The Trendsetters of Value Change - How the Combination of Pro-environmental Activity and Technological Innovativeness Induces Value Change?

The study analyzes everyday life, and changes in human basic values in 1991-2015 by combining pro-environmental activity and adopting innovative technology for the first time into the same time series, and analyzes how the combined activity on these trends is related to the overall changes in human basic values. The study is based on the longest existing time series measured with the Schwartz Value Survey (Schwartz’s 1992). The data was collected with national samples (N=4.480) in 1991, 1999, and 2015. Pro-environmental activity is measured with the versatility of pro-environmental behavior, and technological innovativeness with Rogers (2003) diffusion theory. Self-transcendence motivates proenvironmental activity, and openness to change adoption of innovations. The orthogonal relationship of these behaviors breaks down, when the results are analyzed by the combined activity of these behaviors. This combination is related with increasing importance of both value trends while value change among the others is small. The Internet is in central role in inducing value changes when these two behaviors intertwine with each other. The results support both the self-perception theory and the forced compliance approach: Behavioral changes in both activities precede value changes. Therefore, the adopters of both behaviors represent the trendsetters of value change. Digitalization has diffused to all fields of human existence; therefore, it is necessary to take it into account in the analyses of human behavior. In a rapidly changing society the use of time series and structural analyses reveal how behaviors and psychological phenomena intertwine with each other in new situations.