Global Attitude Measurement: An Assessment of the World Values Survey Postmaterialism Scale

The World Values Survey is the product of an unprecedented collaboration of investigators from five continents. Using this survey, an international postmaterialism scale was developed. This scale shows a worldwide trend away from concerns with material well-being toward a postmaterialist value system that emphasizes the free expression of ideas, greater democratization, and the development of more humane societies. The author tests the assumption that a single latent trait of postmaterialism accounts for the observed response patterns to items that make up the scale. Applying a log-linear Rasch model, he tests the assumption that the scale is a consistent cross-national measuring device and find that the scale is not unidimensional. Item bias is identified after controlling for the common stratification variables of gender, education, age, and country