An Image-Based Approach to Measuring Human Values

Abstract

This study aims to explore the potential of using a novel image-based approach to measuring individuals’ human values. This could result in higher-quality measurements by circumventing the drawbacks of the text-based methods prone to social biases affecting the truthful interpretation of complex verbal constructions and a low respondent engagement due to lengthy interviews. A review of the academic literature on image-based research into human values is performed and validated by our own empirical research on a representative sample of the Latvian population to compare the results of our image-based approach with the text-based approach. Our findings suggest that currently, most image-based methodologies for measuring the values and motivations of individuals lack structure and verified application. There is no precise and widely accepted methodology. However, a well-developed image-based research methodology has the potential to fill in this gap. The results confirm that an individual’s values can be identified and structured into a personal hierarchy by applying both text-based methods (asking respondents to evaluate written statements) and image-based methods (evaluation of selected images representing specific values). Our study employs a new image-based approach that seems to offer a more straightforward and more precise way of measuring values compared to the text-based approach.