Basic Human Values During the Covid-19 Pandemic: The Role of Pandemic Experience

2024.

Violetta Korsunova

This paper inspects the changes in basic human values (“Schwartz values”) during the coronavirus pandemic, as well as analyzes the associations between values and negative pandemic experiences. Using the 4 waves of the panel online survey ‘Values in Crisis’ conducted in 2020-2022 in Russia, the study highlights considerable fluctuations in value orientations throughout the pandemic. The findings demonstrate a significant increase in conservation values (tradition), stimulation, and benevolence and a decline in hedonism and universalism by the end of the period. Multilevel regression models indicate positive associations of actual negative pandemic experiences and openness to change values and a reverse relationship with other value dimensions. As for prospective negative outcomes, concerns about health complications lower openness to change and universalism while increasing conservation. On the contrary, concerns about economic crisis are negatively related to tradition and positively – to self-enhancement and universalism. Further, the impact of health-related experiences decreases over time, whereas economic-related issues become more important.

Keywords: basic human values, ценностные изменения, value change, ценности Шварца, COVID-19 pandemic, пандемия COVID-19, базовые человеческие ценности, Schwartz values

Publication based on the results of: Comparative studies of culture: theoretical foundations, methodological problems and applications to problems of socio-economic development (2024)