Personal Values Test
Reflect on ten personal values through 30 original importance ratings. Your result shows your leading priorities and explains the four broader value families, with an optional PDF summary to support a decision or conversation.
Personal Values Test is a free, confidential 30-question self-assessment, informed by Schwartz’s ten basic values. It takes about 5 minutes, runs entirely in your browser, and gives you a plain-language profile of your strongest style plus an optional in-depth report. It is an educational screening, not a diagnosis.
A clearer view of what matters when priorities compete
Values describe what you want your choices to serve. This test helps you compare priorities without turning caring, ambition, pleasure, or security into a moral ranking.
Ten distinct priorities
The profile separates self-direction, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, power, security, conformity, tradition, benevolence, and universalism. Three original prompts address each value. Separating them can help distinguish wanting independence from wanting novelty, or caring for close people from concern for a wider community.
Four broader value families
The result includes a guide to openness to change, self-enhancement, conservation, and self-transcendence. These families describe relationships among the ten values. They are explained in context cards, not presented as additional scored dimensions, and hedonism’s connection with two families is made explicit.
Importance rather than self-praise
You rate how important each priority is in your own life, rather than claiming to live it perfectly. Wanting more security during an uncertain period is not the same as being fearful, and rating achievement highly does not say you are accomplished. The useful question is how these priorities affect an actual choice.
| Feature | Typical free quiz | Psychology.com |
|---|---|---|
| What is rated | May mix personality and moral approval | Personal importance, distinct from behavior or virtue |
| Range of values | May offer an unexplained word list | Ten values informed by Schwartz’s model |
| Scored profile | May show only one core value | All ten original educational groupings |
| Broader structure | May omit competing motivations | Four families explained, including hedonism’s overlap |
| Scientific status | May imply an official values instrument | Original items, not the PVQ or SVS; unvalidated |
| Practical use | May deliver a permanent label | A starting point for a specific decision |
The 10 results this test can give
- Self-direction: Making meaningful choices and forming your own view.
- Stimulation: Variety, challenge, and unfamiliar experiences.
- Hedonism: Enjoyment and making room for pleasant experience.
- Achievement: Demonstrating skill and meeting standards of success.
- Power: Influence over decisions and access to resources.
- Security: Stability, protection, and dependable conditions.
- Conformity: Respecting shared expectations and limiting disruption to others.
- Tradition: Continuity with meaningful inherited customs and practices.
- Benevolence: Care for the people with whom you share daily life.
- Universalism: Concern for people beyond your circle and for the natural world.
Methodology & sources
This original questionnaire is informed by Schwartz’s ten-value model. It does not reproduce the copyrighted Schwartz Value Survey (SVS) or Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ). We wrote three prompts per value, for 30 items rated from 0, not important, to 4, extremely important. Each raw sum ranges from 0 to 12 and is displayed as a rounded percentage of that value’s maximum. Values are ordered by endorsement, with the highest displayed percentage supplying the main interpretation. Equal scores follow definition order and should be treated as ties, not meaningful ranks. These are our educational item groupings, not validated subscales; there are no clinical cutoffs, population norms, or measures of moral worth.
Schwartz’s framework also connects the ten values within four higher-order families. Openness to change includes self-direction and stimulation; self-enhancement includes achievement and power; conservation includes security, conformity, and tradition; self-transcendence includes benevolence and universalism. Hedonism shares motivations with openness to change and self-enhancement rather than fitting neatly into one exclusive family. The four context cards explain these relationships without calculating family scores. The engine does not apply the response-style centering used in research analyses of Schwartz instruments. Compare priorities within your own profile, not your percentages with someone else’s. This is educational screening for adult self-reflection, not diagnosis. Values can compete in real choices, and your opportunities, responsibilities, and recent circumstances shape which priorities feel pressing.
References
- Schwartz, S. H. (2012). An overview of the Schwartz theory of basic values. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1). doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1116
- Schwartz, S. H. (2021). A repository of Schwartz value scales with instructions and an introduction. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(2). doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1173
Cite this source
Psychology.com. (2026, September 13). Personal Values Test. Psychology.com. https://psychology.com/tests/values
Personal Values Test FAQ
What are personal values?
Values are priorities that help give choices direction, such as independence, security, or care for other people. A goal is something you can complete; a value can guide many goals. You might value learning while pursuing a qualification, changing a routine, or asking better questions in a conversation.
Is this the official Schwartz values questionnaire?
No. The underlying model informs the categories, but all 30 prompts and the scoring presentation are our own. This page does not reproduce the PVQ or SVS, and evidence supporting those instruments does not validate this questionnaire. Use the result to articulate a choice, not to claim a formal psychological finding.
Why can values pull in different directions?
An opportunity may serve stimulation while disrupting security, or support achievement while reducing time with close people. That tension does not make either priority false. Name what each option serves, what it costs, and which costs you can accept. The four value families help describe these tensions without deciding the answer for you.
What if everything scores highly?
You may care about many priorities or use the top response generously. Since this is not a forced-ranking task, ties are possible and the displayed leader may be arbitrary. Take a real decision and ask which value you would protect if you could not fully honor both. That comparison can be more useful than retaking the test.
How are values different from personality traits?
Values concern what matters to you; traits concern recurring ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Someone may value social connection while preferring quiet settings. The <a href="/tests/hexaco">HEXACO Personality Test</a> or <a href="/tests/big-five">Big Five test</a> offers a different lens. Neither profile cancels out the priorities you choose to act on.
Is this free, and what happens to my answers?
The on-page result is free and does not require an account. Scoring happens in your browser, and answers are retained in this tab’s session storage to restore a result after checkout. Usage events do not contain answers or scores. Requesting the PDF summary submits your name, email, and summary scores; purchasing an optional report submits summary scores. These optional actions are separate from completing the test.
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