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Assessing the hierarchy of personal values among adolescents: A comparison of rating scale and paired comparison methods
Journal of Adolescence 80 (2020) 53–59
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Journal of Adolescence journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/adolescence
Assessing the hierarchy of personal values among adolescents: A comparison of rating scale and paired comparison methods
T
Yudai Iijimaa, Yasuyuki Okumuraa,∗, Syudo Yamasakia, Shuntaro Andoa,b, Kensuke Okadac, Shinsuke Koiked, Kaori Endoa, Yuko Morimotoa, Aya Williamse, Toshiya Muraif, Saori C. Tanakag, Mariko Hiraiwa-Hasegawah, Kiyoto Kasaia, Atsushi Nishidab a
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, Japan Department of Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Japan c Division of Educational Psychology, Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo, Japan d University of Tokyo Institute for Diversity and Adaptation of Human Mind, The University of Tokyo, Japan e Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Japan f Department of Psychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Japan g Department of Neural Computation for Decision-making, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, Japan h School of Advanced Science, SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Japan b
A R T IC LE I N F O
ABS TRA CT
Keywords: Adolescents Paired comparison Personal values Rating scale
Introduction: For assessing personal values, the rating scale method may not adequately reflect the hierarchical structure of personal values and tends to be influenced by response style bias. The paired comparison method is considered a promising alternative approach, because it engages comparative judgment and may reduce response style biases. The present study aimed to compare these two methods for assessing the hierarchy of personal values among adolescents. Methods: A total of 191 community-dwelling adolescents aged 12–15 years old completed the rating scale and paired comparison version of the Brief Personalized Value Inventory. Descriptive statistics and latent class analyses were used to assess the difference between the rating scale and paired comparison methods. Results: The two methods yielded similar rankings and means for personal values. The number of subgroups identified by latent class analysis was higher in the paired comparison method than in the rating scale method (10-class vs. 5-class). In the results using the rating scale method, there was a subgroup with high scores on all personal values items. Conclusions: The paired comparison method captured substantially more heterogeneity in the hierarchy of personal values among adolescents compared to the rating scale, which may be influenced by response style bias.
1. Introduction Adolescence is a significant developmental stage during which differentiation of personal values progress (Daniel et al., 2012). A
∗ Corresponding author. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, 2-1-6 Kamikitazawa, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, 156-8506, Japan. E-mail address: [email protected] (Y. Okumura).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2020.02.003 Received 18 July 2019; Received in revised form 3 February 2020; Accepted 5 February 2020 0140-1971/ © 2020 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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personal value is defined as worth to a person, and it motivates and guides an individual's behavior across multiple situations (Schwartz, 1992). In general, personal values are transmitted from parents to their offspring (Benish-Weisman et al., 2017; Meeus, 2011). The transmitted values are then reconsidered during adolescence (Barni, Alfieri, Marta, & Rosnati, 2013). This is because adolescents are likely to be more influenced by their peers than by parents (Benish-Weisman et al., 2017). Personal values have a hierarchical structure organized by their degree of importance: one value may be more important for one person, whereas another value may be less important (Sagiv, Roccas, Cieciuch, & Schwartz, 2017). This hierarchical value structure influences major life choices, such as career and college course selection (Arieli, Sagiv, & Cohen-Shalem, 2016; Bardi, Buchanan, Goodwin, Slabu, & Robinson, 2014; Feather, 1988; Sagiv, 2002). Therefore, the identification of a hierarchical value structure is a critical issue for researchers to understand the developmental change in personal values and decision-making processes among adolescents who are faced with major life choices. The rating scale method (e.g., the Portrait Value Questionnaire [PVQ]; Schwartz, 1992) is the most widely used method in the assessment of adolescents’ personal values (e.g., Bardi, Lee, Hofmann-Towfigh, & Soutar, 2009). However, this approach has at least two limitations. First, the rating scale method has difficulties in assessing the relative importance of competing choices, because it asks respondents to express absolute importance for each choice. In real life, however, a person often faces the need to choose one option among two or more competing choices. In other words, a person seldom expresses absolute importance when it comes to individual competing options. Therefore, in the assessment of personal values, it makes sense to assess the relative importance of competing values. Second, the score of the rating scale method is likely to be biased due to response style—tendencies to provide a systematic response to questionnaire items (van Herk, Poortinga, & Verhallen, 2004). For example, an acquiescent response style is a tendency to respond to any survey item positively (Weijters, Schillewaert, & Geuens, 2008). Biases due to response style occur regardless of the contents of scales (Jackson & Messick, 1958; Paulhus, 1991). Importantly, the magnitude of bias due to response style may be larger in adolescents than adults (Soto, John, Gosling, & Potter, 2008). To overcome the above limitations, the present study proposes a paired comparison approach to measure the hierarchy of personal values among adolescents. A paired comparison method is considered to be more suitable for capturing the hierarchy of personal values than a rating scale method because it allows respondents to compare values to one another (i.e., it naturally facilitates comparative judgment) (Bilsky et al., 2015). The comparative nature of the paired comparison method can help reduce response style bias (Cheung & Chan, 2002). We consider it important to quantify the differences in response style bias between the rating scale method and the paired comparison method in the assessment of a construct because the paired comparison method is more time-consuming given the higher number of items (for example, in the case of 10 items, there are a total of 55 possible combinations, as calculated by choosing two out of ten items). So far, however, only one study has addressed this issue in the assessment of personal values. Oishi and his colleagues found that the rating scale method showed smaller cultural differences in personal values between American and Japanese college students than the paired comparison method (Oishi et al., 2005). The authors concluded that this was because personal values assessed by the ratings scale method were biased due to response styles (Oishi et al., 2005). To date, there is no study focusing on adolescents’ personal values that quantifies the differences in response style bias between the rating scale method and the paired comparison method. Thus, the aim of the present study was to compare rating scale and paired comparison methods for the assessment of personal values among adolescents. In addition to descriptive analyses, latent class analyses were used. This is because several studies have identified two to ten distinctive subgroups that share similar characteristics of personal values (Lee, Soutar, Daly, & Louviere, 2011; Magun & Rudnev, 2008, 2013; Magun, Rudnev, & Schmidt, 2016; Moors & Vermunt, 2007; Smack, Herzhoff, Tang, Walker, & Tackett, 2017; Szakolczai & Füstös, 1998; Ungvary, McDonald, & Benish-Weisman, 2017). The number of subgroups differs between countries, because people are differently distributed between these subgroups in the countries (Magun et al., 2016). Therefore, we investigated the number of subgroups that share similar characteristics of similar personal values among adolescents.
2. Material and methods 2.1. Participants The current study was conducted as part of the population-based biomarker study of the Tokyo TEEN Cohort Study (TTC, http:// ttcp.umin.jp/) (pb-TTC), in which 216 adolescents and their caregivers (mainly mothers) participated. The study examined biological and psychological markers, including oxidative stress, bacterial flora in skin and intestine, olfaction, psychological measures of personal values (assessed using electronic surveys), and psychiatric conditions (assessed using semi-structured interviews with expert psychiatrists). The participants in the pb-TTC study were recruited from a larger sample of the TTC project, a large-scale population-based cohort study conducted in the Tokyo metropolitan area with over 3000 adolescent-caregiver dyads (Ando et al., 2018; Fujikawa et al., 2018; Kanata et al., 2016; Morimoto et al., 2018; Yamasaki et al., 2016). No significant differences in age, sex, socioeconomic status, and estimated IQ (ps > .05) were found between the pb-TTC subsample and the TTC population. The included participants participated in the pb-TTC study approximately one year after their participation in the second wave of the TTC project. Written informed consent was acquired from each participant and their main caregiver before participation. The study was approved by the research ethics committees of the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, Azabu University, The University of Tokyo, and RIKEN (Institute of Physical and Chemical Research). 54
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Table 1 Descriptive statistics of adolescents’ personal values on rating scale vs. paired comparison (n = 191). Item
To To To To To To To To To To To To
have your own beliefs and to act on those beliefs (Beliefs) pursue your interests (Interests) actively seek for challenges (Challenge) enjoy your hobbies or leisurely activities (Leisure) have social influence (Social influence) be financially successful (Financial success) graduate from a prestigious school (High education) be positively evaluated by others (Positive evaluation) maintain a stable lifestyle (Stable lifestyle) avoid causing trouble to others (Not trouble others) care for close others (Caring for close persons) improve society (Improving society)
a
Items based on the refined theory of human values. Items based on the original theory of human values.
b
Schwartz's theory
Self-direction thoughta Self-direction actiona Stimulationb Hedonismb Power dominancea Power resourcesa Achievementb Achievementb Securityb Conformityb Benevolenceb Universalismb
Rating scale
Ρ
Paired comparison
M
SD
Rank
M
SD
Rank
7.66 7.97 7.85 7.92 5.96 6.87 6.80 6.34 8.31 7.96 9.13 6.64
2.01 1.74 2.12 1.80 2.31 1.98 2.30 2.11 1.60 2.00 1.66 2.22
7 3 6 5 12 8 9 11 2 4 1 10
5.67 5.91 5.54 5.44 3.03 3.95 3.41 2.95 6.80 5.47 7.95 3.88
2.57 2.23 2.58 2.72 2.10 2.56 3.01 2.28 2.05 2.77 2.17 2.13
4 3 5 7 11 8 10 12 2 6 1 9
.56 .39 .58 .55 .46 .57 .68 .35 .45 .48 .38 .44
2.2. Measures All participants completed both the rating scale and paired comparison measurements of personal values. The rating scale approach utilized Brief Personalized Value Inventory (BPVI; Ozawa et al., in press), consisting of 12 items of personal values (Table 1; Fig. S1). Adolescents were instructed to respond to the question, “How do you wish to value each item in your life?” on an 11-point Likert scale ranging from 0 Not important at all to 10 Very important, using a paper-and-pencil format. Therefore, there were 1112 possible response patterns. The BPVI was selected in this study due to a small number of items, thus allowing participants to respond to a paired comparison version of the BPVI. Originally, items of the BPVI were created based on the original and refined theory of human values (Schwartz, 1992; Schwartz et al., 2012) with consideration for values that are important to Japanese adolescents. The BPVI has an acceptable level of criterion-related validity assessed with the Portrait Values Questionnaire and test-retest reliability (i.e., the intraclass correlation coefficients of 0.41–0.71) (Ozawa et al., in press). The paired comparison approach utilized a paired comparison version of the BPVI. Each pair of 12 personal value items was shown on the screen simultaneously, displayed at the left and right side from center (Fig. S2). Participants were instructed to “Please choose one of the two items that you wish to value more in your life.” All participants were presented with 66 (= 12C2) pairwise items in an electronic format, which were to be responded to on an iPad Air (Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA). Therefore, there were 266 possible response patterns. 2.3. Statistical analyses We excluded participants from all analyses who had missing values on the rating scale version of the BPVI. We also excluded participants who answered more than seven pairwise items (10%) in less than 1 s on the paired comparison measurement, because such quick responses indicated that their answers were inappropriate. To compare the responses on the rating scale and the paired comparison, we first calculated the mean levels of each personal value in the rating scale version of the BPVI and the mean number of choices in the paired comparison version of the BPVI. We then computed Spearman's rank order correlation coefficient for overall ranking of all personal values using the rating scale and paired comparison methods. In addition, we conducted latent class analyses to evaluate the latent structure differences between the two methods. We used the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), and bootstrap likelihood ratio test (BLRT), for model selection. Worth parameters were estimated using Bradley-Terry mixture models for the paired comparison data (Dörr, 2011). Worth parameters can be used to determine a ranking of all personal values compared. The sum of all worth parameters was constrained to be zero, for identification. Two latent class analyses were carried out using the tidyLPA package and the psychomix package in R 3.4.2. All other statistical analyses were carried out using SPSS 24.0 (IBM, Armonk, NY). 3. Results 3.1. Descriptive statistics and rank correlations A total of 216 adolescents participated in our survey. We excluded 12 participants who had missing values on the rating scale version of the BPVI. We further excluded 13 participants who responded in less than 1 s on the paired comparison version of the BPVI. Therefore, we included 191 participants (84 females; mean age = 13.5 years; SD = 0.6) into analyses. On average, it took 3.98 min (SD = 1.2) to complete all pairwise items in the paired comparison measurement. Descriptive statistics of the rating scale and paired comparison of the BPVI are displayed in Table 1. The three most preferred 55
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Table 2 Information criteria value in the latent class analysis of rating scale and paired comparison versions of the Brief Personal Values Inventory. Number of classes
1-class 2-class 3-class 4-class 5-class 6-class 7-class 8-class 9-class 10-class 11-class
Rating scale
P for BLRT
AIC
BIC
9657.74 9361.26 9132.16 9032.94 8972.69 8939.93 8876.90 8894.22 8888.98 8913.25 8908.59
9735.79 9481.59 9294.78 9237.84 9219.87 9229.38 9208.64 9268.23 9305.27 9371.82 9409.44
– 0.010 0.010 0.010 0.010 0.010 0.010 1.000 0.069 0.990 0.079
Paired comparison AIC
BIC
15197.85 14193.93 13841.56 13584.57 13408.55 13262.49 13156.45 13067.29 13092.44 12926.92 12990.00
15233.56 14268.62 13955.20 13737.18 13600.12 13493.03 13425.95 13375.76 13400.91 13313.32 13337.43
Note. Fit indices for selected models are in bold. AIC = Akaike's information criterion; BIC = Bayesian information Criterion; BLRT = bootstrap likelihood ratio test.
personal values (i.e., caring for close persons, stable lifestyle, interests) were identical between the two measurements. For both methods, the most important personal value among adolescents was caring for close persons. The difference in rank order for personal values between the two methods was within two ranks with the exception of the value of beliefs. Finally, there were significant rank order correlations between the two measurements (ρ = 0.92, p < 0.01).
3.2. Latent class analyses The AIC, BIC, and BLRT favored a 7-class model for the rating version of the BPVI and the AIC and BIC favored a 10-class model for the paired comparison version of the BPVI (Table 2). However, the 7-classes model for the rating scale version contained two classes with less than 5% of participants, which were difficult to interpret. Thus, we selected the 5-classes model for the rating scale version of the BPVI based on fit indices and interpretability. Fig. 1 provides the profile of values according to the 5-class model of the rating scale data (see also Table S1). Caring for close persons was the most important personal value in all classes, with the exception of class 5. Class 1 was the most predominant class, accounting for 42% participants. Relative to other classes, class 1 was characterized by moderate endorsements across all personal values (called “undifferentiated value profile group”). Class 2 and class 3 had similar patterns, in which participants attributed relatively low importance to social influence, financial success, high education, and positive evaluation. However, the levels of all personal values were high in class 3, whereas the difference between higher and lower levels of values was clearer in class 2. Thus, adolescents in class 3 appeared to have a tendency to respond to any values positively (i.e., acquiescent response style). In class 5, participants placed low importance on caring for close persons and not troubling others, but high importance on extrinsically motivated values, such as financial success and a stable lifestyle. Fig. 2 provides the profile of values according to the 10-class model of the paired comparison data (see also Table S2). Caring for close persons was the most important value in half of the classes; however, its importance was relatively low in other classes (i.e.,
Fig. 1. Value profiles of the 5-class model using the rating scale method. 56
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Fig. 2. Value profiles of the 10-class model using the paired comparison method. Panel A represents value profiles of Class 1 to Class 5. Panel B represents value profiles of Class 6 to Class 10.
classes 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10). The most important personal values were diverse in these classes: a stable lifestyle (classes 6, 9, and 10), high education (class 5), and beliefs (class 7). In total, 31.4% of participants placed relatively high importance on extrinsically motivated values (i.e., a stable lifestyle and high education).
4. Discussion This is the first study to investigate the characteristics of rating scale and paired comparison methods in the assessment of personal values among adolescents. Our results showed that the two methods yielded similar rankings and means for personal values. However, the number of subgroups identified by latent class analysis was higher in the paired comparison method than in the rating scale method. Our results suggest that the paired comparison method can capture a more substantial heterogeneity in the assessment of personal values than the rating scale method. Our results using the rating scale method identified a notable subgroup in which adolescents placed a high value on all aspects. The existence of this subgroup is clearly contrary to the theoretical assumption of personal values. We believe that this subgroup 57
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appeared due to response style bias. The paired comparison method may reduce such response biases (Cheung & Chan, 2002) and could be a critical tool in the assessment of personal values among adolescents. Our results based on the rating scale method showed that approximately half our participants rated all personal values as moderately important, which is in accordance with a previous study (Ungvary et al., 2017). One potential explanation for the existence of the undifferentiated value profile group is that adolescents may not have decided the values that are the most important to them (Ungvary et al., 2017). Another explanation, however, is that of a moderate level of response style bias. This was partly supported by our results based on the paired comparison method in which the undifferentiated value profile group was not emerged. The two measurement methods identified subgroups in which adolescents placed relatively high importance on extrinsically motivated values (i.e., financial success, high education, and a stable lifestyle). The proportion of adolescents with high extrinsically motivated values was much higher in the paired comparison method (31.4%) than in the rating scale method (3.1%). These results suggest that the paired comparison method have a higher sensitivity for identifying adolescents who place greater value on extrinsic values. Because extrinsic values are considered to be negatively related to well-being (for a review, see Kasser, 2016), future study should investigate the relationship between extrinsic values and well-being using the paired comparison method. Of note, our results of the two measurement methods showed that caring for close persons was the most important personal value in adolescents. These results are inconsistent with those of previous studies, which have reported that leisure (i.e., hedonism) was the most important personal value in adolescents (Daniel & Benish-Weisman, 2019; Vecchione et al., in press). This discrepancy can be partly explained by the cultural differences in personal values (Roccas & Sagiv, 2010; Schwartz, 1992). Personal values in Japan seem to be unique because the Japanese prefer the maintenance of a harmonious community over their personal interests (Jun & Muto, 1995). We acknowledge several limitations of the present study. First, the sample size in our analyses was relatively small for identifying a large number of latent classes, which leads to uncertainty in estimates (Tein, Coxe, & Cham, 2013). Second, the participants in our study were limited to early adolescents aged between 12 and 15 years. In addition, the cross-sectional study design prevents us from investigating developmental trajectories of personal values. The previous studies showed that the importance of personal values changes dramatically during childhood into adolescence (Bardi et al., 2009, 2014; Cieciuch, Davidov, & Algesheimer, 2016). Thus, further studies should investigate whether this heterogeneity of personal values is confirmed in other age groups and whether personal values change over time. Third, our participants were recruited from a population-based cohort study conducted in the Tokyo metropolitan area, thereby limiting the generalizability of our findings. Fourth, the response format in our study was limited to a single format per protocol (i.e., 11-point Likert scale for rating scale method and forced-choice format for paired comparison method). Therefore, further investigations are needed to test the robustness of our findings using a different set of response format. Finally, the pb-TTC study did not include any other measures to use as criterion-related validity. Future studies are needed to validate the latent structure of personal values derived from the rating scale and paired comparison methods. 5. Conclusions In conclusion, the paired comparison method can capture a more substantial heterogeneity in the hierarchy of personal values in comparison to the rating scale methods, which may be influenced by response style bias. In general, the paired comparison method is more complicated and takes longer to complete than the rating scale method. However, the present study demonstrated that, with a limited number of items, the paired comparison method does not take much extra time. Our findings suggest that the paired comparison method is a promising method, given the substantial diversity of personal values among adolescents. Declaration of competing interest YO received personal fees, not related to this study, from the following organizations: Merck & Co., Inc.; Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; the Medical Technology Association; Cando Inc.; the Japan Medical Data Center; and the Japan Medical Research Institute Co., Ltd. Acknowledgments This research was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas [16H06396, 16H06397, 16H06398, 16H06399] from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. Appendix A. Supplementary data Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2020.02.003. References Ando, S., Nishida, A., Usami, S., Koike, S., Yamasaki, S., Kanata, S., et al. (2018). Help-seeking intention for depression in early adolescents: Associated factors and sex differences. Journal of Affective Disorders, 238, 359–365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2018.05.077. Arieli, S., Sagiv, L., & Cohen-Shalem, E. 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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Adolescence journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/adolescence
Assessing the hierarchy of personal values among adolescents: A comparison of rating scale and paired comparison methods
T
Yudai Iijimaa, Yasuyuki Okumuraa,∗, Syudo Yamasakia, Shuntaro Andoa,b, Kensuke Okadac, Shinsuke Koiked, Kaori Endoa, Yuko Morimotoa, Aya Williamse, Toshiya Muraif, Saori C. Tanakag, Mariko Hiraiwa-Hasegawah, Kiyoto Kasaia, Atsushi Nishidab a
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, Japan Department of Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Japan c Division of Educational Psychology, Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo, Japan d University of Tokyo Institute for Diversity and Adaptation of Human Mind, The University of Tokyo, Japan e Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Japan f Department of Psychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Japan g Department of Neural Computation for Decision-making, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, Japan h School of Advanced Science, SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Japan b
A R T IC LE I N F O
ABS TRA CT
Keywords: Adolescents Paired comparison Personal values Rating scale
Introduction: For assessing personal values, the rating scale method may not adequately reflect the hierarchical structure of personal values and tends to be influenced by response style bias. The paired comparison method is considered a promising alternative approach, because it engages comparative judgment and may reduce response style biases. The present study aimed to compare these two methods for assessing the hierarchy of personal values among adolescents. Methods: A total of 191 community-dwelling adolescents aged 12–15 years old completed the rating scale and paired comparison version of the Brief Personalized Value Inventory. Descriptive statistics and latent class analyses were used to assess the difference between the rating scale and paired comparison methods. Results: The two methods yielded similar rankings and means for personal values. The number of subgroups identified by latent class analysis was higher in the paired comparison method than in the rating scale method (10-class vs. 5-class). In the results using the rating scale method, there was a subgroup with high scores on all personal values items. Conclusions: The paired comparison method captured substantially more heterogeneity in the hierarchy of personal values among adolescents compared to the rating scale, which may be influenced by response style bias.
1. Introduction Adolescence is a significant developmental stage during which differentiation of personal values progress (Daniel et al., 2012). A
∗ Corresponding author. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, 2-1-6 Kamikitazawa, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, 156-8506, Japan. E-mail address: [email protected] (Y. Okumura).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2020.02.003 Received 18 July 2019; Received in revised form 3 February 2020; Accepted 5 February 2020 0140-1971/ © 2020 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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personal value is defined as worth to a person, and it motivates and guides an individual's behavior across multiple situations (Schwartz, 1992). In general, personal values are transmitted from parents to their offspring (Benish-Weisman et al., 2017; Meeus, 2011). The transmitted values are then reconsidered during adolescence (Barni, Alfieri, Marta, & Rosnati, 2013). This is because adolescents are likely to be more influenced by their peers than by parents (Benish-Weisman et al., 2017). Personal values have a hierarchical structure organized by their degree of importance: one value may be more important for one person, whereas another value may be less important (Sagiv, Roccas, Cieciuch, & Schwartz, 2017). This hierarchical value structure influences major life choices, such as career and college course selection (Arieli, Sagiv, & Cohen-Shalem, 2016; Bardi, Buchanan, Goodwin, Slabu, & Robinson, 2014; Feather, 1988; Sagiv, 2002). Therefore, the identification of a hierarchical value structure is a critical issue for researchers to understand the developmental change in personal values and decision-making processes among adolescents who are faced with major life choices. The rating scale method (e.g., the Portrait Value Questionnaire [PVQ]; Schwartz, 1992) is the most widely used method in the assessment of adolescents’ personal values (e.g., Bardi, Lee, Hofmann-Towfigh, & Soutar, 2009). However, this approach has at least two limitations. First, the rating scale method has difficulties in assessing the relative importance of competing choices, because it asks respondents to express absolute importance for each choice. In real life, however, a person often faces the need to choose one option among two or more competing choices. In other words, a person seldom expresses absolute importance when it comes to individual competing options. Therefore, in the assessment of personal values, it makes sense to assess the relative importance of competing values. Second, the score of the rating scale method is likely to be biased due to response style—tendencies to provide a systematic response to questionnaire items (van Herk, Poortinga, & Verhallen, 2004). For example, an acquiescent response style is a tendency to respond to any survey item positively (Weijters, Schillewaert, & Geuens, 2008). Biases due to response style occur regardless of the contents of scales (Jackson & Messick, 1958; Paulhus, 1991). Importantly, the magnitude of bias due to response style may be larger in adolescents than adults (Soto, John, Gosling, & Potter, 2008). To overcome the above limitations, the present study proposes a paired comparison approach to measure the hierarchy of personal values among adolescents. A paired comparison method is considered to be more suitable for capturing the hierarchy of personal values than a rating scale method because it allows respondents to compare values to one another (i.e., it naturally facilitates comparative judgment) (Bilsky et al., 2015). The comparative nature of the paired comparison method can help reduce response style bias (Cheung & Chan, 2002). We consider it important to quantify the differences in response style bias between the rating scale method and the paired comparison method in the assessment of a construct because the paired comparison method is more time-consuming given the higher number of items (for example, in the case of 10 items, there are a total of 55 possible combinations, as calculated by choosing two out of ten items). So far, however, only one study has addressed this issue in the assessment of personal values. Oishi and his colleagues found that the rating scale method showed smaller cultural differences in personal values between American and Japanese college students than the paired comparison method (Oishi et al., 2005). The authors concluded that this was because personal values assessed by the ratings scale method were biased due to response styles (Oishi et al., 2005). To date, there is no study focusing on adolescents’ personal values that quantifies the differences in response style bias between the rating scale method and the paired comparison method. Thus, the aim of the present study was to compare rating scale and paired comparison methods for the assessment of personal values among adolescents. In addition to descriptive analyses, latent class analyses were used. This is because several studies have identified two to ten distinctive subgroups that share similar characteristics of personal values (Lee, Soutar, Daly, & Louviere, 2011; Magun & Rudnev, 2008, 2013; Magun, Rudnev, & Schmidt, 2016; Moors & Vermunt, 2007; Smack, Herzhoff, Tang, Walker, & Tackett, 2017; Szakolczai & Füstös, 1998; Ungvary, McDonald, & Benish-Weisman, 2017). The number of subgroups differs between countries, because people are differently distributed between these subgroups in the countries (Magun et al., 2016). Therefore, we investigated the number of subgroups that share similar characteristics of similar personal values among adolescents.
2. Material and methods 2.1. Participants The current study was conducted as part of the population-based biomarker study of the Tokyo TEEN Cohort Study (TTC, http:// ttcp.umin.jp/) (pb-TTC), in which 216 adolescents and their caregivers (mainly mothers) participated. The study examined biological and psychological markers, including oxidative stress, bacterial flora in skin and intestine, olfaction, psychological measures of personal values (assessed using electronic surveys), and psychiatric conditions (assessed using semi-structured interviews with expert psychiatrists). The participants in the pb-TTC study were recruited from a larger sample of the TTC project, a large-scale population-based cohort study conducted in the Tokyo metropolitan area with over 3000 adolescent-caregiver dyads (Ando et al., 2018; Fujikawa et al., 2018; Kanata et al., 2016; Morimoto et al., 2018; Yamasaki et al., 2016). No significant differences in age, sex, socioeconomic status, and estimated IQ (ps > .05) were found between the pb-TTC subsample and the TTC population. The included participants participated in the pb-TTC study approximately one year after their participation in the second wave of the TTC project. Written informed consent was acquired from each participant and their main caregiver before participation. The study was approved by the research ethics committees of the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, Azabu University, The University of Tokyo, and RIKEN (Institute of Physical and Chemical Research). 54
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Table 1 Descriptive statistics of adolescents’ personal values on rating scale vs. paired comparison (n = 191). Item
To To To To To To To To To To To To
have your own beliefs and to act on those beliefs (Beliefs) pursue your interests (Interests) actively seek for challenges (Challenge) enjoy your hobbies or leisurely activities (Leisure) have social influence (Social influence) be financially successful (Financial success) graduate from a prestigious school (High education) be positively evaluated by others (Positive evaluation) maintain a stable lifestyle (Stable lifestyle) avoid causing trouble to others (Not trouble others) care for close others (Caring for close persons) improve society (Improving society)
a
Items based on the refined theory of human values. Items based on the original theory of human values.
b
Schwartz's theory
Self-direction thoughta Self-direction actiona Stimulationb Hedonismb Power dominancea Power resourcesa Achievementb Achievementb Securityb Conformityb Benevolenceb Universalismb
Rating scale
Ρ
Paired comparison
M
SD
Rank
M
SD
Rank
7.66 7.97 7.85 7.92 5.96 6.87 6.80 6.34 8.31 7.96 9.13 6.64
2.01 1.74 2.12 1.80 2.31 1.98 2.30 2.11 1.60 2.00 1.66 2.22
7 3 6 5 12 8 9 11 2 4 1 10
5.67 5.91 5.54 5.44 3.03 3.95 3.41 2.95 6.80 5.47 7.95 3.88
2.57 2.23 2.58 2.72 2.10 2.56 3.01 2.28 2.05 2.77 2.17 2.13
4 3 5 7 11 8 10 12 2 6 1 9
.56 .39 .58 .55 .46 .57 .68 .35 .45 .48 .38 .44
2.2. Measures All participants completed both the rating scale and paired comparison measurements of personal values. The rating scale approach utilized Brief Personalized Value Inventory (BPVI; Ozawa et al., in press), consisting of 12 items of personal values (Table 1; Fig. S1). Adolescents were instructed to respond to the question, “How do you wish to value each item in your life?” on an 11-point Likert scale ranging from 0 Not important at all to 10 Very important, using a paper-and-pencil format. Therefore, there were 1112 possible response patterns. The BPVI was selected in this study due to a small number of items, thus allowing participants to respond to a paired comparison version of the BPVI. Originally, items of the BPVI were created based on the original and refined theory of human values (Schwartz, 1992; Schwartz et al., 2012) with consideration for values that are important to Japanese adolescents. The BPVI has an acceptable level of criterion-related validity assessed with the Portrait Values Questionnaire and test-retest reliability (i.e., the intraclass correlation coefficients of 0.41–0.71) (Ozawa et al., in press). The paired comparison approach utilized a paired comparison version of the BPVI. Each pair of 12 personal value items was shown on the screen simultaneously, displayed at the left and right side from center (Fig. S2). Participants were instructed to “Please choose one of the two items that you wish to value more in your life.” All participants were presented with 66 (= 12C2) pairwise items in an electronic format, which were to be responded to on an iPad Air (Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA). Therefore, there were 266 possible response patterns. 2.3. Statistical analyses We excluded participants from all analyses who had missing values on the rating scale version of the BPVI. We also excluded participants who answered more than seven pairwise items (10%) in less than 1 s on the paired comparison measurement, because such quick responses indicated that their answers were inappropriate. To compare the responses on the rating scale and the paired comparison, we first calculated the mean levels of each personal value in the rating scale version of the BPVI and the mean number of choices in the paired comparison version of the BPVI. We then computed Spearman's rank order correlation coefficient for overall ranking of all personal values using the rating scale and paired comparison methods. In addition, we conducted latent class analyses to evaluate the latent structure differences between the two methods. We used the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), and bootstrap likelihood ratio test (BLRT), for model selection. Worth parameters were estimated using Bradley-Terry mixture models for the paired comparison data (Dörr, 2011). Worth parameters can be used to determine a ranking of all personal values compared. The sum of all worth parameters was constrained to be zero, for identification. Two latent class analyses were carried out using the tidyLPA package and the psychomix package in R 3.4.2. All other statistical analyses were carried out using SPSS 24.0 (IBM, Armonk, NY). 3. Results 3.1. Descriptive statistics and rank correlations A total of 216 adolescents participated in our survey. We excluded 12 participants who had missing values on the rating scale version of the BPVI. We further excluded 13 participants who responded in less than 1 s on the paired comparison version of the BPVI. Therefore, we included 191 participants (84 females; mean age = 13.5 years; SD = 0.6) into analyses. On average, it took 3.98 min (SD = 1.2) to complete all pairwise items in the paired comparison measurement. Descriptive statistics of the rating scale and paired comparison of the BPVI are displayed in Table 1. The three most preferred 55
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Table 2 Information criteria value in the latent class analysis of rating scale and paired comparison versions of the Brief Personal Values Inventory. Number of classes
1-class 2-class 3-class 4-class 5-class 6-class 7-class 8-class 9-class 10-class 11-class
Rating scale
P for BLRT
AIC
BIC
9657.74 9361.26 9132.16 9032.94 8972.69 8939.93 8876.90 8894.22 8888.98 8913.25 8908.59
9735.79 9481.59 9294.78 9237.84 9219.87 9229.38 9208.64 9268.23 9305.27 9371.82 9409.44
– 0.010 0.010 0.010 0.010 0.010 0.010 1.000 0.069 0.990 0.079
Paired comparison AIC
BIC
15197.85 14193.93 13841.56 13584.57 13408.55 13262.49 13156.45 13067.29 13092.44 12926.92 12990.00
15233.56 14268.62 13955.20 13737.18 13600.12 13493.03 13425.95 13375.76 13400.91 13313.32 13337.43
Note. Fit indices for selected models are in bold. AIC = Akaike's information criterion; BIC = Bayesian information Criterion; BLRT = bootstrap likelihood ratio test.
personal values (i.e., caring for close persons, stable lifestyle, interests) were identical between the two measurements. For both methods, the most important personal value among adolescents was caring for close persons. The difference in rank order for personal values between the two methods was within two ranks with the exception of the value of beliefs. Finally, there were significant rank order correlations between the two measurements (ρ = 0.92, p < 0.01).
3.2. Latent class analyses The AIC, BIC, and BLRT favored a 7-class model for the rating version of the BPVI and the AIC and BIC favored a 10-class model for the paired comparison version of the BPVI (Table 2). However, the 7-classes model for the rating scale version contained two classes with less than 5% of participants, which were difficult to interpret. Thus, we selected the 5-classes model for the rating scale version of the BPVI based on fit indices and interpretability. Fig. 1 provides the profile of values according to the 5-class model of the rating scale data (see also Table S1). Caring for close persons was the most important personal value in all classes, with the exception of class 5. Class 1 was the most predominant class, accounting for 42% participants. Relative to other classes, class 1 was characterized by moderate endorsements across all personal values (called “undifferentiated value profile group”). Class 2 and class 3 had similar patterns, in which participants attributed relatively low importance to social influence, financial success, high education, and positive evaluation. However, the levels of all personal values were high in class 3, whereas the difference between higher and lower levels of values was clearer in class 2. Thus, adolescents in class 3 appeared to have a tendency to respond to any values positively (i.e., acquiescent response style). In class 5, participants placed low importance on caring for close persons and not troubling others, but high importance on extrinsically motivated values, such as financial success and a stable lifestyle. Fig. 2 provides the profile of values according to the 10-class model of the paired comparison data (see also Table S2). Caring for close persons was the most important value in half of the classes; however, its importance was relatively low in other classes (i.e.,
Fig. 1. Value profiles of the 5-class model using the rating scale method. 56
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Fig. 2. Value profiles of the 10-class model using the paired comparison method. Panel A represents value profiles of Class 1 to Class 5. Panel B represents value profiles of Class 6 to Class 10.
classes 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10). The most important personal values were diverse in these classes: a stable lifestyle (classes 6, 9, and 10), high education (class 5), and beliefs (class 7). In total, 31.4% of participants placed relatively high importance on extrinsically motivated values (i.e., a stable lifestyle and high education).
4. Discussion This is the first study to investigate the characteristics of rating scale and paired comparison methods in the assessment of personal values among adolescents. Our results showed that the two methods yielded similar rankings and means for personal values. However, the number of subgroups identified by latent class analysis was higher in the paired comparison method than in the rating scale method. Our results suggest that the paired comparison method can capture a more substantial heterogeneity in the assessment of personal values than the rating scale method. Our results using the rating scale method identified a notable subgroup in which adolescents placed a high value on all aspects. The existence of this subgroup is clearly contrary to the theoretical assumption of personal values. We believe that this subgroup 57
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appeared due to response style bias. The paired comparison method may reduce such response biases (Cheung & Chan, 2002) and could be a critical tool in the assessment of personal values among adolescents. Our results based on the rating scale method showed that approximately half our participants rated all personal values as moderately important, which is in accordance with a previous study (Ungvary et al., 2017). One potential explanation for the existence of the undifferentiated value profile group is that adolescents may not have decided the values that are the most important to them (Ungvary et al., 2017). Another explanation, however, is that of a moderate level of response style bias. This was partly supported by our results based on the paired comparison method in which the undifferentiated value profile group was not emerged. The two measurement methods identified subgroups in which adolescents placed relatively high importance on extrinsically motivated values (i.e., financial success, high education, and a stable lifestyle). The proportion of adolescents with high extrinsically motivated values was much higher in the paired comparison method (31.4%) than in the rating scale method (3.1%). These results suggest that the paired comparison method have a higher sensitivity for identifying adolescents who place greater value on extrinsic values. Because extrinsic values are considered to be negatively related to well-being (for a review, see Kasser, 2016), future study should investigate the relationship between extrinsic values and well-being using the paired comparison method. Of note, our results of the two measurement methods showed that caring for close persons was the most important personal value in adolescents. These results are inconsistent with those of previous studies, which have reported that leisure (i.e., hedonism) was the most important personal value in adolescents (Daniel & Benish-Weisman, 2019; Vecchione et al., in press). This discrepancy can be partly explained by the cultural differences in personal values (Roccas & Sagiv, 2010; Schwartz, 1992). Personal values in Japan seem to be unique because the Japanese prefer the maintenance of a harmonious community over their personal interests (Jun & Muto, 1995). We acknowledge several limitations of the present study. First, the sample size in our analyses was relatively small for identifying a large number of latent classes, which leads to uncertainty in estimates (Tein, Coxe, & Cham, 2013). Second, the participants in our study were limited to early adolescents aged between 12 and 15 years. In addition, the cross-sectional study design prevents us from investigating developmental trajectories of personal values. The previous studies showed that the importance of personal values changes dramatically during childhood into adolescence (Bardi et al., 2009, 2014; Cieciuch, Davidov, & Algesheimer, 2016). Thus, further studies should investigate whether this heterogeneity of personal values is confirmed in other age groups and whether personal values change over time. Third, our participants were recruited from a population-based cohort study conducted in the Tokyo metropolitan area, thereby limiting the generalizability of our findings. Fourth, the response format in our study was limited to a single format per protocol (i.e., 11-point Likert scale for rating scale method and forced-choice format for paired comparison method). Therefore, further investigations are needed to test the robustness of our findings using a different set of response format. Finally, the pb-TTC study did not include any other measures to use as criterion-related validity. Future studies are needed to validate the latent structure of personal values derived from the rating scale and paired comparison methods. 5. Conclusions In conclusion, the paired comparison method can capture a more substantial heterogeneity in the hierarchy of personal values in comparison to the rating scale methods, which may be influenced by response style bias. In general, the paired comparison method is more complicated and takes longer to complete than the rating scale method. However, the present study demonstrated that, with a limited number of items, the paired comparison method does not take much extra time. Our findings suggest that the paired comparison method is a promising method, given the substantial diversity of personal values among adolescents. Declaration of competing interest YO received personal fees, not related to this study, from the following organizations: Merck & Co., Inc.; Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; the Medical Technology Association; Cando Inc.; the Japan Medical Data Center; and the Japan Medical Research Institute Co., Ltd. Acknowledgments This research was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas [16H06396, 16H06397, 16H06398, 16H06399] from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. Appendix A. Supplementary data Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2020.02.003. References Ando, S., Nishida, A., Usami, S., Koike, S., Yamasaki, S., Kanata, S., et al. (2018). Help-seeking intention for depression in early adolescents: Associated factors and sex differences. Journal of Affective Disorders, 238, 359–365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2018.05.077. Arieli, S., Sagiv, L., & Cohen-Shalem, E. 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