1994; Layman and Carmines 1997). Virtually all contemporary domestic political issues can be traced to the problematic achievement of these five values. So, it is definitely important to consider how ordinary citizens feel about them, along with their willingness or ability to make clear choices among the values. Choices among the preceding five values were elicited from the internet survey respondents, using the method of triads (Coombs 1964; Weller and Romney 1988). Respondents were first shown a screen that introduced, and provided a brief definition for, each of the five values (Figure 1). After that, they were shown a series of ten screens. On each screen, a 11
distinct combination of three values (i.e., a triad ) was listed. For each triad, respondents were asked to indicate which one of the three values is most important, and which one of the three is least important. Figure 2 shows an example of this screen. Given the nature of the internet survey, respondents could make the selections very easily, by clicking radio buttons with the computer mouse. The ten triads (i.e., all possible subsets of three values from the five) also are shown in Figure 2. The order of the triads was varied randomly, as was the order of the three values within each triad. The individuals responses to each triad can be broken down into three pairwise choices. For example, assume a triad containing values i, j, and k, with a respondent stating that i is most important and k is least important. This, in turn, implies that i is more important than j, j is more important than k, and i is more important than k. In the full set of ten triads created from the five values, each pair of values appears in three different triads. For example, liberty and equality appear in the first three triads listed in Figure 2, while liberty and morality appear in the third, fifth, and six triads, and so on. Therefore, three replications of each respondent s choice between each value pair are recovered. This allows an assessment of consistency in pairwise choices (i.e., how many times does the respondent make the same choice for each pair?). The value choices within any triad are transitive by construction. But, that is not problematic for present purposes, because we are interested in transitivity across the dominant pairwise value choices, rather than across any of the single replications of each pairwise choice. For each value pair, we estimate the dominant choice by taking the value that is chosen over the other value in the pair on two or three of the replications. Since the resultant dominant choice is constructed from pairwise choices made across different triads, it is not constrained to be transitive with respect to any of the other dominant pairwise value choices. Therefore, we can perform empirical tests of transitivity in the dominant value choices. The method of triads provides a very efficient strategy for obtaining replicated pairwise value choices. For one thing, it requires fewer survey items than presenting the respondents 12
with all possible pairs of values and asking them to choose the more important value in each pair. With five values, there are ten distinct pairs. And, to produce the same level of replication as the triads, each pair would have to be repeated three times, generating a total of thirty survey items. Again, only ten triads are necessary, with two distinct responses in each triad (i.e., the most- and least-important values). Furthermore, respondents could easily remember their choices across replicated pairs of values. This is more difficult with the triads, since there are different subsets of values in each triad and respondents cannot look back at their choices on previous triads. For these reasons, the triads comprise a very practical and efficient approach to eliciting value choices with properties that can be tested empirically (Gulliksen and Tucker 1961). EMPIRICAL RESULTS Let us begin the empirical analysis with some descriptive information about the distribution of value choices in American public opinion. In the dataset, the replicated pairwise choices are used to determine each person s dominant choice for each value pair. We then assign rank scores to each value, summarizing the respective values relative positions within each person s value structure. Recall that a value s rank score represents the number of times that value is the dominant choice over other values in that person s full set of choices; so, larger scores indicate more important values and vice versa. With the Knowledge Networks data, there are five values, so the scores for each value can range from zero to four. Variability in Value Importance Table 1 shows the distribution of rank scores for each of the four values. The most striking feature of the table is the wide variability among the preferences. At the individual level, there does not seem to be general agreement about which values are most (or least) important. Morality received the largest number of high ( 4 ) scores but even so, only about one-third of the respondents considered this value to be more important than any 13
other. And, very few people placed equality or social order very highly; less than eight percent of the respondents had each of these values at the top of their rankings. At the other extreme, social order received the largest number of zero scores. But, again, only about 30% of the respondents ranked this value in last place. Overall, it is fair to say that each of the four values shows up in every possible position within the value hierarchies of a substantial number of people. The dot plot shown in Figure 3 summarizes succinctly the aggregate distribution of importance rankings for each value. Specifically, the horizontal position of the point plotted within each row corresponds to the mean score for that value; the solid bar around each point represents a 95% confidence interval. From the figure, it can be seen that morality, economic security, and liberty are considered to be the most important values. Their mean rank scores are 2.36, 2.32, and 2.29, respectively. However, as can be discerned from the overlapping confidence intervals in Figure 3, the differences between these means are not statistically significant. The remaining two values, equality and social order, have significantly lower mean rank scores, at 1.58 and 1.45, respectively. Again, the difference between these two means is not statistically significant. At the aggregate level, Americans do not seem to differentiate fully among the different values. Instead, public opinion sorts values into two distinct sets: One group that is relatively more important, composed of morality, liberty, and economic security and a second group that is usually viewed as less important, equality and social order. Consistency in Pairwise Value Choices Table 2 presents basic data on consistency in the pairwise value choices. Each row of the table represents one of the ten distinct value pairs that can be derived from the set of five values. Specific pairwise value choices are extracted from the responses to the triads, as explained in the previous section. Thus, there are three choices available for each value pair. Beginning at the left side of the table, the first four columns represent the number of times the first-mentioned value in that row is chosen over the second-mentioned value, across 14
the three replications for that pair. The rightmost column within each row summarizes the amount of consistency in choices involving that value pair; that is, the percentage of times respondents chose the same value across all three replications of that particular value pair. The entries in Table 2 show that the respondents are highly consistent in their value choices. In every case, 70% or more make the same pairwise choice across all three replications. Stated somewhat differently, the percentage of respondents who exhibit some degree of inconsistency ranges from a high of 29.58% (for choices between equality and morality) or just under one-third of the sample, to a low of 19.57% (for choices between morality and social order) or just under one-fifth of the sample As a standard of comparison for the entries in Table 2, consider an admittedly unrealistic situation in which everyone is indifferent between two values (due to ambivalence, failure to recognize any potential conflict between the values, and so on). In that case, the probability of choosing one value over the other on a single choice is 0.50. And, the probability of making consistent choices across all three replications is only 0.25. 4 In other words, if people did not maintain real preferences between a given pair of values, then only one-fourth of the sample should be exhibiting consistent choices across the three replications of each choice. But, again, the empirical levels of consistency are much higher than this stringent standard. This, in turn, suggests that most people really do have crystallized preferences across the values examined in this study. Are Individual Value Choices Transitive? For each survey respondent, the full set of dominant pairwise choices can be examined for transitivity. The use of dominant pairwise choices means that we can assess transitivity as a separate phenomenon from consistency in the choices. In other words, a person s dominant choices could be transitive, even if there are some inconsistencies across the replications of each choice. And conversely, a person could be perfectly consistent in his or her choices across the replications but still show an intransitive set of choices involving that value pair. 15
Table 3 provides the basic data on transitivity among individual value choices. The first row of the table shows that only 12.48% of the respondents exhibited any intransitivity among all of their dominant pairwise choices. Stated differently, nearly nine-tenths of the respondents maintain fully-ordered (i.e., completely transitive) value preferences. The remaining rows in the table give the proportion of intransitive choices on all subsets of three values. Parenthetically, note that some people are intransitive on more than one triad; hence the proportions intransitive on the particular triads sum to more than the 12.48% figure given above. The information in Table 3 shows a very obvious pattern: On any given triad, only a tiny minority of the respondents give intransitive choices among the values. The number of intransitivities never rises above about three percent on any value triad, and it is generally smaller than that. Clearly, the vast majority of the respondents have no difficulty providing a complete ordering of the five values. This, in turn, provides strong confirmation for the widespread existence of fully-differentiated hierarchical value structures within the mass public. Testing Possible Sources of Inconsistency and Intransitivity As we have just seen, a sizable majority of the survey respondents are consistent in their choices within any pair of values. And, overwhelming majorities of respondents exhibit transitive sets of pairwise value choices. Still, there remain nontrivial numbers of inconsistent and intransitive choices within the data. And, it is important to determine why they exist. Are the inconsistencies and intransitivities due to simple measurement error, ambivalence, or indifference? In order to answer the preceding question, we must determine where the inconsistent and intransitive choices occur within individual value hierarchies and across survey respondents. First, measurement error (as we are conceiving of it in the present context) is random, so there should be no pattern to any inconsistency or intransitivity that it generates. Second, ambivalence involves conflict among strongly-held values. Therefore, it should lead to 16
inconsistent and intransitive choices among more important values and within people who are knowledgeable enough to recognize the contradictions. According to Feldman and Zaller (1992), liberals should also experience more ambivalence than conservatives. Therefore, nonuniform and non-ordered choices should be more prevalent among their ranks. Third, indifference implies that the individual does not care very much about the values under consideration. So, problematic choices should occur among less important values, and within people who are less likely to be sophisticated and engaged in the survey response context. These three predictions about patterns of inconsistent or intransitive responses are tested by fitting a logistic regression model to the TESS data. In fact, the model is fitted twice: Once for inconsistent pairwise responses and once for intransitive subsets of three choices. 5 The dependent variable in each case is the probability of an inconsistent choice or an intransitive set of three choices. So, the units of analysis for this regression model are composed of specific pairs of values, and specific subsets of three value pairs. There are ten such choices, and ten such subsets of three, for each survey respondent. Of course, any given respondent s choices will be nonindependent. Therefore, the analysis relies upon robust standard errors, clustered by respondent, to take this into account. 6 The independent variables are limited a bit by what is available in the TESS instrument. But, there should be sufficient information to test the relevant hypotheses. The first independent variable is the mean rank of the two values involved in the pairwise choice, or the three values in a given subset. The ambivalence and indifference hypotheses lead to differing predictions about this variable s impact on inconsistency and intransitivity. Ambivalence should generate inconsistent and intransitive choices among more highly-ranked values. Indifference should produce these kinds of responses among values that are regarded as less important. The second independent variable is education, operationalized as two dummy variables for respondents who didn t complete high school, and for those with formal schooling beyond high school. Again, the two hypotheses lead to conflicting predictions about the signs 17
of the coefficients on these variables. Ambivalence should lead to inconsistency and intransitivity among more highly educated respondents, while indifference should concentrate such problematic choices among those with lower levels of education. The third variable in the equation is ideology, measured on a seven-point scale. The variable is coded so that larger values indicate more liberal self-placements. Therefore, if liberals truly are more ambivalent than conservatives (as suggested by Feldman and Zaller 1992), then the coefficient on this variable should be positive. The fourth independent variable is race, represented by three dummy variables for respondents who identified themselves as African American, Hispanic, or members of another nonwhite racial group. Here, too, varying predictions can be made. On the one hand, minority racial identification has been used as a social status indicator and it has also been associated with lower levels of engagement in survey interviews; these could increase inconsistency and intransitivity in their responses. On the other hand, minority communities may have distinct subcultures which may lead to more crystallized feelings about some values; that could increase both consistency and transitivity. A dummy variable for female respondents is included in order to pick up any potential gender-based differences in choice behavior. Family income (in thousands of dollars) is also included as a social status indicator; the general expectation is that higher income should correspond to greater clarity in value choices although one could, perhaps, make an ambivalence-based argument to the contrary. Finally, dummy variables are included for four of the values (social order is omitted). These variables are scored one if that value is included in the pair or subset of three, and zero otherwise. The reasoning for including these variables is that Americans across the board may simply find it more difficult to deal with some values rather than others. Table 4 presents the maximum likelihood estimates, odds ratios, and observed probability values for the model predicting inconsistency in pairwise value choices. 7 First, note that the model does not fit the data all that well. The Wald Chi-square statistic is significant, but 18
the pseudo R 2 is tiny, at 0.019. Thus, the likelihood for the fitted model is not that much higher than that for the null model, in which all coefficients except the intercept are equal to zero. This kind of result is most compatible with the measurement error interpretation, which predicts that inconsistencies should be random and unpredictable. The relatively small values of the fit statistics suggest that is precisely the case, here. Turning to the independent variables, notice first that the coefficient for the mean value rank is statistically different from zero in the negative direction. This shows that people are less likely to express inconsistent choices across the replications on pairs that include values they consider to be more important. Similarly, the coefficient on the dummy variable for high levels of education is also significantly negative. Thus, more schooling corresponds to a lower probability of inconsistent choices. Both of these results support the indifference hypothesis, rather than an ambivalence-based explanation for the observed inconsistencies in pairwise choices. The interpretation is complicated a bit by the coefficient for ideology, which is positive and statistically significant. This shows that liberals are more likely to be inconsistent in their value choices than conservatives. And, such a result is consistent with Feldman and Zaller s (1992) argument that liberals are relatively ambivalent about the core values underlying American political culture. Two additional variables also show significant effects: The negative coefficient for African Americans shows that individuals from this racial group are more likely to express consistent value choices. And, the dummy variable for the value, equality, has a positive coefficient, showing that inconsistent choices across replications are especially common when the pairwise comparison involves this particular value. Neither of these results are unreasonable; indeed, they are probably very understandable given the existence of distinctive societal orientations among the Black community and the troublesome status of equality in American social and political thought. 19
Table 5 shows the maximum likelihood estimates for the equation predicting intransitivity across subsets of three value choices. Once again, the model fit is attenuated, with a small (although significant) Chi-square value and a low pseudo R 2 (0.031). Just as was the case in the analysis of inconsistencies, this supports the measurement error interpretation of intransitive value choices. There is only one independent variable in Table 5 with a coefficient that is statistically distinguishable from zero: The dummy variable for high levels of education has a relatively large negative impact on the probability of an inconsistency. And, once again, this is more consistent with the indifference hypothesis than the ambivalence hypothesis. A Closer Look at Ideology and Equality Overall, the evidence from Tables 4 and 5 supports the view that inconsistencies and intransitivities in value choices are due more to measurement error and indifference than to feelings of ambivalence about pairs of values. But, there are two results which might suggest otherwise: The statistically significant, positive, coefficients for ideology and the dummy variable for equality in Table 4. Again, empirical inconsistencies are more prevalent among more liberal respondents, and when the value pair involves equality. While both of these results are consistent with the ambivalence hypothesis, they could also be due to other processes. For example, liberals may simply be less attuned to core values than conservatives or moderates. And, the American public may just give less thought to equality than to liberty, morality, and other values. In both cases, the result would probably be high levels of inconsistency, even though ambivalence is not present. Let us consider these possibilities more closely. If the inconsistent choices exhibited by liberals are truly due to ambivalence, then those inconsistencies should occur among the values that liberals consider to be particularly important. But, this does not appear to be the case: Looking only at the pairwise choices made by those people who identify themselves as liberals, the correlation between the dummy variable indicating the presence of inconsistent choices in a pairwise comparison and the average rank score of the two values in that pair is 20
miniscule (and not statistically significant), at -0.010. Liberals tend to be more inconsistent in their choices, regardless how important they consider the values to be. Hence, they do not appear to feel ambivalent about particular values. The results are a bit different for the inconsistencies involving equality. Again, if this is ambivalence, then inconsistent choices should be more common when equality is considered to be particularly important even though Table 4 showed that inconsistencies tend to occur among less important values. To test this, we can correlate each person s rank score for equality with a dummy variable indicating whether he or she makes inconsistent choices (across the replications) on any of the four value pairs that involve equality. Here, the empirical value of the correlation coefficient (Pearson s r) is 0.305. Thus, inconsistent choices involving equality versus other values are more common when equality, itself, is considered relatively important. This is precisely what we would expect if it is ambivalence regarding equality that is generating the inconsistent choices. CONCLUSION An explicit model of value choice, such as that offered in this paper, is useful because it enables relatively precise statements about the consequences of phenomena like ambivalence and indifference. The model-based predictions can be compared against citizens actual value choices. The latter are, themselves, obtained from an internet survey instrument using the method of triads. The resultant information is used to test for consistency in, and transitivity across, value choices. The ability to do this is critically important for evaluating the validity of several theories that purport to represent the ways that people think about core values. Without the kinds of empirical tests that are enabled by the unique data employed here, the quality of value orientations and the existence of rank-ordered value structures would have to remain as untested assumptions. In fact, the results obtained from this study lead to several conclusions. First, the distribution of value preferences reveals both consensus and conflict in the ways that Americans think about fundamental principles like liberty and equality. There 21
appears to be wide agreement that morality, liberty, and economic security comprise the most important values, with equality and social order falling at somewhat less salient positions in public esteem. But, these aggregate patterns emerge from enormous variability among individual choices among the values. All five of these values are highly important for some subsets of the public, and less so for others. Second, the data from the internet survey show that people do, generally, make consistent choices among values. That, in turn, attests to the viability of values as a psychological construct. If values were only truisms, without strong cognitive and affective underpinnings, then we would expect people to move frequently from one to the other when asked to choose between them. But, that just did not happen with these data: A clear majority of the survey respondents made the same choice across the three replications of each value pair. So, this provides strong evidence against criticisms that have been aimed toward the values concept in the recent literature. Third, individual value choices are almost always transitive. This means that people really do differentiate among values in ways that enable them to say which ones are more important and which ones are less important. And, that is consistent with the existence of hierarchical value structures throughout the mass public. This study thus provides critical empirical evidence to support the predominant scholarly understanding of the way that people think about values. Fourth, those inconsistencies and intransitivities which do exist in the data appear to result mainly from a combination of measurement error and indifference. The impact of measurement error comes as no real surprise, since it is pervasive in all survey data. Political scientists are now coming to recognize how errors of measurement attenuate the empirical relationships between distinct responses to different items (Ansolabehere, Rodden, Snyder 2008), and that appears to be occurring with expressed value choices as well. Similarly, low levels of interest and sophistication are known to loosen the connections between distinct 22