Basic Needs and Political Values

Some Perspectives from Norway on

Europe’s "Silent Revolution"*

William M. Lafferty
Institute for Social Rcsearch
Oslo

One of the more intellectually exciting things happening in political

science today is a growing interest in the rclationship between politics and
basic human needs. An increasing number of researchers are once again
asking age-old questions about the meaning of human nature for political
behavior, and they are following up their questions with empirically based
answers. Interests differ in accordance with a wide variety of problems,
but most of these studies are united in the belief that personal politics
reflect personal needs and that changes in need satisfaction can be expected
to produce changes in political demands.’ By far the most interesting and
ambitious of these studies to date is Ronald Inglehart’s sweeping view of
the relationship between needs, values, and politics in Europe.2 The pur-
pose of the present paper is to critically analyze Inglehart’s thesis and
approach, both on its own terms and in relation to survey data from a
sample of industrialized Norwegian communities.

Europe’s Silent Revolution

Inglehart’s point of departure is the state of political and social values in
advanced industrial countries. He poses the question as to whether these
countries are currently undergoing basic transformations in political cul-
ture, and he answers in the’ affirmative. Using survey data from Italy,
France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Great Britain, he tries
to demonstrate that major value changes are taking place, and that the
major cause of this transition is a gradual change in the age-composition
of the adult population. His thesis is that successive generations have under-
gone different conditions of childhood socialization in connection with
different degrees of economic affluence, and that these differences are re-

x
This article is a revised version of a paper (co-authored with Beatrice
Albrektsen) which was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Socio-
logical Association, San Francisco, August 25-29, 1975. I would like to thank
the members of the session on political sociology, Marvin E. Olsen and Ronald
Inglehart for their helpful comments.

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flected in adult value priorities. The generational turnover within the
adult population thus implies a gradual transition in the political lands-
cape (a &dquo;silent revolution&dquo;) in directions otherwise not predicted if fac-
tors of childhood need and generational conflict are neglected. Instead of
the bourgeoisification of the working class and the end of ideology as a
result of growing affluence, Ingelhart sees this same affluence as contribut-
ing to increased value conflict due to greater basic-need security on the
part of younger generations; a security which enables them to stress more
radical (liberal) values over and above needs for food, shelter, and job
security.
The theoretical support for this argument is derived from Abraham
Maslow’s well-known theory of motivation based on the idea of a need
hierarchy.3 Maslow’s hierarchy consists of five interdependent need areas
arranged from &dquo;bottom&dquo; to &dquo;top&dquo; as follows: physiological needs, safety or
security needs, affection and belongingness needs, esteem needs, and
self-actualization needs. His theory builds on two basic principles: One,
that the satisfaction of &dquo;lower&dquo; needs tends to actuate the saliency and
demands of &dquo;higher&dquo; needs and, two, that deficiencies in need satis-
faction at any level tend to produce patterns of need compensatory
motivations which characterize both personality and behavior. In Ingle-
hart’s formulation, these ideas are expressed in terms of the basic hypothe-
sis that: &dquo;given individuals pursue various goals in hierarchical order - -
giving maximum attention to the things they sense to be the most impor-
tant unsatisfied needs at a given time.&dquo;4 In the language of his specific
problem, this translates into the prediction that:
... the age cohorts who had experienced the wars and scarcities of
the era preceding the West European economic miracles would ac-
cord a relatively high priority to economic security and to what
Maslow terms the safety needs. For the younger cohorts, a set of
&dquo;post-bourgeois&dquo; values, relating to the need for belonging and to
esthetic and intellectual needs, would be more likely to take top
priorities.5

To test out this proposition and its various implications, Inglehart relies
on the following simple question, which was administered to national
samples of the six countries selected in 1970:
&dquo;If you had to choose among the following things, which are the
two that seem most desirable to you?
1. Maintaining order in the nation
2. Giving the people more say in important political decisions
3. Fighting rising prices
4. Protecting freedom of speech.&dquo;

The forced selection of two alternatives enables Inglehart to categorize

respondents according to six possible pairs of items. Choices 1 and 3 are
characterized as &dquo;pure&dquo; acquisitive value preferences, and choices 2 and 4
as &dquo;pure&dquo; post-bourgeois preferences. The former are expected to reflect

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socialization deficiencies in relation to physiological and safety needs, while
the latter are seen as reflecting (at a minimum) satisfaction of these needs
and (at a maximum) the expression of &dquo;higher&dquo; needs. The entire analysis
concentrates only on the selection of these two &dquo;pure&dquo; pairs. Other possible
combinations are labelled &dquo;mixed&dquo; or &dquo;ambivalent&dquo; pairs, and are treated
only briefly in the introductory section.
It is impossible to go into detail on all of the numerous questions raised
by Inglehart’s analysis in a short paper such as this, so we will concentrate
only on those aspects which both seem crucial for his need-value hypothe-
sis and for which we have relevant Norwegian data. Two problems seem
to be of particular importance: (1) the effectiveness and meaning of the
4-item question in tapping and expressing basic value commitments, and
(2) the attempt to explain the origins of these commitments in terms of
Maslow’s need hierarchy. Each of these areas will be discussed by first
presenting a brief summary and critique of Inglehart’s findings and then
relating his theory and approach to the Norwegian data.6

Measuring Value Consistency

Inglehart provides two sets of data (his Tables 3 and 4) which seem to
demonstrate the validity of the 4-item question as a shorthand measure
of underlying value commitments. In relation to both support for student
demonstrations and support for greater European integration, the two
&dquo;pure-pair&dquo; possibilities anchor down their respective &dquo;right&dquo; (acquisitive)
and &dquo;left&dquo; (post-bourgeois) ends of the continuum. Those choosing &dquo;order
and prices&dquo;, for example, are only 16 percent favorable (cross-national
mean) to student demonstrations, while those choosing &dquo;participation and
free speech&dquo; are, on the average, 71 percent favorable. Similar means for
the support of European integration (measured by three questions advo-
cating increased supra-national political control) are 30 percent and 61
percent. In both instances, the means of support for those choosing &dquo;mixed&dquo;
pairs fall between the acquisitive and post-bourgeois figures, but the rank-
ings of these pairs differ for the two questions. These results, along with
the fact that the two pure pairs also seem to differentiate well between
choice of political party, lead Inglehart to conclude that the 4-item ques-
tion does tap a &dquo;relatively well integrated and deep-rooted aspect of the
respondent’s political orientations.7
It is important to point out here that Inglehart does not say that the
two pure pairs reflect consistent right-left positions on underlying politi-
cal orienations, but merely that they tap &dquo;well-integrated and deep-rooted&dquo;
aspects of such orientations. The fact that the acquisitive and post-bourge-
ois pairs do mark the extremes of support for the two other attitude
dimensions chosen by Inglehart does not mean that they do so, or are
meant to do so, on all dimensions. The criteria for formulating the 4-item
question are implicitly those of the Maslow hierarchy and not those of any
ideal-typical radical-moderate continuum. As will be demonstrated below,
there are other ideological dimensions where the two pure pairs do not
mark the opposite extremes, but are instead &dquo;outflanked&dquo; by the interest-

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ing combinations of order/free-speech and participation/prices. Both of
these pairs show considerable ideological consistency in the Norwegian
data, but, in line with Inglehart’s emphasis on only the two pure pairs,
they will not be taken up in detail here.
As for the two pure pairs themselves, thc data from the Norwegian
communities show that 38 percent choose the acquisitive pair and 8 per-
cent the post-bourgeois pair. These figures are most similar to those for
Great Britain in Inglehart’s study, where 36 percent were acquisitive and
8 percent post-bourgeois. As to the effectiveness of the 4-item question
in tapping underlying values, it seems clcar that the question worked equal-
ly well in Norway as it did in the other European countries. Our ques-
tionnaire did not include a question on student demonstrations, but it did
include several other value-rclated items which are actually more directly
relevant to the acquisitive/post-bourgeois dimension.
We asked our respondents, for example, to choosc between the following
two statcments: ,

A. In our country, the distance between those who govern and those
who are governed has become too great. It is necessary, there-
fore, that local units receive greater power.
B. Strong central authorities must bc maintained in order to guaran-
tee an effective cxploitation of social resources and an equal
distribution of goods.

We anticipated that this question would be particularly effective in tcrms

of the acquisitive/post-bourgeois dichotomy, given the fact that statement
B advocates both centralized governmental control and a concern with
economic goods, while statement A reveals a grcater concern with the more
abstract political &dquo;good&dquo; of local autonomy. These expectations were clearly
confirmed. Of those choosing the acquisitive &dquo;pure&dquo; pair, 38 perccnt choose
statement A, 46 percent statement B, and 16 percent are either undecided
or choose both. Of those choosing the post-bourgeois pair, fully 70 per-
cent choose A, as against only 20 percent for B, and 10 percent in thc
&dquo;both&dquo; or &dquo;don’t know&dquo; category. Of equal importance is the fact that
the differences between the two pure-pair choices are the greatest for all
pair possibilities.
Two other questions of direct relevance have to do with the issues of
environmental protection and work stoppages. On the problem of the
environment, we posed the following two statements as alternatives:

A. In order to protect nature, we must slow down on the develop-

ment of industry.
B. Continued industrial development is necessary in order to guaran-
tee growth and a better standard of living.

Despite the obvious difficulty of this trade-off, and an expected general

perference by nature-loving Norwegians for environmental protection, we
once again find the two pure-pair types at the opposite extremes of all

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 The figures are: Acquisitivcs - 40 percent for A, 28 per-
pair possibilitics.
centfor B, 31 percent for both/don’t know; Post-bourgeois - 54 percent for
A, 18 percent for B, and 28 percent for both/don’t know.
On the question of labor disruption, the alternatives were:

.
A. Strike as an economic weapon should be employed only in co-
operation with the Federation of Labor in connection with
national wage negotiations.
B. The workers themselves must decide when to strike, regardless
of whether or not it is legal.

Here the acquisitives were 66 percent for statement A, 22 percent for B,

and 12 percent undecided or ambivalent, while the post-bourgeois were
41 percent for A, 48 percent for B, and 11 percent in the remaining cate-
gory. Both pairs once again mark the extremes.
There can be little doubt, therefore, that the 4-item question is highly
effective in tapping value profiles which are consistent with the acquisi-
tive/post-bourgeois logic. That it is this logic which is involved, and not
merely a more diffuse conservative/radical dimension, can be illustrated
by looking at a question which does not provide clear acquisitive/post-bour-
geois cues. In relation to the socialization or nationalization of industry,
for example, it is difficult to come up with clear predictions as to acquisi-
tive/post-bourgeois preference. Acquisitive types might favor such steps
if they thought it would guarantee economic security, but the threat to
&dquo;bourgeois&dquo; property values can also be expected to scare them off. Post-
bourgeois types, on the other hand, might be ready for an extension of
liberalist statism, but would nonetheless fear the spectre of totalitarian
control. The alternatives, as posed in the questionnaire, were:

A. The Storting (national assembly) should pass a law directing the

over all banks and major industries.
state to take
B. Banks and major industries should continue to be privately
owned.

The distribution of choices for the two pure pairs, as well as for the two
extreme pairs (which in this case were not the two pure pairs), are as

follows:

The acquisitives are shown to be more in favor of continued private

ownership, but they are also the most undecided and they are clearly out-
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flanked to the &dquo;right&dquo; by the order/free-speech pair. This latter pair shows
consistent &dquo;conservatism&dquo; on all questions of an ideological nature, and is
the only pair that ever (on a number of issues) is more &dquo;extreme&dquo; than the
acquisitives. Such a pattern is perhaps not unexpected for the types of
interests we might associate with a concern for order without a concern
for economic security. To the &dquo;left&dquo; on this question, we find that the
post-bourgeois choice is exactly split between the two alternatives and -
on one of the very few occasions - outflanked by the participation/prices

choice. This latter selection also shows considerable consistency, however,

in relation to what we might call a &dquo;radical trade-union&dquo; dimension. It
is a type which appears to place economic interests first, and is willing to
experiment with radical solutions to economic problems, but which is
wary of other forms of noneconomic &dquo;liberation&dquo;. (They perceive, for
example, a greater degree of conflict between the young and the old than
for any other pair.)
There is reason to believe, therefore, that thc acquisitive and post-
bourgeois dimensions are not simply catch-all conservative-liberal values
patterns, but rather basic orientations which more or less reflect the goal-
striving aspirations which Inglehart attributes to the two pure pairs. It
is also important to point out, however, that these orientations are not
necessarily consistent or valid across different contexts and meaning-
systems. (A problem not discussed by Inglehart.) A post-bourgeois value
profile may include certain aspects in one context which are absent or of an
opposite valence in other contexts. We can illustrate this by looking at
the relationship between the pure value choices and the question of Euro-
pean integration. As mentioned above, Inglehart found a clear correlation
between an acquisitive orientation and a negative opinion on increased
European integration. In Norway, however, where we can compare a
respondent’s value priorities with his actual vote on the EEC question in
the referendum of 1972, we find the exact opposite relationship. Only 22
percent of those choosing the post-bourgeois pair admitted voting &dquo;yes&dquo;
to the European Community, as opposed to 42 percent of those choosing
the acquisitive pair. No other pair-choice was lower in EEC support than
the post-bourgeois pair, and only the order/free-speech choice (again) was
higher (51 % ) than the acquisitive pair.
This points to the context-boundedness of the substantive meaning of
Inglehart’s two types, but it does not necessarily affect his basic thesis.
The pro-EEC forces in Norway waged an extremely costly and intensive
campaign to convince the voters that economic chaos would result from
a &dquo;no&dquo; to Europe. They wcrc supported by a majority of the Norwegian

press and were led by the two most powerful political parties in the coun-
try, the Social Democrats and the Conservatives. The fact that acquisitive
types tended to accept this prognosis and vote &dquo;yes&dquo;, while post-bourgeois
types remained unswayed and chose the more risky &dquo;go-it-alone&dquo; route,
could be interpreted as supportive of Inglehart’s &dquo;deeper&dquo; need-deficiency
explanation. As we will see below, however, the &dquo;could&dquo; here is a highly
necessary qualifier.
Summing up, it seems clear that the 4-item question and the two pure

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pairs do reveal basic and consistent differences in value priorities. In the
Norwegian communities, this means (at a minimum) that acquisitive types
tend to: (a) support strong central government in the name of economic
security rather than to push for increased local autonomy, (b) place greater
emphasis on continued industrialization and economic growth rather than
on environmental protection; (c) stress routinized national labor-manage-

ment negotiations rather than the unbridled right to strike, and (d) favor
membership in the European Community. Post-bourgeois types, on the
other hand, show directly opposite tendencies on all of these issues. We
can thus proceed to the &dquo;testing&dquo; aspect of Inglehart’s analysis with the
conviction that both studies are operating with the same, relatively effec-
tive, depcndent variable.

The Source of Value Priorities

Having demonstrated the emprical validity of the 4-item question and the
relevance of the two pure pairs, Inglehart’s next task is to show that
value priorities do in fact differ across generations. This is easily and con-
vincingly done by showing the changing proportions of acquisitive and
post-bourgeois choices within each age-cohort for each country. In every
instance, for nearly every cohort (there are exceptions as noted below), thc
ratio of acquisitive choices increases with age (his Table 5, p. 1000). The
strongest case is Italy, where the acquisitive/post-bourgeois ratio is 18:28
for the youngest cohort and 54:4 for the oldest cohort, and the weakest
case is Great Britain, where the same ratios are 15:14 and 50:5. It seems

relatively clear, therefore, that the younger the cohort, the greater the
likelihood of a post-bourgeois choice, and the older the cohort, the greater
the likelihood of an acquisitive choice.
But now we come to the heart of the matter. How are these differences
to be explained? Inglehart operates with three different possibilities: First,
there is his thesis that the differences result primarily from differing con-
ditions of affluence and security during the formative years; second, there
is the possibility that the differences are a result of life-cycle developments
rather than generational factors (i. e. that people become more acquisitive
and less post-bourgeois as they get older); and, third, there is the possibility
that the differences are merely the result of increased levels of education
among the younger cohorts. Inglehart introduces the second two explana-
tions as alternatives to the need hypothesis, but claims to have shown that
neither is decidedly more important than his own explanation. He proceeds
as follows:

The Need Hypothesis

First, he argues that the trend towards increasing post-bourgeois ratios with
decreasing age is a general result of growing economic affluence in Europe.
Since the greatest changes in this direction are consistently from the se-

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cond-youngest cohort to the youngest cohort, Inglehart feels justified in
maintaining that it is the post-war economic boom which has created
conditions of socialization which are conducive to basic-need security.
Second, he explains cross-national differences in value profiles by re-
ferring to particular features of each country’s economic history. Great
Britain, for example, is said to show the lowest post-bourgeois/acquisitive
ratio for the youngest cohort because Great Britain’s earlier predominant
economic position has declined relative to the continental countries since
the war. Italy, on the other hand, shows the greatest amount of increase
in a post-bourgeois direction because the Italian economy has undergone
an extremely intense period of post-war development.

Although Inglchart claims support for his thesis from both of these
arguments, there is reason to believe that there will be those who are less
than convinced. Both arguments are much too general in their formulation,
and too nonspecific methodologically, to be accepted without consider-
able reservations. Neither provides data which systematically interrelates
the three elements of the thesis (economic conditions, formative years,
and value priorities), and neither is free of selective, &dquo;hypothesis-saving&dquo;
intcrpretations.8 Sincc we do not have comparable national data for Nor-
way, however, these problems are of interest only in so far as they seriously
qualify the need-value thesis in general. They do not do that; but they
do not significantly strengthen it either.

Thc Lifc-Cycle
After arguing his case from the point of view of economic history, Ingel-
hart then takes on the role of his own devil’s advocate. Focusing on the
large change in value priorities between the youngest and second-youngest
cohorts, he points out that this change occurs at about the same age in
the life-cycle when the average individual marries and starts a family. It
could be argued, therefore, that: &dquo;the youngest cohort shows a tendency
toward postbourgeois values merely because these individuals are young
and lack family responsibilities; when they get older they will have the
same value priorities as the older cohorts have now.&dquo; Lacking true change

data over time on the same individuals, Inglehart is forced to devise a

rather roundabout way of testing for this possibility.
First, he argues, that current socioeconomic status can be seen as an
indirect measure of the degree of affluence during the formative years.
Accepting this convention, it would then be expected, in line with the
need-value thesis, that the ratio of post-bourgeois to acquisitive choices
should increase with increasing status.
By dividing respondents into four status groupings (according to occupa-
tion and education) and cross-classifying these with the pure value choices,
Inglehart demonstrates conclusively that this is in fact the case (his Table 6,
p. 1001); the post-bourgeois/acquisitive ratios increase sharply and sym-
metrically from lower to higher status groupings in each national unit.
Although Inglehart implicitly sees this result as supporting his thesis, it

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seems clear that this assumption must also be placed under some doubt,
given the dominant effect of contemporary levels of education on his
S.E.S. categories. To accept current status primarily as a measure of aff-
luence during the formative years is to neglect the effects of both social
mobility on status attainment and of education on general intelligence and
value preference.
But Inglehart’s major purpose with the status-value relationship is to
use it as a step in refuting the life-cycle hypothesis. This he claims to have

done by introducing the age-cohort categories into the status-value rela-

tionship and showing that, within the youngest cohort, lower-class res-
pondents prefer acquisitive values in nearly opposite proportions to upper-
middle and upperclass rcspondents (his Table 7, p. 1002-3). His reasoning
here is that, if the life-cycle effect were an important independent factor,
then its consequences should be evident regardless of economic conditions.
He admits that working-class youth probably tend to marry and establish
families earlier than their upper-class cohorts, but he points out that, in
terms of value preferences, the difference between the two groups is not
merely that of a few years, but that of an entire generation.
Our own feeling on this point is that Inglehart’s attempt to refute the
life-cycle hypothesis is at best only partially successful. As far as we can
see, the most striking feature of the data table in question is not that lower-
class cohorts lag behind their upper-class counterparts in terms of life-
cycle preferences, but rather that status per se exerts such a strong in-
fluence on value profiles, across all age groups. Inglehart maintains that the
age differences still exist after the introduction of status as a control, and
this is true, but he fails to note that these age differences are considerably
&dquo;flattened out&dquo; in comparison with the original table, especially for all
cohorts older than the 16-24 group. Our reading of the same table, there-
fore, is that status exerts a major effect on value preferences; that this
effect is so strong as to wash out any possible life-cycle effects; and that it
is an open question as to whether it is not current features of status (pri-
marily education) which produce the result, rather than status as an indi-
cator of childhood affluence.

Education
Inglehart himself apparently realizes some of these same implications, for
he does not linger on the status and life-cycle questions for long but -Oes
directly to the question of education itself. Here too, he provides a three-
way multivariatc analysis by controlling the age-value relationship for le-
vels of primary, secondary, and university education (his Table 8, p. 1004).
As expected, the effect of education on value preferences is considerable.
There is a marked shift in the national profiles, with the most educated
consistently more post-bourgeois than the least educated across all cohorts.
A very rough idea of this general effect can be given in terms of the cross-
cohort averages of acquisitive/post-bourgeois ratios for each educational
category:

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 lnglehart acknowledges the strong effect of education on his two value

types, but he continues to argue that educationbest be seen as ancan

indicator of parental affluence during early socialization, and that the re-
sults thus confirm his thesis. If education per se does exert an independent
influence on values, however (and he recognizes the possibility), it should
then be regarded only as a complementary explanation to the need hypo-
thesis, not as a decisive alternative explanation.a His argument here is
based on the observation that the control for education does not completely
eliminate cross-cohort age differences: &dquo;even the less educated members
of the younger cohorts show a marked tendency to be less acquisitve and
more post-bourgeois than the older cohorts (which may reflect the fact

that in the postwar era, even the less educated have known relative aff-
luence)&dquo; (p. 1005).
Even though we would dispute Ingelhart’s reading of the data on this
latter point also (his observation seems relevant for only six of the twelve
possible categories of lower education), there is little point in pursuing the
matter since he has guarded his thesis in two directions, such that it wins
support regardless of which way the argument goes. For the time being,
therefore, we can simply conclude that education, as an indicator, exerts
an especially strong influence on value preferences, but that Inglehart’s

data do not allow us to determine just which aspects of the process arc
most important. This conclusion provides a clear point of departure for
the Norwegian analysis; one for which our questionnaire is apparently
somewhat bettcr equipped than Inglehart’s.
We can start, therefore, by going directly to the question of education
itself. Due to the industrialized nature of our areas (with few university
graduates), and the smaller sample size of the Norwegian survey (N 784),
=

we have found it necessary to use educational categories which differ from

lnglchart’s in relation to the higher levels of achievement. Instead of cate-

gories for &dquo;secondary education&dquo; and &dquo;university education&dquo;, the higher-
level cut-point is here placed between &dquo;middle school&dquo; and &dquo;secondary
school and beyond&dquo;. (Table 1). The American equivalent of this distinction
would be roughly between the second and third year of high school. In
terms of both Ingelhart’s theory and results, this should mean that the
two higher-level categories are less post-bourgeois than they otherwise
would have been.

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Table 1: &dquo;Pure&dquo; Value Choices According to Level of Education: Percen-
tage choosing acquisitive or post-bourgeois pairs

*
Unless otherwise stated, percentages are run across the tables with the number
in parentheses indicating the 101a/ number of cases for each horizontal category.

The results in Table 1 show that this is apparently the case. If we com-
pare changes across the Norwegian categories with the average changes
across Ingelhart’s categories above, we see that the middle-school cate-

gory for Norway is, in general (England is an exception), much less affec-
ted in a post-bourgeois direction than is the case for Inglehart’s secondary-
school category. This is not unreasonable since the middle-school (or real-
skole) exam is, in Norway, associated with lower-level white-collar occupa-
tions, which are relatively secure but offer little chance for high-status
mobility. The marked effect in a post-bourgeois direction of education
beyond this level is so much more impressive, therefore, since it is of a
similar magnitude to a university education in several of Inglehart’s natio-
nal units (Britain, Italy, and Belgium). This is clearly an interesting point
for postindustrial speculation in general, but not of decisive importance for
the theoretical question involved here. The strong effect of education at this
level can be seen as supporting either Inglehart’s interpretation of educa-
tion-as-childhood-status, or the broader interpretation of education-as-cog-
nitive-development. What is needed is a more direct control for conditions
of childhood socialization in connection with current levels of education.
We have tried to establish this control by asking our respondents the
following question: &dquo;Thinking back on the period when you grew up,
would you say that your parents were very well-off economically; that they
were fairly well-of f; that they managed all right if they were careful; or
that they found it difficult to make ends meet?&dquo; Of those anstvering the
question, 5 percent admitted to being very well-off, 41 percent to being
fairly well-off, 35 percent to having managed if careful, and 19 percent
to having had difficulties making ends meet. According to Inglehart’s
thesis, we would expect that those admitting to the first two categories
would be more post-bourgeois and less acquisitive than those admitting to
the second two categories. Table 2 shows, however, that there is a slight
tendency for preferences to run in the opposite direction. There is little
difference among the three categories which claim relative economic securi-
ty during childhood, but the category implying economic difficulties shows
a clear drop in acquisitiveness and a slight rise in post-bourgeois sentiment.

Assuming that there is no clear bias in one or the other direction for this

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question, we must conclude that the need-value thesis does not seem to

explain value choices in the Norwegian communities.

TaMc 2: &dquo;I’ure&dquo; Value Choices According to Self-Reports on Childhood

Affluence

This conclusion is strengthened even further when we look at the com-

bined effects of education and pre-adult economic conditions (Table 3).
The general effect of education in reducing acquisitiveness is still present,
but difficult conditions during childhood are also shown to work against
acquisitiveness, regardless of the level of educatioll. These results are espe-
cially interesting since the marginal raw figures for Table 3 do confirm
Inglehart’s assumption that higher levels of education are a reflection of
higher levels of childhood affluence. What is Hot confirmed, however, is
the assumption that early affluence and post-bourgeois values are positively
related. In terms of the two alternative explanations of the educational
effect posed above, therefore, we must conclude that, for the Norwegian
sample at any rate, the post-bourgeois pattern is more a result of the
cognitive and socializing effects of education per se than it is a result of
education as an indicator of childhood affluence.

Table 3: &dquo;Pure&dquo; Value Choices According to Economic Conditions During

Childhood, Controlling for Education

~ ~~ ~ ~ ~

Percentages based on fewer than 20 cases

Given the unexpected nature of these results in terms of the need-value

hypothesis, we can next speculate as to what kind of an age-value pattern
we might expect for the Norwegian data. If Inglehart’s general reading

of economic history is correct, and if our areas are not clear exceptions
to that reading, we would then anticipate that the above-demonstrated
relationship between hard times and reduced acquisitiveness should be re-
flected in a greater post-bourgeois sentiment among the older Norwegian

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cohorts. Table 4 shows that this is in fact the case. Instead of symmetrically
increasing acquisitive/post-bourgeois ratios with age, it is actually the olde.st
cohort which is least acquisitive, and thc second-youngest which is most
acquisitive. ~1 hc youngest cohort ranks second in post-bourgeois sentiment
after the oldest, so that between them, these two age-groups contain more
than 50 percent of all pure post-bourgeois types. The next-most post-
bourgeois grouping after these two is the &dquo;great-depression&dquo; cohort of
1928-1936.

Table 4: &dquo;Pure&dquo; Value Choices by Age Cohort

How can these results, which differ so clearly from the dominant age-
value pattern in Inglehart’s study, be explained? First of all, of course,
there is the possibility of sampling error in the Norwegian survey. Clearly,
the cross-classification of 784 subjects according to five age-groups and
six pair-choices does not allow much room for error before cell percentages
are affected. Still, expected cell frequencies are here closer to 30 than they

are to 20, and there is no reason to suspect sampling bias in relation to any

of the factors connected with the need-value hypothesis. All three of our
areas were hard hit by the economic crises of the 20’s and 30’s, and all
three suffered under the political oppression and economic exploitation of
the German occupation. Furthermore, the validity of the Norwegian sample
in terms of age-group representativeness is actually better than three of
Inglehart’s six countries (Italy, Holland, and Britain), despite the larger
sample sizes of his national surveys.’&dquo; Finally, the notion of sampling error
as an explanation of the Norwegian age-value profile is strongly under-
mined by the self-reports on childhood economic conditions. If there were
bias in the study on the independent side of the need-value equation, it
should be reflected in an excess of positive reports, rather than in the
large number of negative reports noted above.
In short, there seems to be no reason to question the general validity
of the Norwegian data..&dquo; They clearly indicate that neither socialization
during periods of economic depression nor perceived economic difficulties
at home during childhood are conducive to higher rates of acquisitiveness.
The notion of values as primarily a reflection of deficiencies during the
formative years does not hold true for the Norwegian data. Further support
for this conclusion can be seen in relation to two other indicators: parental
child-rearing values and measures of internal versus external control.
If the Maslowian presuppositions of Inglehart’s thesis are correct, we
would expect conditions of socioeconomic insecurity to be mediated pri-
marily through parental child-rearing behavior. If there is a &dquo;depth&dquo; aspect

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to the need-value relationship at all (as maintained by Inglehart), it should
arise in connection with the earliest years of primary socialization, and it
should be reflected in dafferent types of parental demands.12 Very roughly
(in line with much of the literature on childhood socialization), we might
expect that economically disadvantaged parents would stress values such
as cleanliness, obedience, good behavior, etc. (acccomodation preferences),
whereas economically secure parents would tend to stress values such as
initiative, curiosity, intellectual accomplishment, etc. (achievement prefe-
rences).~3 In terms of Inglehart’s hypothesis, we would expect acquisi-
tives to reflect the former set of values, and post-bourgeois types the latter.
Once again, it is necessary to approach the problem indirectly. We asked
our respondents the following question:

&dquo;Here is list with a number of things which parents believe to be

a

important for children. Which two things from this list do you think
that your parents thought were most important for you during
childhood?&dquo;

There followed a list of 10 statements, all of the form, &dquo;That I was helpful,
That I was well-behaved,&dquo; etc. Table 6 shows the ranking and percentage
distribution according to acquisitive and post-bourgeois preferences.14

Table 5: Perceived Parental Values for Self According to &dquo;Pure&dquo; Value

Choices

* Total represent sum of each memion of value in all two-value choices.

We realize, ofcourse, that such self-reports are open to any number of

possible sources of error, but, as near as we can determine, there is again
no reason to expect bias in relation to the acquisitive/post-bourgeois dimen-

sion. The results in Table 6 show that there is very little difference between
the two value-types in respect to either the ranking or distribution of
choices. Both place most emphasis on the parental desire to be &dquo;well-
behaved&dquo; (27 %), and both have &dquo;helpful&dquo; and &dquo;clever in school&dquo; in third
and fourth place. The only difference among the five most-mentioned va-

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lues is the reversed ranking of &dquo;obeyed my parents&dquo; (A: 20 %; P-B: 11 %)
and &dquo;responsible (A: 10 % ; P-B: 18 % ). Among the next five choices,
the only difference is that &dquo;interested in things&dquo; is in sixth place for the
post-bourgeois, and last for the acquisitives. Otherwide, the rankings arc
the same.
In one sense, the differences mentioned are in line with the above-
stated Maslowian expectations; emphasis on obedience and lack of empha-
sis on curiosity are relatively clear preferences for working-class parents,
and a greater interest in responsibility is probably a more prevalent middle-
class characteristic. 15 Even granting such an interpretation, however, it is
clear that the major pattern in Table 5 goes against the need-value model.
At most, the greater frequency of perceived middle-class parental values
applies to only about 15 percent of all post-bourgeois types. Otherwise,
parental values are reported as strikingly similar. We can conclude, there-
fore, either that parental values are a poor measure of the environment-
socialization nexus, or that acquisitive and post-bourgeois value preferen-
ces are not primarily a result of conditions accompanying childhood sociali-

zation. Since to accept the former would be to undermine the entire Mas-
lowian logic (and to go against accepted findings of socialization research),
we are again left with the latter negative indication for the necd-value

thesis.
Finally, we can approach the problem from another perspective; that
of the respondent’s feeling of personal and social control. Our question-
naire contained a battery of six items adapted from the well-known Rotter
Scale for measuring &dquo;generalized expectancies for internal versus external
control.&dquo;I6 The basic logic of this scale differentiates between an &dquo;internal&dquo;
and &dquo;external&dquo; personality characteristic, measured in terms of a respon-
dent’s beliefs about the causal nature of the world. In general, internality
implies a perception of the world as understandable and controllable, along
with a feeling of one’s own ability to act effectively in that world. Exter-
nality, on the other hand, refers to a set of beliefs where the world is seen
as relatively unpredictable, and where estimates of personal control and

competence are low. The fact that the scale is composed of both personal
and social beliefs enables us to test the need-value hypothesis along two
dimensions.
First, by reasoning that internality should be related to basic-need satis-
faction and externality to basic-need deficiencies, we can predict that post-
bourgeois types should be more internal and acquisitive types more external.
This is intuitively in line with both Maslow’s theory of personality and
Inglehart’s specific operationalization (the acquisitive concern with order
and the control - &dquo;fighting&dquo; - of prices).
Second, by comparing items on personal control with items on social
control, we can again test for the &dquo;depth&dquo; aspect of the acquisitive and post-
bourgeois orientations. If the sources of these orientations are rooted in
childhood socialization, we would then assume that the factors involved are
part of a basic personality complex which finds need-related expression on
both the individual and social levels of perception. We can predict, there-
fore, that the demonstrated ability of the Rotter Scale to tap a common

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internal/external dimension of personal and social beliefs will hold for the
acquisitive/post-bourgeois dimension, if the latter is a reflection of deeper,
basic-need satisfaction.
The six Rotter-Scale items and the percentages of acquisitive and post-
bourgeois choices are presented in Table 6. By selecting out only six items
from the scale, we have, of course, removed any possibility of strict com-
parison with other, full-scale results. (The full scale consists of 29 pairs
of statements, including 6 &dquo;fillers&dquo;.) Such comparisons are not the major
purpose at hand, however. We realized when we made up the interview
schedule that time would not allow for a full application of the scale.
Rather than abandon thc variable altogether, however, we opted for an
exploratory use of the 6-item battery presented here. Wc make no claims
for this battery as a scale in the strict sense of the term, but feel nonethe-
less that it expresses the basic dimensions of the internal/external logiC.17
Selection of the six items was made as follows: First, we picked out those
items of the scale (12 in number) which showed the highest biscrial correla-
tions in Rotter’s original study; second, we divided items according to
whether they were personally oriented or socially oriented, and, third, we
chose the final six according to linguistic relevance for the Norwegian
situation.
Table 6 is arrangcd such that items 1 to 3 deal with personal beliefs and
items 4 to 6 with social beliefs. Items expressing internality are marked
&dquo;I&dquo;, and those expressing externality are marked &dquo;E&dquo;. For ease of inter-
pretation, we have placed all &dquo;internal&dquo; choices first. In the actual inter-
view situation, the choices were reversed for every other pair. The per-
centages refer to the proportion of acquisitive and post-bourgeois types
choosing each alternative.

Table 6: Dimensions of Internal versus External Control (Rottcr Scale)

According to Pure Value Choices: Percentage of Acquisitive (N =
293)
and Post-Bourgeois (N 61) Types=

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&dquo;
The language of the statements differs slightly from the original scale due to
translation-retranslation difficulties in Norwegian.

The results in Table 6 indicate that neither of the two predictions deri-
ved from the need-value thesis holds true. It was predicted that post-bour-
geois types should be more internal, and acquisitive types more external.
The table shows, however, that post-bourgeois choices are associated with
greater externality on three of the items; with greater internality on two
of the items; and that there is no difference at all on the sixth item. The
second prediction was that the patterns of internality and externality
would be consistent on personal and social items for both value types. The
table shows again, however, that this is not the case: post-bourgeois types
tend to express feelings of less control on the personal level and more con-
trol on the social level. The difference is especially pronounced between
items 1 and 6, which are, interestingly enough, the two items which show
the highest biserial correlations in Rotter’s original study.18 They are, in
other words, the two items which most effectively express the posited inter-
nal-external dimension. That acquisitive and postbourgeois preferences arc
not consistently related to these two items can only be seen as further
negative evidence for the &dquo;depth&dquo; aspect of the need-value thesis.
Conclusions
The purpose of the present paper has been to assess Ronald Inglehart’s
Maslowian approach to the relationship between needs and political values
in Europe. The approach has consisted of a critical analysis of Inglehart’s
original study, along with an application of his thesis to survey-data from
Norwegian industrialized communities. We have argued that Inglehart’s
own work does not adequately support his thesis, and we have tried to show

that this negative conclusion is strengthened by the results from the Nor-
wegian project. Inglehart’s study presents no direct evidence in support of
the posited need-value interaction, while the Norwegian data give at least
four indications that such an interaction does not exist:

1. Self-reports on conditions of childhood affluence indicate a nega-

tive (rather than a positive) relationship between acquisitive va-
lues and economic difficulties during the formative years.

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 2. Post-bourgeois value choices are equally prevalent among a gene-
ration born and raised during great economic difficulties as they
are among a generation born and raised during the &dquo;age of
affluence&dquo;.
3. Acquisitive and post-bourgeois types show little difference in
regard to perceived parental demands during childhood.
4. Beliefs as to internal versus external control are not systemati-
cally related to the acquisitive/post-bourgeois dimension, nor is
there consistency within the two value types on feelings of per-
sonal and social control.

provide direct evidence against the necd-value thesis in

Points 1 and 2
a language comparable to Inglehart’s own formulation, whereas the nega-
tive interpretations drawn from the latter two points are clearly more
indirect. All in all, however, the major conclusion of the study must be
that the so-called acquisitive and post-bourgeois value orientations are not
primarily a result of conditions accompanying childhood socialization. If
this conclusion were also to hold for Inglehart’s six countries, it is then
clear that his wide-ranging speculations on the future of democratic poli-
tics in postindustrial society (with which he concludes his article) are also
open for question. The present study shows that the two value types do
exist as relatively consistent orientations to sociopolitical issues, but that
there is no reason to believe that generational turnover alone will seriously
alter the shape of politics in the future.
But what then could be a possible explanation of the two different value
types? Obviously, this is too complicated a question to begin on here, but
there are indications in the Norwegian data that the value choices in ques-
tion are more the result of a combination of current interests and cogni-
tive-symbolic set (education, local traditions, level of political awareness,
etc.), than they are of &dquo;deeper&dquo;, childhood-induced needs. If this is true,
we can expect - not a single explanation for the differing types - but rather

a multiplicity of explanations on the meaning of priorities for differing

social classes and groups of respondents. In such case, we would be dealing

more with a problem of concrete political consciousness than with a problem

of abstract macro psychology. It is, at any rate, along these lines, that future
explorations will be carried out.

NOTES
1 Major reviews of the theoretical background and fore-runners of this type
of research can be found in Fred I. Greenstein and Michael Lerner (eds.),
A Source Book for the Study of Personality and Politics, Chicago: Mark-
ham Pub. Co., 1971 and Jeanne N. Knutson (ed.), Handbook of Political
Psychology, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1973. Studies of special interest for
the approach analysed here are: Robert E. Lane, Political Thinking and
Consciousness, Chicago: Markham, 1970; Jeanne N. Knutson, The Human
, Chicago: Aldine-Atherton Inc., 1972; and Stanley Allen
Basis of the Polity
Rensohn, Psychological Needs and Political Behavior, N.Y.: The Free Press,
1974.

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 2 Ronald Inglehart, "The silent revolution in Europe: Intergenerational change
in postindustrial societies," American Political Science Review, Vol. LXV,
No. 4:991-1017. See also Alan Marsh, "The ’silent revolution,’ value
priorities, and the quality of life in Britain," American Political Science Re-
view, Vol. LXIX, No. 1:21-30. The latter appeared after this article was
written.
3 A. H. Maslow, Motivation and Personality, New York: Harper and Row,
1954. See Knutson, The Human Basis of the Polity, for a thorough review
of the theory in relation to politics.
4 Inglehart, p. 991.
5 Inglehart, pp. 991-992.
6 These data have been collected as part of a comparative community project
at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo. Three industrialized communities
of approximately equal size (population ca. 6,000 to 10,000) and occupa-
tional make-up were selected from three different regions of the country as
basic units for an intensive analysis of the relationship between industrialism,
personal well-being, and politics. Approximately 260 interviews were ad-
ministered to random samples of the population in each community during
the period May-July, 1974. The project is led by the author and financed by
the Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities.
7 Inglehart, p. 997.
8 The clearest example of this is in relation to Inglehart’s argument for the
British case. He predicts that England’s greater affluence during the pre-war
period should result in the highest proportion of post-bourgeois sentiment
among those 54 years and older, and he maintains that his data show this
to be the case. Our points of criticism here are: (1) The differences between
Britain, Holland, Belgium, and Italy on the proportions in question are
clearly not enough to support Inglehart’s conclusion. For the 55-64 cohort,
for example, it is actually Belgium (not England) which shows the highest
post-bourgeois ratio. The ratio for Italy (presumably the least affluenct of
the six) for the same cohort is 42:7 as compared with 41:8 for England.
(2) Why should interpretation be limited only to those who were between
24 and 33 at the beginning of the Second World War? Surely Inglehart does
not see the "formative years" as extending to the age of 33. (See note 15
below.) If we look, however, at only the next youngest cohort (those who
were between 14 and 23 at the outset of the war), we find that only Ger-
many has a lower post-bourgeois ratio than England. Does this mean that
England’s greater affluence during the pre-war period ceased to affect age-
cohort needs as early as 1916? (Inglehart’s own figures show that England’s
relative affluence was greater than any of the other five countries as late as
1960.)
9 It is important to note here that Inglehart’s hesitant acknowledgement of an
independent educational effect seems to be based only on education as a
political socializing factor (see p. 1005). He makes no mention of the general
cognitive effects which higher education have on the capacity for concrete/
abstract thinking, despite the obvious relevance of such a capacity for the
4-item question. Nor does he mention the possible socializing and educative
effects of the post-war mass-media explosion on the youngest cohorts without
a higher education.
10 A comparison of the age-cohort proportions in Inglehart’s samples with the
actual aggregate age-group proportions (taken from the Demographic Year-
book of 1972), gives the following ranges of error (differences in actual per-
centage points): Italy, +6.9 to -7.4; Holland, +5.0 to -7.1; Britain +4.0
to -4.1; Germany, +1.9 to -4.5; France, +1.9 to -1.6; and Belgium,
+0.4 to -0.4. Similar figures for the Norwegian communities are +4.7 to
-3.4.
11 Further confirmation of the validity of the Norwegian results has appeared
since the conclusion of this article. In a pilot study of consumer behavior

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 among youth in the Oslo and Oslofjord region (led by Inger-Marie Brofoss
at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo), Inglehart’s 4-item question
produced "pure-pair" results as follows: Acquisitive, 37 percent, Post-
bourgeois, 8 percent. These figures are nearly exactly the same as for the
three industrialized communities (38 % and 8 %), despite the fact that the
was selected from an age-cohort between 15 and 19 years of
entire sample
age living in totally different ecological settings (urban, suburban, and rural).
12 A major theoretical weakness with Inglehart’s approach is that he fails to
define exactly what he means by the "formative years". At one point he
operates with an age-span of 25 years (pp. 999-1000), but this period is
clearly too long. If taken seriously, it would mean that the 9-year ranges of
his age-cohorts are theoretically meaningless, since the same economic effects
over a 25-year period would apply equally well to three different cohorts.
Furthermore, it would imply that his youngest (and most important) cohort
is not yet finished with the formative-year period; an assumption which
would create obvious problems for his entire explanatory scheme. In short,
Inglehart says nothing specific about the linkage between economic condi-
tions and personal need. In the two tests which conclude the present paper,
we have assumed that the necessary "depth" aspect of the need-value thesis
("necessary" in terms of Inglehart’s own predictions) derives from Maslow’s
theory.
13 The for this line of analysis is Melvin L. Kohn’s Class
specific inspiration
and Conformity: A Study in Values, Homewood, Ill.: The Dorsey Press,
1969, Chapters 2 and 3.
14 The question is adapted from Kohn for the Norwegian setting. We have
reduced the number of possible statements from 17 to 10.
15 The "probably" is necessary here since "responsible" is a value included only
for the Norwegian study. Kohn’s study used "dependable," a value we found
difficult to employ in the Norwegian context. Even the results for "depend-
able" are somewhat uncertain, however; Kohn found this to be a middle-
class preference for Italian fathers and mothers and for American fathers,
but not for American mothers (see Kohn, Table 3-1, p. 42).
16 Julian B. Rotter, "Generalized expectancies for internal versus external con-
trol of reinforcement," Psychological Monographs: General and Applied,
Vol. 80, No. 1, Whole No. 609, 1966.
17 The range of biserial item correlations for the 6-item battery was from .07
to .33. The range from Rotter’s original study was from .11 to .48. The bi-
serial correlation refers to the correlation of an item with the total score,
with that item removed.
18 In the Norwegian study, the two highest biserial correlations were for items
1 and 3 rather than 1 and 6. Also for these items, however, the acquisitive
and post-bourgeois tendencies are in opposite directions.

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