International Values Study 1981-1983 (World Values Survey)

Fundamental social values and norms in 22 countries.

Topics: 1. Leisure time: preference for active or relaxing
organization of leisure time; preferred leisure partner; membership in
selected organizations and clubs; honorary activity in clubs; regularly
reading newspapers; daily watching television; attitude to people with
diverging convictions; feelings of loneliness; assessment of change in
people´s willingness to help; unpopular groups of persons in the
neighborhood; self-assessment of condition of health; psychological
self-characterization as restless, depressive and happy; general trust
in fellow man and trust in younger and older people; control over
personal course of life (scale); feeling of happiness; assessment of
current contentment with life as well as contentment with life five
years ago and in the future by means of scales.

2. Work: job satisfaction; pride in the profession; freedom of
decision in the profession; use of additional leisure time; feeling of
being exploited by work; general satisfaction with standard of living;
expected changes in financial situation in the future; attitude to the
achievement principle and co-determination of employees in nominating
the business manager of a business; attitude to following instructions
of superior; attitude to technical progress.

3. The meaning of life: contemplating the meaning of life and death;
belief in good and evil in people; frequency of regret for personal
inappropriate behavior; willingness for national defense; values and
institutions for which it is worthwhile to risk one´s life; danger of
war; self-classification of religiousness; assessment of the ability of
the church in moral questions, in questions of family life and the
question of the meaning of life; expected significance of religions in
the future; belief in God, death, soul, devil, hell, heaven, sin and
re-birth; importance of God in one´s own life; search for strength and
consolation in faith; prayer; the significance of the individual 10
commandments for the respondent as well as assessment of the
significance for most people; supernatural experiences and
consequential changes in life.

4. Family life: ties to parents; strictness of parents; assessment of
degree of relaxation, security, fear, irritability and happiness in
one´s home; satisfaction with domestic life; common moral orientations
and opinions with partner as well as parents; attitude to marriage and
sexual permissiveness; most important prerequisite for a successful
marriage; ideal number of children; possible reasons for a divorce; the
significance of father and mother for a child growing up; motherhood as
prerequisite for a happy woman; necessity of sexual norms; attitude to
unconditional love of parents as well as sacrificing love of parents
for their children; attitude to a voluntarily single mother;
educational goals; number of children.

5. Social and political questions: interest in politics; attitude to
selected forms of political participation; freedom or equality as most
important value; self-classification on a left-right continuum;
attitude to social change and revolutionary changes; postmaterialism;
goal of imprisonment; goal of an ideal social system; sense of justice
and classification of the reprehensibleness of traveling without
paying, acceptability of bribes, homosexuality, prostitution, divorce,
resistance against the authority of the state, hit-and-run driving,
euthanasia, suicide and political murder; use of alcohol; assessment of
the drug and alcohol problem in one´s country; attitude to abortion and
acceptance of possible reasons for abortion; personal opinion
leadership and frequency of political discussions with friends; party
inclination; closeness to city or nation; national pride; attitude to
terrorism; trust in selected institutions; insecurity of the future;
residential status.

Interviewer rating: ethnic affiliation; socio-economic status of
respondent; reliability and willingness of respondent to cooperate.