comparative value priorities of chinese and new zealand

Schwartz and Boehnke (2004) point out that Schwartz’s value system typology makes
no assumption as to whether value types are spaced equally in a circulant model or
unequally in a quasi-circumplex model. Schwartz (1994) explains that the number of
items used to operationalise each value type depends on the breadth of the goal and the
values that express this goal (e.g., eight items for Universalism, but only two or three
for Hedonism), which implies unequal spacing. Breadth refers to the amount of space
occupied in the SSA diagram.
Perrinjaquet, Furrer, Usunier, Cestre and Valette-Florence (2007) found that whilst
Schwartz’ value structure seems to be validated when data are analysed through MDS
SSA, the quasi-circumplex structure of human values is not supported by confirmatory
analysis approaches such as constrained confirmatory factor analysis. Based on two
samples of French and Swiss respondents, confirmatory tests of the SVS do not yield
the same structure as the quasi-circumplex structure, mainly due to problems of
construct and discriminant validity resulting from multi-collinearity between value
types. As I shall discuss in the analysis chapter, multi-collinearity is not necessarily a
debilitating occurrence. I find similar outcomes to Perinjaquet et al. in the data from
Guangzhou, China, discussed in detail in subsequent chapters.
Validity of the SVS
In his original theory and instrument development work Schwartz (1992, 1994, 2006a)
continually considered validity issues of the SVS, with validity being goodness of fit to
his Smallest Space Analysis model. In one of the few reliability studies, Schwartz and
Sagiv (1995) using split-half techniques demonstrated that sampling fluctuations are
responsible for a substantial portion of observed structural deviations across SVS
dimension scores. Studies using factor analysis to assess the SVS value structure have
not addressed the question of structural variation across cultural groups. Schwartz and
Boehnke (2004) evaluated the overall structure that emerged across cultural groups
from Schwartz’ original SSA work, using Structural Equations Analysis with new
samples from twenty-seven countries; fifteen of the countries were European; the list
included sixteen so called “Western” after adding the USA to Europe. If we assume
Brazil, Peru, and Israel to be Western countries, that raises the group to nineteen. The
remaining eight were from other continents. Japan and Hong Kong were included from
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