The effect of economic priorities on the measurement of value change: New experimental evidence

The Euro-Barometer values battery has provided much of the empirical eviden ce for the thesis that a shift from materialist to postmaterialist values h as occurred in advanced industrial societies over the past two decades. It has been argued, however, that this widely, used instrument is seriously fl awed because of its sensitivity to current economic conditions We present d ata from experiments in Canada and Germany that tested the performance of t he values battery in an era of joblessness. Analyses reveal that (I) substi tuting an unemployment statement for the standard inflation statement in th e battery has major consequences for the classification of respondents as m aterialist or postmaterialist and (2) answers to the battery are conditione d by the interaction between its content and respondents' economic issue co ncerns. These findings support the argument that much of the shift from mat erialist to postmaterialist values recorded by the Euro-Barometer since the early 1980s is a measurement artifact.