Traditional values and the inglehart constructs

Abstract

Despite criticism regarding their theoretical foundations and composition, Inglehart's values constructs have become near currencies in cross-cultural research. Drawing on these critiques, this article argues that Inglehart's three most influential instruments measuring cultural values - the Postmaterialism Index, the self-expression survival, and the secular-traditional measures - obfuscate the complexity of the value space at the individual level. To overcome the limitations of Inglehart's instruments, I present an alternative method in the form of multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), a geometric approach to data analysis. MCA separates out those axes of cultural values - religiosity, authoritarianism, and materialism - that Inglehart's scales treat as part of broader cultural dimensions. The assessment of the configuration observed in MCA against dimensions identified with principal component analysis and factor analysis shows that the MCA solution is more consistent conceptually. A multilevel analysis using a reduced battery from the exploratory phase reveals that in most countries the religiosity and authoritarianism constructs are not structurally equivalent, and therefore cannot be compared. In countries where these scales do show a good agreement, the associations with generational cohorts confirm that religiosity and authoritarianism constitute distinct value domains, and therefore should not be subsumed under broader constructs.