What a personal values test measures
A personal values test measures which broad life goals a person treats as most and least important. This test administers Shalom Schwartz's 57-item Revised Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ-RR), which scores 19 values and four higher-order values. Scores are centered on each person's own mean rating, so they describe priorities, not levels compared with others.
Values are the goals people use to decide what is worth doing. Shalom Schwartz's theory, tested in dozens of countries, holds that the same basic values appear everywhere and differ only in how people rank them — and that they sit on a circle, where neighbours are compatible and opposites pull against each other.
Four higher-order values, nineteen narrow ones
The refined theory divides the circle into 19 values, each measured by three items, which group into four higher-order values. Humility and face sit on the borders and are reported on their own.
Openness to change
Independence of thought and action, novelty, and enjoying life — following your own interests in uncertain directions.
Self-direction — thought · Self-direction — action · Stimulation · Hedonism
Self-enhancement
Personal success, and power over people and resources — pursuing your own standing.
Achievement · Power — dominance · Power — resources
Conservation
Security, conformity, and tradition — preserving order, stability, and what has come before.
Security — personal · Security — societal · Tradition · Conformity — rules · Conformity — interpersonal
Self-transcendence
Care for the people close to you and for the welfare of everyone and of nature — looking beyond your own interests.
Universalism — nature · Universalism — concern · Universalism — tolerance · Benevolence — caring · Benevolence — dependability
Priorities, not levels
Some people agree with almost every item; others with very few. The questionnaire's authors therefore instruct that each value be centered on the person's mean rating across all 57 items, and this test does exactly that. Your scores show what matters more and less to you — never how you compare with anyone else, and no percentile is computed.
What is free and what the report adds
Your four higher-order values, how you resolve the two oppositions, and your three highest values are free, along with the methodology and sources. The advanced report adds the other sixteen values, compares your hierarchy with the typical one across 49 countries, reads humility, face, and your lowest priorities, and includes a 90-day practice and an AI reflection module.
The limits worth knowing
Values are what you say matters, and they predict behaviour only loosely. Three items per value is not much: self-direction thought, achievement, security-personal, and especially humility were measured less reliably in the source study, and small gaps between two narrow values are noise. The four higher-order values are the most dependable part of the result.