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Assessing the Validity of the Postmaterialism Index

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  • Davis, Darren W.
  • Davenport, Christian

Abstract

Inglehart's postmaterialism thesis describes an individual-level process of value change. Little attention has been devoted to validating the responses to his postmaterialist-materialist index. The aggregate-level distributions may appear to reflect a postmaterialist-materialist dimension, even if at the individual level responses on the questions making up the index are random. The logic of the survey questions used for the index defines a baseline against which the actual distribution of responses can be compared. Using such a standard, we find that individual responses are not constrained by an underlying value dimension, in the sense that the observed patterns of responses increasingly do not differ from what one would expect by chance. Furthermore, as one would expect for a random variable, index scores are virtually unexplainable as a dependent variable, and they cannot be used to predict support for various political and social issues, said to flow from attitudes measured by the index.

Suggested Citation

  • Davis, Darren W. & Davenport, Christian, 1999. "Assessing the Validity of the Postmaterialism Index," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(3), pages 649-664, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:93:y:1999:i:03:p:649-664_21
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    1. Diana M. Hechavarría & Siri A. Terjesen & Amy E. Ingram & Maija Renko & Rachida Justo & Amanda Elam, 2017. "Taking care of business: the impact of culture and gender on entrepreneurs’ blended value creation goals," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 225-257, January.
    2. Mark D. Promislo & Robert A. Giacalone & John R. Deckop, 2017. "Assessing Three Models of Materialism–Postmaterialism and Their Relationship with Well-Being: A Theoretical Extension," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 143(3), pages 531-541, July.
    3. König, Tobias & Wagener, Andreas, 2008. "(Post-)Materialist Attitudes and the Mix of Capital and Labour Taxation," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-404, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    4. Andrew Knight, 2007. "Do Worldviews Matter? Post-materialist, Environmental, and Scientific/Technological Worldviews and Support for Agricultural Biotechnology Applications," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(8), pages 1047-1063, December.
    5. Tobias König & Andreas Wagener, 2012. "Culture and Tax Structures," CESifo Working Paper Series 3748, CESifo.
    6. Karen Stenner & Zim Nwokora, 2015. "Current and Future Friends of the Earth: Assessing Cross-National Theories of Environmental Attitudes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(6), pages 1-21, May.
    7. Fatos Goksen & Fikret Adaman & Unal Zenginobuz, 2001. "On Environmental Concern, Willingness to Pay, and Postmaterialist Values: Evidence from Istanbul," Working Papers 2001/10, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.
    8. Chau-kiu Cheung & Kwan-kwok Leung, 2008. "Retrospective and prospective evaluations of environmental quality under urban renewal as determinants of residents’ subjective quality of life," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 85(2), pages 223-241, January.
    9. Shino Takayama & Yuki Tamura & Terence Yeo, 2019. "Primaries, Strategic Voters and Heterogenous Valences," Discussion Papers Series 605, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    10. Kaiya Wu & Shiping Tang & Min Tang, 2024. "Interpretative structural modeling to social sciences: designing better datasets for mixed method research," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 58(5), pages 4073-4092, October.
    11. Lingguo Xu & Peter E. Earl & D. S. Prasada Rao, 2019. "Materialism and Economic Progress," Discussion Papers Series 604, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    12. Elena Samarsky, 2020. "Who is Thinking of Leaving Germany? The Role of Postmaterialism, Risk Attitudes, and Life-Satisfaction on Emigration Intentions of German Nationals," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1066, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    13. Bruce Tranter, 2015. "The Impact of Political Context on the Measurement of Postmaterial Values," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(2), pages 21582440155, June.
    14. Jan Delhey, 2010. "From Materialist to Post-Materialist Happiness? National Affluence and Determinants of Life Satisfaction in Cross-National Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 97(1), pages 65-84, May.
    15. David Urbano & Sebastian Aparicio & Victor Querol, 2016. "Social progress orientation and innovative entrepreneurship: an international analysis," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 26(5), pages 1033-1066, December.
    16. Oliver Hansen & Richard S.J. Tol, 2003. "A Refined Inglehart Index Of Materialism And Postmaterialism," Working Papers FNU-35, Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University, revised Oct 2003.
    17. Zoran Pavlović & Bojan Todosijević, 2020. "Global cultural zones the empirical way: value structure of cultural zones and their relationship with democracy and the communist past," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 603-622, April.

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