Research
29.07.2021

Hertie School’s ERCAS join World Values Survey team on Values in Crisis (VIC)

Pandemic made us moody, but more progressive, study finds.

How much did the pandemic change the way we view the world? A special edition of the World Values Survey (WVS), Values in Crisis, has just released first results from a panel survey assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on attitudes and values.

The Values in Crisis project marks the first time the Hertie School has joined an initiative organized by the WVS. The Hertie School’s European Research Centre for Anti-Corruption and State-Building (ERCAS) joined as a partner in the WVS consortium of researchers, led by Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, in 2020. Professor of Democracy Studies and Chair of ERCAS, Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, alongside Hertie School researchers Christoph M. Abels and Francesco Bono conducted the panel study in Italy.

At first glance, reported results are paradoxical. While levels of pessimism, fear and hostility have been rising against positive emotions, progressive values are also on the rise, while patriarchy and a focus on law and order have gone down. These trends seem to cut across generations and the countries surveyed.

The Values in Crisis study will be conducted in three phases. The first dataset, now available through the Austrian Social Science Data Archive, presents findings collected throughout 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 crisis. A second set of results will provide insights from throughout 2021, under the headline “end in sight”. A final wave of the survey is planned in 2022, under the theme “after the crisis”. The study was conducted in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, UK, USA & Vietnam. 

A project description, including an overview of the methodology and a link to the first round of data is available here and open to researchers.

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