In plain language
Most research on values asks only one question: how important is this value to you? This study asked whether personality relates differently to two other, less-studied dimensions of values — how much pressure people feel from outside to hold a value, and how successful they feel at actually living according to it. A total of 246 Australian high school students (average age 18) rated 54 values on importance, pressure, and success, and also completed measures of the Big Five personality traits and Eysenck's psychoticism dimension.
The results showed that personality types can look identical on what they say is important yet differ sharply on the other dimensions. People high in neuroticism did not differ from others in what they valued, but they felt much more external pressure around their values and less success at living them — for example, they felt pressured about wealth, health, and problem-solving, and less successful at friendship and seeking positive emotions. Extraverts valued sensation-seeking, hedonism, and sex, and generally felt more successful across their values, including relationships, even though they did not rate relationships as more important than other people did.
One striking contrast: agreeable and conscientious people (and those low in psychoticism) endorsed similar pro-social and achievement values, but only conscientious people rated themselves as actually successful at achievement values. The findings suggest that values research and values-based interventions would benefit from looking beyond importance ratings alone, because pressure and success capture distinct, personality-linked aspects of how values operate in people's lives.
Key findings
- People high in neuroticism did not differ from others in which values they rated as important, but they reported feeling more external pressure to hold values and less success at living them.
- Extraverts valued sensation-seeking, hedonism, and sex, and reported more success at their values generally — including relationship values they did not prioritize more than others.
- People high in intellect/openness prioritized artistic, creative, and self-direction values and reported feeling low external pressure to hold values, consistent with their non-conventional, self-directed nature.
- Conscientious people valued achievement and competence and were successful at most values they deemed important; agreeable people endorsed similar achievement values but did not report the same success.
- High psychoticism was linked to placing low importance on honesty, helping others, and benevolence, but greater perceived success at sex, stimulation, and working outdoors.
- Participants rated nearly every value as higher in importance than pressure, suggesting values were generally experienced as personally chosen rather than externally imposed.
How to cite
APA
Veage, S., Ciarrochi, J., & Heaven, P. C. L. (2011). Importance, pressure, and success: Dimensions of values and their links to personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 50, 1180–1185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.01.028
BibTeX
@article{veage2011importance,
author = {Veage, Stephanie and Ciarrochi, Joseph and Heaven, Patrick C. L.},
title = {Importance, pressure, and success: Dimensions of values and their links to personality},
journal = {Personality and Individual Differences},
year = {2011},
volume = {50},
pages = {1180--1185},
doi = {10.1016/j.paid.2011.01.028}
}
Related work
- All publications by Joseph Ciarrochi (searchable, with free PDFs)
- Process-Based Therapy & Idionomic Analysis
Author: Joseph Ciarrochi (ORCID 0000-0003-0471-8100). Free copy hosted with permission for scholarly use. Please cite the published version via the DOI above.