Are Personal Values Less Stable than We Think? Results from a Comparative Longitudinal Study with German Exchange Students in the US, Europe and Latin America

Acculturation research convincingly demonstrates that moving to a foreign country can cause adaptive changes on different levels in an individual. While language, identity and social networks have been researched extensively in temporary migrants such as sojourners, knowledge on how an individual’s value system is influenced by the migration process itself is limited. By using the PVQ-21 (Schwartz, 2003) this paper therefore investigates to what extent a high school year abroad impacts the sojourner’s value preferences. Applying a longitudinal approach, 287 German high school students were surveyed before, during and after spending one year in the US, Europe or Latin America. Analyses reveal that the transition caused changes on several dimensions in the exchange students’ personal value system. Over time, self-direction, power and achievement increased in the grand sample, while universalism, conformity and benevolence decreased. Furthermore, the analysis confirmed differences between the three destination groups on the dimensions self-enhancement, tradition and self-transcendence. Uniquely, the results show that values are context-dependent and that changes are possible in a relatively short time-period. The study contributes to the understanding of the adaptive potential of personal values in response to changes in context operationalized by three triggering events: the anticipation of an exchange, the actual transition to a country in three different regions in the world and the return to Germany.