The document discusses the correlation between personal goals and values, highlighting that goals are transient and contextual, while values are enduring and abstract. The study reveals strong correlations between religious, family-building, and romantic goals with their corresponding values, while health and emotional goals exhibit weaker relationships. It also presents a systematic analysis of various motivational constructs and their empirical relationships across different cultural contexts.

1. Introduction Results References
Table 1. Strongest correlations among values for each goal parcel
How do goals and values relate to one another? Eccles, J. S. & Wigfield, A. (2002). Motivational
Goal parcel r Value item with strongest correlation beliefs, values, and goals. Annual Review of
Some theoretical descriptions suggest distinctions. Religious .74 Living in accordance with my religious beliefs Psychology, 53, 109-132.
• Goals are transient, concrete, and contextualized (Little, 1999). Family-Building .58 Raising children (now or in the future) Howell, R. T., Hershey, J. W., Markey, P. M. &
• Values are enduring, abstract, and personal (Schwartz, 2005). Romantic .47 Being or falling in love Ozer, D. J. (2001). Comparing operant and
respondent measures of personal goals. Poster
However, other theoretical arguments emphasize similarities. Moral .35 Helping people presented at the 109th convention of the
• Values are defined as “desirable goals…that serve as guiding Friendship .35 Gaining and maintaining friendships American Psychological Association, San
principles” (Schwartz, 2005). Francisco, CA.
Practical Independence .34 Being or becoming independent Grouzet, F. M. E., Kasser, T., Ahuvia, A., Dols, J.
• Taxonomies of goals and values contain comparable themes
Immediate Finance .32 Being or becoming financially secure M. F., Kim, Y., Lau, S., Ryan, R. M., Sanders,
(Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Kasser, Cohn, Kanner, & Ryan, 2007).
Academic .30 Choosing and pursuing a career S., Schmuck,
• Distinctions between needs and values may arise from P., & Sheldon, K. M. (2005). The structure of
methodological inconsistencies (Raven, 1988). Family .29 Belonging to my family goal contents across 15 cultures. Journal of
Future Finance .25 Being or becoming financially secure Personality and Social Psychology, 89(5), 800-
How do theoretical similarities and distinctions balance empirically? 816.
Community Presence .22 Becoming a respected or powerful person
Kasser, T., Cohn, S., Kanner, A. D., & Ryan, R. M.
• Factors contrasting spiritual vs. financial themes appear in both Find Direction .18 Finding or maintaining inner peace and harmony (2007). Some costs of American corporate
goals and values, and correlate strongly (Stauner, 2010). Impression Management .16 Having or using my imagination and creativity capitalism: A psychological exploration of
• Other factors do not correspond. Financial Assistance .16 Helping people value and goal conflicts. Psychological Inquiry,
18(1), 1-22.
• Circumplex factor structures reveal negative relationships within Health Problem .13 Experiencing and appreciating nature Little, B. R. (1999). Personality and motivation:
goals (Grouzet et al., 2005) and values (Schwartz, 1992). Appearance & Health .11 Being healthy, energetic / Becoming famous, popular, well-known Personal action and the conative evolution.
• Will negative relationships arise between goals and values? Influence Assertion -.11 Raising children (now or in the future) In Pervin, L. A. & John, O. P. (Eds.), Handbook
of personality: Theory and research (2nd ed., pp.
Negative Affect Control -.16 Exploring or strengthening my religious identity 501-524). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Organization -.18 Being or falling in love McClelland, D. C., Koestner, R., & Weinberger , J.
(1989). How do self-attributed and implicit
Enjoyment-Seeking -.20 Being or becoming financially secure motives differ? Psychological Review, 96(4),
Note. Excludes participants who rated more than 90% of goals equally important. 690-702.
N = 540 – 542 and p ≤ .01 for all Raven, J. (1988). Toward measures of high-level
Method competencies: A re-examination of
McClelland’s distinction between needs and
values. Human Relations, 41(4), 281-294.
Participants: 561 undergraduates at the University of California, Riverside
Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content
Age: mean = 19.5, SD = 2.1 70% female _
and structure of values: Theoretical advances
42% East Asian 24% Hispanic 14% European
and empirical tests in 20 countries. Advances
7% African 6% South Asian 6% Multiethnic
57% Christian 26% Atheist/Agnostic/Irreligious Discussion in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1-64.
Schwartz, S. H. (2005). Basic human values: An
10% Buddhist 3% Muslim 4% Other overview. Retrieved from
Measures: Degree of relation between goals and values varies across content themes. http://www.fmag.unict.it/Allegati/
Personal Goal Questionnaire (Howell, Hershey, Markey, & Ozer, 2001) – • Religious, family-building, and romantic goals relate strongly to corresponding values. convegno%207-8-10-05/Schwartzpaper.pdf
65 normative goals that represent the content of thousands of students’ self- • Affiliation and achievement goals correlate moderately to corresponding values. Stauner, N. (2010). The Values Q-Set. Presented
reported goals collected over a decade of research. • May entail more situational influences or extrinsic motives (Kasser et al., 2007). in the Proseminar for Current Research in
• E.g., “Spend more time studying,” “Live independently from my parents.” • Health, organization, and emotional goals relate weakly to commonly measured values. Personality Psychology, January 21,
Rated for importance on a 5-point Likert scale. University of California, Riverside.
Standardized within participants to produce differential importance ratings. Positive relationships mostly follow semantic similarities in item content. Stauner, N., Boudreaux, M. J., & Ozer, D. J.
Goals sharing similar content summed to form 20 parcel scores. • Correlations apparently attenuated most by lack of direct overlap in item content. (2010). Factor structure of the Values Q-Set.
• Respondent assessment focuses on explicit motives, the domain of values • Unlikely that self-reports of explicit goals and values are subjectively distinct. Poster presented at the 118th convention of
(McClelland, Koestner, & Weinberger, 1989). • Supports interpretation of goal importance questionnaire constructs as values the American Psychological Association, San
• Empirically generated list maximizes theoretical independence from values. (Raven, 1988; McClelland et al., 1989). Diego, CA.
Values Q-Set (Stauner, Boudreaux, & Ozer, 2010) – Some novel contrasts appear across different goals and values.
25 value items based on existing measures, sorted into 5 groups of 5 values each Pairs of opposing priorities include:
ordered from most important to least important. • Recreation vs. financial security
• Eliminates acquiescence bias, which causes ceiling effects and inflates • Order vs. romantic love
correlations in rating procedures; less cognitively complex than ranking. • Emotional coping vs. spiritual exploration
• Has demonstrated convergent validity with the Schwartz Value Survey • Contrasts not suggested by structural theories of goals or values
(Schwartz, 1992). (Schwartz, 1992; Grouzet et al., 2005; Stauner et al., 2010).