The effect of modernization on the field of human values

Abstract

The majority in the theoretical field of modernization regards the effect of modernization as a linear process. This statement is also true for those theories, which specify at least two successive processes within modernization. In our analysis we were able to create an index to measure all the effects of modernization at once. Using the fourth wave of the World Value Survey, and with evidence from more than sixty countries around the world, we measured modernization in the GDP PPP of a particular country. With this independent variable we wanted to understand the value change – as the dependent variable – in the defined country. We created an index containing the linear combination of traditional and post-modern values as well. According to the results of our main model we concluded that the effect of modernization on human value change is not linear but rather it has a quadratic component.