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The Structure of Goal Contents Across 15 Cultures

November 2005
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 89(5):800-16

DOI:10.1037/0022-3514.89.5.800

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PubMed

Authors:

Aaron Chaim Ahuvia

University of Michigan-Dearborn College of Business

José-Miguel Fernandez-Dols

Autonomous University of Madrid

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The authors investigated the structure of goal contents in a group of 1,854 undergraduates from 15 cultures around the world. Results suggested that the 11 types of goals the authors assessed were consistently organized in a circumplex fashion across the 15 cultures. The circumplex was well described by positioning 2 primary dimensions underlying the goals: intrinsic (e.g., self-acceptance, affiliation) versus extrinsic (e.g., financial success, image) and self-transcendent (e.g., spirituality) versus physical (e.g., hedonism). The circumplex model of goal contents was also quite similar in both wealthier and poorer nations, although there were some slight cross-cultural variations. The relevance of these results for several theories of motivation and personality are discussed.

Two-dimensional representation of the goals resulting from multidimensional scaling analysis for all samples.

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The Structure of Goal Contents Across 15 Cultures

Frederick M. E. Grouzet

University of Ottawa

Tim Kasser

Knox College

Aaron Ahuvia

University of Michigan—Dearborn

Jose´ Miguel Ferna´ndez Dols

Universidad Auto´noma de Madrid

Youngmee Kim

American Cancer Society

Sing Lau

Hong Kong Baptist University

Richard M. Ryan

University of Rochester

Shaun Saunders

University of the Sunshine Coast

Peter Schmuck

Technical University of Berlin

Kennon M. Sheldon

University of Missouri—Columbia

The authors investigated the structure of goal contents in a group of 1,854 undergraduates from 15

cultures around the world. Results suggested that the 11 types of goals the authors assessed were

consistently organized in a circumplex fashion across the 15 cultures. The circumplex was well described

by positing 2 primary dimensions underlying the goals: intrinsic (e.g., self-acceptance, affiliation) versus

extrinsic (e.g., financial success, image) and self-transcendent (e.g., spirituality) versus physical (e.g.,

hedonism). The circumplex model of goal contents was also quite similar in both wealthier and poorer

nations, although there were some slight cross-cultural variations. The relevance of these results for

several theories of motivation and personality are discussed.

Keywords: intrinsic– extrinsic goals, self-determination theory, circumplex structure, cross-cultural re-

search, motivation

Personality psychology has been increasingly successful in describ-

ing the basic universal traits and values common across various

cultures of the world. Although work certainly remains to be done in

each of these areas, and although cultural variation still is notable

across each of these psychological constructs, the literature is quite

clear in suggesting five dimensions that underlie human personality

traits (McCrae & Allik, 2002) and a two-dimensional circumplex

model that organizes and explains the basic human values that people

view as important in life (Schwartz, 1992). In the current study, we

extend this quest of understanding cross-cultural consistency in per-

sonality constructs by examining the content of people’s personal

goals and aspirations. Specifically, we attempt to determine whether

culturally consistent dimensions can be identified that organize the

content of personal goals and aspirations in a coherent, theoretically

meaningful fashion.

To this end, we draw on theory and research concerning per-

sonal goals and aspirations, as well as the closely related but

distinct concept of values, in order to (a) define and measure

personal goals that differ from each other in focus and content but

are relevant to individuals around the world and (b) examine the

structural relations between these varied goals and determine

whether a model can be derived that organizes them in a consistent

way across the 15 cultures from which we sampled.

Goals and Their Content: A Theoretical Approach

Since the 1980s, psychological research on goals has experi-

enced a real renaissance, as researchers from a variety of theoret-

Frederick M. E. Grouzet, School of Psychology, University of Ottawa,

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Tim Kasser, Department of Psychology, Knox

College; Aaron Ahuvia, Department of Management Studies, University of

Michigan—Dearborn; Jose´ Miguel Ferna´ndez Dols, Departemento de Psi-

cologı´a Social y Metodologı´a, Universidad Auto´noma de Madrid, Madrid,

Spain; Youngmee Kim, Behavioral Research Center, American Cancer

Society, Atlanta, Georgia; Sing Lau, Center for Child Development, Hong

Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China; Richard M. Ryan, Depart-

ment of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Roch-

ester; Shaun Saunders, Faculty of Business, University of the Sunshine

Coast, Maroochydore, Queensland, Australia; Peter Schmuck, Department of

Psychology, Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Kennon M.

Sheldon, Department of Psychology, University of Missouri—Columbia.

After the first two authors, the remainder are ordered alphabetically.

We thank the following individuals who helped with data collection and

management at various stages of this project: Elena Marin, Paolo Pirondi,

Yadika Sharma, Anne Taillandier, and Neil Torbert.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Frederick

M. E. Grouzet, who is now at the Department of Educational and Coun-

selling Psychology, McGill University, 3700 McTavish Avenue, Montreal,

Quebec H3A 1Y2, Canada. E-mail: frederick.grouzet@mcgill.ca; or to Tim

Kasser, Department of Psychology, Knox College, 2 East South Street,

Galesburg, IL 61401-4999. E-mail: tkasser@knox.edu

2005, Vol. 89, No. 5, 800 – 816 0022-3514/05/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.89.5.800

800

ical perspectives have begun to examine a wide range of processes

and dimensions relevant to the activation of, success at, and

disengagement from the strivings, personal projects, and aspira-

tions that people often pursue (for an early summary of this work,

see Pervin, 1989). Alongside this work on such topics as efficacy,

conflict, and approach–avoidance, other researchers have exam-

ined the content of goals as a way of understanding how people

organize their lives and the types of aims for which individuals

strive (Emmons, 1989; Kasser & Ryan, 1993, 1996; Roberts &

Robins, 2000; Sheldon & Kasser, 1995, 1998). Although the

literature on the content of goals is smaller, newer, and perhaps

more controversial than is work on other dimensions of goal

striving, the content of goals has nonetheless been shown to be an

important predictor of outcomes of interest.

One of the more widely researched goal content distinctions

concerns the differentiation between intrinsic and extrinsic aspira-

tions (Kasser & Ryan, 1996). Intrinsic goals are defined as those

pursuits that are generally congruent with the psychological needs

for relatedness, autonomy, and competence proposed by self-

determination theory (see Deci & Ryan, 2000; Kasser, 2002b;

Ryan & Deci, 2000) and thus are inherently satisfying to pursue, in

and of themselves. Intrinsic goals include those for self-

acceptance, affiliation, community feeling, and physical health. In

contrast, extrinsic goals are primarily concerned with obtaining

some reward or social praise; because they are typically a means to

some other end or compensate for problems in need satisfaction,

they are less likely to be inherently satisfying (see Deci & Ryan,

2000). For instance, research shows that people with strong ex-

trinsic aspirations have more difficulty fulfilling their needs for

competence, relatedness, and autonomy (see Kasser, 2002a;

Kasser, Ryan, Couchman, & Sheldon, 2004). Financial success,

image, and popularity are common extrinsic goals. Research has

shown not only that these two types of goals relate in different

ways to personal well-being, social behavior, and ecologically

relevant activities (Kasser, 2002a; see also Saunders, 2001; Saun-

ders & Munro, 2000), but that the two goals are distinguishable by

using factor analyses in various nations, including the United

States (Kasser & Ryan, 1996), Germany (Schmuck, Kasser, &

Ryan, 2000), Russia (Ryan et al., 1999), and South Korea (Kim,

Kasser, & Lee, 2003).

Although this previous research suggests that one fundamental

dimension along which the content of goals might vary is whether

they are intrinsic or extrinsic, the extant literature is limited in

many respects. First, although thus far the cross-cultural general-

izability of the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic goals has

been promising, only four relatively economically developed na-

tions have been explored; more nations from a variety of back-

grounds need to be studied. Second, although factor analyses have

suggested that the two sets of pursuits are distinct, perhaps they lie

on a continuum with intrinsic aspirations at one end and extrinsic

at the other. To test this possibility, other more sophisticated

analytic methods are needed to shed new light on the organization

of intrinsic and extrinsic goals. Third, at this point of theoretical

development, goals within each type (i.e., intrinsic or extrinsic)

have been treated as essentially equivalent, when there may in fact

be important differences between individual goals within each

type. For example, even though community feeling and physical

health both share an intrinsic character, they certainly differ from

each other in terms of the types of activities they encourage and the

developmental histories that may lead a person to focus on one or

the other. Finally, these seven goals (i.e., self-acceptance, affilia-

tion, community feeling, physical health, financial success, image,

and popularity) clearly do not represent a complete taxonomy of

the aims for which people strive in life, particularly because some

goals are probably neither intrinsic nor extrinsic in nature, as they

are neither directly related to psychological need satisfaction nor to

the pursuit of rewards and/or praise.

Such limitations spurred us to conduct the present study, which

sampled from a wider variety of nations while examining a broader

array of goals that we hoped might suggest the existence of a

second, orthogonal dimension that organizes individuals’ goal

pursuits into a circumplex model. Our reading of the literature on

motivation and personal goals led us to devise new measures for

four additional goals, three of which were inspired by Schwartz’s

(1992) work on values, that is, the higher order conceptions of the

ideal that typically organize people’s goals (Emmons, 1999;

Schwartz, 1992). The first new aspiration we assessed concerned

conformity, or people’s attempts to fit in with others in their social

surroundings, a concern notable in human behavior and recognized

by the classic work of Asch (1951) as well as by theories suggest-

ing that people want not only to stand out from the crowd, but to

also blend in (e.g., Brewer, 1991). Second, safety goals are also

pointed to by evolutionary (Buss, 1999), attachment (Bowlby,

1988), and terror management theories (e.g., Pyszczynski, Green-

berg, & Goldenberg, 2003), which all suggest that people are

strongly motivated to feel safe and know that their survival is

likely. Third, hedonic goals were added because such motivations

have long been examined by psychologists (e.g., Freud, 1933;

Morris, 1956; Young, 1961), and people throughout the ages have

certainly pursued a variety of sensual pleasures. Finally, the fourth,

additional goal we assessed was for spirituality, which often

emerges as an important striving for people (Emmons, 1999;

Emmons, Cheung, & Tehrani, 1998) and which Kasser (1996)

examined in some past work on aspirations.

It seemed likely to us that these additional four goals, combined

with the variations described above within intrinsic and within

extrinsic goals, might result in a second dimension reflecting

tendencies toward either self-transcendent or physical pursuits, or

what many religious writings have called the conflicts between the

spirit and the flesh. Such a dimension would be consistent with

James’s (1892/1985) proposed three hierarchically ordered

“selves” (or “me”s) “with the bodily me at the bottom, the spiritual

me at top, and the extracorporeal material selves and the various

social selves between” (p. 57). Freud’s (1960) frequent discussions

concerning the fundamental conflicts between the id (physical

drives) and the superego (the influence of society) also point to

such a dimension. More recent empirical work has also suggested

such a distinction in goal pursuit. For example, Schwartz’s (1992)

model of values included a dimension representing self-

transcendent versus self-enhancing values, and Brewer and Gard-

ner (1996) proposed that the social selves differ along a dimension

ranging from the individual self to the interpersonal self to the

collective self (for a review, see Sedikides & Brewer, 2001). If a

dimension ranging from self-transcendent to physical organized

the goal contents we assessed, it might also help to distinguish

among goals within intrinsic and within extrinsic types. For ex-

ample, the intrinsic goal of community feeling would probably be

more self-transcendent than the intrinsic goal of physical health,

801

GOAL CONTENTS ACROSS CULTURES

which is more physical. Similarly, the extrinsic goal of financial

success is probably more physically oriented than goals for pop-

ularity or image, given that money can help to buy survival and

physical pleasures.

We also believed that these additional four goals would vary

with regard to their placement on the intrinsic– extrinsic dimen-

sion. First, we expected that neither spirituality nor hedonism goals

could be classified as typically intrinsic or extrinsic, because they

do not consistently conform to the conceptual criteria of satisfying

inherent psychological needs (i.e., for intrinsic goals) or of involv-

ing the pursuit of external rewards or praise (i.e., extrinsic goals).

As such, spirituality and hedonism might form the basis of the

proposed orthogonal dimension of self-transcendent versus phys-

ical goals. Opposing sets of predictions can be made with regard to

the placement of conformity and of safety along the intrinsic–

extrinsic dimension. Regarding conformity, Schwartz’s (1992)

model would suggest that it might cluster most closely with

affiliation aspirations, given that conformity values are adjacent to

benevolence values in his research. On the other hand, because

conformity goals are primarily concerned with obtaining other

people’s praise and positive opinions (Kasser, 2002b), they have

much in common with extrinsic pursuits like popularity and image.

With regard to goals for safety, Schwartz’s model demonstrated

that values of security oppose those for self-direction, stimulation,

and universalism and are thus consistent with values of power. As

such, safety goals would be most likely to fall in the realm of

extrinsic goals. In contrast, Maslow’s (1954) humanistic perspec-

tive on needs suggests that security and safety goals would fall

with intrinsic goals, as they concern basic psychological needs had

by all people (see also Kasser, 2002a; Saunders, Munro, & Bore,

1998).

The Present Study

To test the ideas presented above, we first administered a survey

packet on goals to 1,854 college students from 15 nations around

the world. These nations varied in a number of regards, including

geography, individualism versus collectivism, and economic

wealth, and thus provided an initial opportunity to examine simi-

larities and differences in the structure of goal contents across

people from different cultures.

Next, we sought to establish that our measure of goals had

acceptable psychometric properties in terms of internal reliability

and cross-cultural validity. Recent work by Spini (2003) on

Schwartz’s (1992) value measure showed that most value types

from the Schwartz Value Survey had configural and metric equiv-

alence across 21 countries.

We expected our measure of goal

importance, the Aspiration Index, to yield as good psychometric

properties as Schwartz’s Value Survey. Thus, we hypothesized

(Hypothesis 1) that the 11 individual goals described above and in

Table 1 would have acceptable internal reliability and that covari-

ance analyses would demonstrate that the subscales have accept-

able measurement equivalence across cultures.

Our next task was to determine whether the goals would be

consistently and coherently organized across the 15 cultures. That

is, like Schwartz’s (1992) model of values or the five-factor model

of traits (e.g., see McCrae & Allik, 2002), we expected that across

different cultures, people would organize their goals in essentially

similar ways. In particular, we expected goals to be organized into

a “circumplex” structure in which (a) certain goals were compat-

ible with each other while being in conflict with other goals and (b)

two dimensions underlay the organization of the goals (Hypothesis

2A). To this end, we predicted that multidimensional scaling

(MDS) analyses (e.g., Borg & Groenen, 1997; Davison, 1983;

Dillon & Goldstein, 1984) would reveal that intrinsic goals for

self-acceptance, affiliation, community feeling, and physical

health would be compatible with each other and would lie on a

dimension opposite from the extrinsic goals of popularity, finan-

cial success, and image, which would in turn be compatible with

each other. Second, we expected that spirituality and hedonism

goals would form the basis of an orthogonal self-transcendent/

physical dimension. We made no hypotheses about the relative

placement of conformity and safety, given the competing argu-

ments in the literature about the goals with which they might be

It is difficult to conclude any equivalence across culture from Spini’s

(2003) results because Satorra–Bentler (SB) scaled difference chi-square

test statistics were not correctly estimated. As we explain later in the

Method section, Satorra (2000) showed that the difference between two SB

chi-square statistics cannot be obtained by computing the simple difference

between them (see Satorra & Bentler, 2001). Moreover, root-mean-square

error of approximation (RMSEA) differences cannot be criteria because

“FITMOD does not compare two RMSEA indices” (Browne, personal

communication, April 14, 2003).

Table 1

Goal Contents, Descriptions, and Sample Items

Goal contents Description Sample items

Affiliation To have satisfying relationships with family and friends “I will have a committed, intimate relationship.”

Community feeling To improve the world through activism or generativity “I will assist people who need it, asking nothing in return.”

Conformity To fit in with other people “I will live up to the expectations of my society.”

Financial success To be wealthy and materially successful “I will be financially successful.”

Hedonism To experience much sensual pleasure “I will experience a great deal of sensual pleasure.”

Image To look attractive in terms of body and clothing “My image will be one others find appealing.”

Physical health To feel healthy and free of illness “I will be physically healthy.”

Popularity To be famous, well-known, and admired “I will be admired by many people.”

Safety To ensure bodily integrity and safety “I will have few threats to my personal safety.”

Self-acceptance To feel competent and autonomous “I will have insight into why I do the things I do.”

Spirituality To search for spiritual or religious understanding “I will find religious or spiritual beliefs that help me make

sense of the world.”

802

GROUZET ET AL.

most consistent. In order to most stringently test whether the goals

organized themselves into a “circumplex model” (as defined by

Fabrigar, Visser, & Browne, 1997 and by Larsen & Diener, 1992),

we hypothesized that the goals could be ordered along the circum-

ference of a circle (Hypothesis 2B). To test this hypothesis, we

conducted confirmatory covariance analyses using Browne’s

(1992) circular stochastic modeling technique (i.e., CIRCUM;

Browne, 1995; see Overview of Analytic Strategy section).

Finally, to further test whether the configuration, compatibili-

ties, and conflicts of goals were essentially similar across cultures,

we used 1997 data on the gross national income per capita (source:

http://www.worldbank.org

) to place each culture into a wealthier

group (United States; Quebec, Canada; France; Spain; Germany;

Hong Kong, China; South Korea; and Australia; gross national

income ranged from $11,400 to $30,030 per capita) and a poorer

group (the Dominican Republic; Colombia; Romania; Bulgaria;

Egypt; India; and Beijing, China; gross national income ranged

from $420 to $2,500 per capita).

We then examined whether the

goals were ordered in a similar circumplex configuration in both

wealthier and poorer cultures, with the expectation that they would

be (Hypothesis 3).

Method

Samples

Between 1996 and 2000, we collected 1,984 questionnaires from uni-

versity students in 15 different countries and provinces: Australia, Bul-

garia, Canada (Quebec), China (Beijing and Hong Kong separately), Co-

lombia, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Roma-

nia, South Korea, Spain, and the United States. Table 2 presents the main

characteristics of the samples in terms of size, geographical location,

language in which the survey was administered, percentage of female

subjects, mean age, ethnic origin, religion, and marital status. Of the 1,984

participants, 1,854 (93%) had no missing answers on the 57 items of the

Aspiration Index and were retained for further analyses.

Measure: The Aspiration Index

This version of the Aspiration Index was based on earlier versions

(Kasser & Ryan, 1993, 1996, 2001) and was designed to measure 11

different goal domains. Subjects were presented with 57 different “goals

that you may have for the future” and were asked to rate “how important

each goal is to you” on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all)to9(extremely).

Odd numbered scale points were given labels of 3 (a little),5(moderately),

and7(very). Eight of the goal subscales were adapted from previous

studies (Kasser, 1996; Kasser & Ryan, 1993, 1996) and measured the

following domains: financial success (4 items), image (5 items), popularity

(4 items), self-acceptance (8 items), affiliation (6 items), community feel-

ing (4 items), physical health (5 items), and spirituality (6 items). Three

other goal subscales were developed for this study and measured goals for

Wealthier nations, with a couple of exceptions, tended to be relatively

individualistic, whereas poorer nations tended toward collectivism. Given

this, any similarity or difference could be interpreted also according to this

individualistic– collectivistic dimension. It would be interesting to examine

whether self-transcendence goals, such as conformity and community

feeling, could possess different meaning in collectivistic and individualistic

cultures.

Table 2

Characteristics of Samples

Culture Region or town n Language

Sex

(% of female) Age Race (majority) Religion

Marital

status

(% of single) Year

Australia Newcastle 91 English 65.9 24.70 95.3% Caucasian 39.5% Protestant 87.1 1998–1999

29.6% atheist

25.9% Catholic

Bulgaria Sofia 106 Bulgarian 79.2 21.91 100% Caucasian 89.4% Orthodox 90.2 1998

Canada Montreal 164 French 84.8 24.94 95.2% Caucasian 72.3% Catholic 72.0 2000

22.0% Atheist

China Beijing 94 Chinese 25.5 21.43 100% Asian — 84.0 1998

China Hong Kong 94 Chinese 70.2 20.41 81.5% Asian 100% Protestant 100.0 1998

Colombia Bogota 146 Spanish 50.7 20.27 — — 100.0 1998

Dominican Republic Santo Domingo 70 Spanish 52.9 22.79 — — 83.3 1998

Egypt Cairo 105 English 58.7 20.38 97.0% Arabian 70.9% Islamic 89.0 1998

France Tours 108 French 54.6 20.48 88.4% Caucasian 55.0% Atheist 93.4 2000

35.0% Catholic

Germany Goettingen 150 German 60.0 21.67 100% Caucasian 62% Protestant 98.7 1998

19.3% Atheist

18.7% Catholic

India Bombay 123 English 63.3 20.17 98.3% Asian 75.6% Hindu 95.8 1996

Romania Brasov 100 Romanian 50.0 21.15 — 95.9% Protestant 95.0 1998

South Korea Seoul 201 Korean 30.5 21.66 100% Asian 53.3% Protestant 98.5 1997

24.8% Catholic

20.2% Buddhist

Spain Madrid 138 Spanish 56.9 22.32 — — 99.3 1998

United States Columbia, MO 164 English 64.2 18.59 83.2% Caucasian 50.3% Protestant 98.2 1997

25.5% Catholic

Total 1,854 57.6 21.48 92.9

803

GOAL CONTENTS ACROSS CULTURES

conformity (5 items), hedonism (5 items), and safety (5 items). The items

were presented in a random order.

Procedure

The questionnaire was originally written in English and then translated

by competent bilinguals who were either our research collaborators or were

supervised by them. Translations, following back-translation procedure

(Brislin, 1970), were required for the Bulgarian, Chinese, French, German,

Korean, Romanian, and Spanish versions of the Aspiration Index.

The survey packet was distributed to participants on a voluntary basis at

universities and colleges around the world. No financial incentives were

provided to the students in exchange for their participation, although extra

course credit was given on occasion. Some students completed the survey

packet in class, whereas others completed it at their own leisure and

returned it to the experimenter within a day or two. The survey packet

included several other questionnaires besides the Aspiration Index, and one

other set of ratings (i.e., likelihood of attainment) was made on the goals

composing the Aspiration Index; these data are not relevant to the present

set of hypotheses.

Overview of Analytic Strategy

After first using internal reliability tests to determine which items were

to be retained within each of the 11 goal subscales, we conducted a

confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the retained items to test the

proposed 11-factor structure of the Aspiration Index. Because indica-

tors of goodness of fit, such as the comparative fit index (CFI; Bentler,

1990), are not ideal for testing complex models such as this one (Beauducel

& Wittmann, 2005), we applied the decision rules of Hu and Bentler (1998,

1999), which concern the root-mean-square error of approximation (RM-

SEA; Steiger & Lind, 1980) and the standardized root-mean-square resid-

ual (SRMR; Bentler, 1995). Specifically, Hu and Bentler’s decision rules

claim that a model adequately fits the data if the following requirements are

satisfied: RMSEA ⱕ .05 and SRMR ⱕ .06 or RMSEA ⱕ .06 and SRMR ⱕ

.09, respectively.

Next, we tested the measurement equivalence of the subscales to deter-

mine whether these goal ratings were invariant across cultures. Equiva-

lence of measurement across cultures was evaluated with multigroup CFAs

of unidimensional structural equation models (using EQS Version 6.1

software; Bentler, 2003). Specifically, we performed 11 (one for each goal

scale) mean and covariance structures (MACS) analyses (Little, 1997) in

each of the 15 cultures. Each of the 11 MACS analyses involved three

nested models corresponding to different levels of equivalence across

groups (Meredith, 1993; e.g., see also Byrne & Campbell, 1999; Little,

1997; Spini, 2003; Steenkamp & Baumgartner, 1998):

1. Configural invariance is tested through models that estimate factor

loadings, factor variance, error of variances, and intercepts. The factor

loading for each item should be different from zero across the cultures.

These first models were considered here as the basic model (or M

configural

In our study, acceptable levels of configural invariance mean that the goal

(as measured by the scale) is unidimensional in each culture—that is, that

only one factor represents the interrelations among the items of the scale.

2. Metric invariance is tested through models in which factor loadings

are constrained to be equal across cultures. This corresponds to Meredith’s

(1993) weak invariance. Acceptable levels of metric invariance mean that

factor loadings are comparable across the 15 cultures. These metric models

metric

) are nested in the M

configural

models.

3. Scalar invariance is tested through models in which factor loadings

and intercepts are constrained to be equal across cultures. This corresponds

to Meredith’s (1993) strong invariance. Acceptable levels of scalar invari-

ance mean that intercepts are comparable across 15 cultures. This level of

equivalence is important for testing whether different cultures endorse the

concepts measured (i.e., the latent variable) to different extents. These

scalar models (M

scalar

) are nested in the M

metric

models.

Maximum likelihood estimation procedures are used with SB scaling

corrections, allowing the calculation of the SB scaled chi-square value

(Satorra & Bentler, 1988, 1994). Two types of fit indices were used: overall

and comparative fit indices (see Bollen, 1989). Because these models were

simpler than the 11-factor model initially tested (i.e., they tested only 1

factor as opposed to 11), we used the CFI, SRMR, and RMSEA. Further-

more, as recommended by Widaman and Thompson (2003), the CFI (i.e.,

an incremental fit index) was calculated with statistics from an acceptable

independence null model, which is nested in the M

scalar

analyses.

Values

equal or superior to .95 for the CFI are considered to indicate a good fit to

the data (Hu & Bentler, 1999). Similarly, SRMR values equal to or smaller

than .08 are considered acceptable (Hu & Bentler, 1999). Finally, the SB

scaling corrections allow the calculation of an adjusted RMSEA for non-

normal conditions (see Nevitt & Hancock, 2000). Values below .06, with

a confidence interval (CI) limit below .08, are used as thresholds for not

rejecting a model (Browne & Cudeck, 1992; see also Hu and Bentler,

1999).

In addition to these overall fit indices, two comparative fit indices were

also used to statistically evaluate the difference between nested models

(i.e., M

configural

vs. M

metric

vs. M

scalar

; see Bollen, 1989). First, we

used the scaled difference chi-square test (⌬SB

␹

; Satorra, 2000; Satorra &

Bentler, 2001), which compares two SB chi-square values from nested

models rather than computing the simple difference between them (e.g.,

Byrne & Campbell, 1999). Second, as recommended by Cheung and

Rensvold (2002), we also examined the changes in the CFIs (i.e., the

difference in the CFIs between two nested models [⌬CFIs]) when invari-

ance constraints were added. An absolute value of ⌬CFI smaller than or

equal to |.01| indicates that the invariance hypothesis should not be

rejected, but when the absolute differences lie between |.01| and |.02|,

one should be suspicious that differences exist (Cheung & Rensvold,

2002). One of the advantages of the ⌬CFI statistic over the ⌬

␹

statistic

is that it is not as strongly affected by sample size. To sum up, a

nonsignificant difference between the M

configural

’s and the M

metric

’s scaled

chi-squares or an absolute difference between the M

configural

’s and the

metric

’s CFIs of |.01| or less means that metric invariance is attained.

Further, a nonsignificant difference between the M

metric

’s and the M

scalar

’s

scaled chi-squares or an absolute difference between the M

metric

’s and the

scalar

’s CFIs of |.01| or less means that scalar invariance is attained.

To examine the circumplex structure of relations among the 11 goal

domains, as well as whether the relations were cross-culturally consistent,

we used two statistical techniques: (a) nonmetric MDS analyses (e.g.,

Borg & Groenen, 1997; Davison, 1983; Dillon & Goldstein, 1984) to

test the hypothesized two-dimensional component of the goal structure

(Hypothesis 2A) and (b) Browne’s (1992) circular stochastic modeling

(i.e., CIRCUM; Browne, 1995) to test the circumplex component of the

hypothesized goal structure (Hypothesis 2B).

The appropriateness of MDS techniques over factor analysis for testing

multidimensional hypotheses has been explained elsewhere (e.g.,

Schwartz, 1992; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1990). In brief, this technique repre-

sents the goal factors as points in a two-dimensional space such that the

As Little (1997, note 1) noted, “strong factorial invariance is less

biasing than strict factorial invariance (i.e., wherein residual variances are

also equated; Meredith, 1993),” and “in practical applications of cross-

cultural research . . . an invariant measurement space can be specified.”

More specifically, the acceptable independence null model we used

corresponded to Widaman and Thompson’s (2003) “Model OB” (p. 25,

Fig. 1) where, besides constraining the covariances among all manifest

variables to zero (only the variance and mean of each manifest variable are

freely estimated; these constraints correspond to the traditional indepen-

dence null model), the intercepts are constrained to be equal across groups.

804

GROUZET ET AL.

distance between the points reflects the empirical relations among goals.

Thus, goals that lie close to each other are considered by most individuals

to be relatively consistent or complementary with each other, whereas

those goals that are on opposite sides of the two-dimensional space (and are

thus far apart) are viewed by people as in conflict or inconsistent with each

other. Because the actual axes resulting from MDS analyses are considered

to be arbitrary, they are not assumed to have substantive meaning. Con-

sequently, the MDS solution can be (orthogonally) rotated to draw different

meaningful representations. In the MDS analyses conducted below, we

used the factor scores rather than the mean scores for each of the 11 goal

factors. Then, 11 ⫻ 11 dissimilarity matrices for the combined samples

were generated with Euclidian distances, and these dissimilarity data were

used as input in a two-dimensional MDS of the combined samples.

The choice of a two-dimension solution was motivated by the interpret-

ability of the solution (see Schwartz, 1992, note 10, p. 23) and our

hypotheses. Our approach was therefore confirmatory, but we nonetheless

tested this two-dimension solution in accord with Davison’s (1983) three

criteria of interpretability, fit, and reproducibility. The interpretability

criterion dictates that the number of dimensions should be the smallest

number necessary to incorporate all of the important stimulus features

(stimulus orderings or groupings). In terms of fit, we examined the stress

indicators and the R

measures for one- through five-dimensional solutions,

paying particular attention to the dimensions-by-fit plots (i.e., scree plot;

see Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1995). Finally, reproducibility

dictates that the solution be composed of dimensions that occur consis-

tently across subgroups. We thus performed 15 additional MDSs (one for

each culture) to determine whether the results from these stress analyses

confirmed the results from the overall stress analysis in the combined

sample of 1,854 participants.

To examine similarities of the structural configuration across cultures,

we examined the 15 aforementioned MDSs. In particular, as described by

Schwartz (1992, pp. 35–36), we examined how close or distant each pair

of goal factors was to each other in the MDS for each sample. More

specifically, for each pair of goal factors, we calculated the distance

between the two points that they had been assigned to in the two-

dimensional space generated by the MDS.

Then, we transformed the

distance score into an ipsative distance score.

Positive ipsative distance

scores represent consistent goals, whereas negative ipsative distance scores

represent inconsistency. For ease of interpretation, we report not only the

mean ipsative distance scores but also the number of samples in which

these scores suggested that different pairings of goals were consistent or

inconsistent.

As mentioned above, we also tested whether the configuration, compat-

ibilities, and conflicts were essentially similar in wealthier (United States;

Canada; France; Spain; Germany; Hong Kong, China; South Korea; and

Australia) and in poorer (the Dominican Republic; Colombia; Romania;

Bulgaria; Egypt; India; and Beijing, China) cultures. Thus, we recomputed

the analyses reported above separately for the two groups of cultures.

Although MDS was largely used to provide spatial representations of the

data structure and to observe a circumplex ideal, Gurtman and Pincus

(2003, p. 411) noted that “any serious test of the circumplex model should

also include application of confirmatory methods. Hence, confirmatory

methods offer the logical next step in validating the circumplex properties

of a given data set.” As such, in order to confirm the circular component

of a circumplex structure (Hypothesis 2B), we used Browne’s (1992)

circular stochastic modeling approach, using CIRCUM (Browne, 1995),

which is a structural equation modeling (SEM) program similar to EQS

(Bentler, 1995).

In particular, CIRCUM evaluates the extent to which an

observed correlation matrix fits a particular kind of correlation model

referred to by Guttman (1954) as the circulant matrix. If it does, the

correlation between two variables should be a function of the angle

between the variables on the perimeter of a circle

(Browne, 1992; see also

Fabrigar, Visser, & Browne, 1997; for an extended review on circumplex

modeling, see Gurtman & Pincus, 2003). Furthermore, like other standard

SEM programs, CIRCUM yields indices of the goodness of fit of the

model, such as the RMSEA. As mentioned before, an RMSEA value close

to .06, with a CI limit below .08, is indicative of relatively good fit

(Browne & Cudeck, 1992). CIRCUM yields several additional useful

maximum likelihood estimates, including the polar angles of common

score variables (i.e., location on the circle in relation to a reference

variable, whose position is set to 0°), estimates of the communality of each

measured variable (i.e., the proportion of variance estimated to represent

common variance), and the minimum common score correlation (i.e., the

correlation between variables that are 180° apart). CIs for RMSEA and

these estimates are also provided.

In the present study, the 11 ⫻ 11 Pearson product–moment correlation

matrices from goal factor scores (used in MDS) were entered in CIRCUM

for analysis. The goal affiliation was arbitrarily designated as the reference

variable (i.e., its location was set to 0° and the locations of the other

variables were estimated relative to it). No constraints were placed on the

location of the variables, the communalities, or the minimum common

score correlation (CIRCUM allows these additional constraints to be

placed on the model, but they are not necessary for a circumplex

hypothesis).

To examine consistencies of the circumplex configuration across cul-

tures, we performed two additional CIRCUM analyses (for wealthy and

poor culture groups; see above) following the steps described above. Then,

the empirical placements (i.e., estimated angular positions) of the goal

variables on the wealthier and poorer culture circles were correlated.

The formula used to calculate the distance between two points in a

two-dimension space is as follows:

⫽ √共兩x

⫺ x

兩

⫹ 兩y

⫺ y

兩

兲,

where x

and x

are the first (horizontal) axis coordinates for the points 1

and 2, and y

and y

are the second (vertical) axis coordinates for the

points 1 and 2.

An ipsative (from the Latin ipse, meaning he, himself) transformation

involves standardizing the score within the individual’s scores (e.g., see

Chan, 2003). Here the ipsative distance scores were calculated within

culture’s scores with the following formula:

id ⫽ 共d

⫺ M

⌺ D

兲/

␴

⌺ D

where d

is the distance score for the i pair, M

⌺D

is the mean of all the 10 ⫻

11 d

s, and

␴

⌺D

is the standard deviation of all the 10 ⫻ 11 d

s. With this

formula, smaller distance scores (which represent consistency between two

goals) result in negative ipsative scores, whereas larger distance scores

(which represent inconsistency) result in positive ipsative scores. To avoid

such illogical associations between consistency and negativity and between

inconsistency and positivity, we reversed the ipsative distance scores by

multiplying them by ⫺1.

Recently, Schwartz and Boehnke (2004) tended to confirm the

Schwartz’s circumplex value structure, by using standard CFA. Although

CFA is well suited to analyze interrelation among latent variables, it cannot

test the circumplex assumptions as defined by Gurtman and Pincus (2003).

However, CIRCUM has been elaborated for this specific purpose. Further

program developments are needed in order to allow SEM programs to

simultaneously model factorial and circumplex structures.

Browne (1992) has demonstrated that a circulant matrix can be

“reparametrized” as a Fourier series, such as

⫽

␤

⫹ ⌺

␤

䡠 cos 共k ⫻

␪

兲,

with k ⫽ 1tom components in the Fourier series, and where r

is the

correlation of variables i and j, and

␪

is the angular discrepancy between

their respective polar angles.

805

GOAL CONTENTS ACROSS CULTURES

Results

Psychometric Characteristics of the Aspiration Index:

Internal Reliability and Measurement Equivalence

(Hypothesis 1)

To detect any item that consistently detracted from a subscale’s

reliability, in each culture we computed reliability coefficients

(Cronbach’s alpha) and item-total correlations for the items that a

priori composed each of the 11 goal domains. These analyses

suggested the removal of one item each from the popularity,

conformity, affiliation, community feeling, safety, and health do-

mains, and two items each from the hedonism and spirituality

domains. The final versions of the subscales showed acceptable

levels of internal consistency, as the mean and median alpha

reliabilities across countries for the 11 domains of aspirations

were, respectively, as follows: financial success, .84 and .83;

image, .76 and .74; conformity, .67 and .62; popularity, .73 and

.71; self-acceptance, .79 and .73; affiliation, .81 and .75; commu-

nity feeling, .75 and .71; physical health, .72 and .74; hedonism,

.70 and .72; safety, .71 and .70; and spirituality, .90 and .87.

The retained 47 items were then analyzed in a CFA in which we

specified 11 distinct (but correlated) latent factors corresponding

to the hypothesized goal domains. Fit indices were as follows: SB

␹

(979, N ⫽ 1,854) ⫽ 4,643.93, p ⬍ .001; CFI ⫽ .87; SRMR ⫽

.050; RMSEA ⫽ .045 (90% CI: .044, .046). Although the CFI was

slightly below the .90 criteria that is sometimes used for simpler

models, the RMSEA and SRMR indices that are more appropriate

for complex models such as ours (Beauducel & Wittmann, 2005;

Raykov, 1998) provided strong support for the model; that is, both

met Hu and Bentler’s (1999) decision rules for determining that a

model adequately fits the data. Further, the average of the absolute

correlation residual (i.e., the discrepancy between observed and

predicted correlation matrices) was lower than .10 (i.e., it was

.039), and less than 5% of these correlation residuals were higher

than .10 (i.e., 95% were below .10); these results also indicate

good local fits (Tomarken & Waller, 2003).

Next, we examined measurement equivalence of each goal sub-

scale across cultures to test our first hypothesis. Table 3 shows SB

chi-square statistics and overall fit indices for each of the three models

testing configural, metric, and scalar invariance, as well as compara-

tive fit indices between nested models. Regarding configural invari-

ance, we could not evaluate this for three subscales (i.e., Community

Feeling, Hedonism, and Popularity) because each was composed of

only three items. All eight of the remaining goal subscales, however,

were invariant and unidimensional across the 15 samples. Regarding

metric invariance, although a couple of SRMR values were above .08,

most of the CFI and RMSEA values and ⌬CFI statistics supported the

hypothesis, as each item loaded on the relevant goal domain at

approximately equal strength across the 15 cultures. In contrast,

regarding scalar invariance, although RMSEA values were acceptable

for some of the goal domains, other statistics indicated that the scalar

invariance hypothesis should be rejected for all the goal models.

In sum, these results supported not only our implicit assumption

that the Aspiration Index is composed of 11 factors, but also our

first hypothesis by indicating that each of the 11 goal subscales

was reliably measuring a unidimensional factor across the different

cultures. However, the mean structures of the subscales were

varying across the cultures. These results suggest the absence of

between-groups differences in some forms of item bias (e.g.,

translation, extreme response style; Cheung & Rensvold, 2000;

Mullen, 1995), but it remains possible that there are between-

groups differences in other response styles (e.g., acquiescence;

Cheung & Rensvold, 2000). Because scalar invariance is important

in cross-cultural research to compare (latent) means across cul-

tures,

any mean difference tests should be interpreted with cau

tion. As this study’s hypotheses about goal structures did not

require such comparisons, we could conclude that the Aspiration

Index’s reliability was sufficiently invariant across cultures to

proceed with analyses of its structure.

Two-Dimensional Representation: Multidimensional

Scaling Analyses (Hypothesis 2A)

Validation of the two-dimension solution. As described above,

we sought support for the proposed two-dimensional organization of

the 11 goals by applying Davison’s (1983) three criteria of interpret-

ability, fit, and reproducibility. As we believe is demonstrated below,

the interpretability criterion received good support, as the two-

dimension solution organized the goal structure in a relatively elegant

fashion, and a third dimension was not necessary to conceptualize this

organization. Less subjectively, support for the fit criterion came from

analyses of the stress indicators and the R

measure using the entire

sample. The stress indicators were .40, .10, .05, .02, and .01 for one-

to five-dimensional solutions, respectively, revealing that the addition

of a second dimension increased substantially the fit (⌬stress ⫽ .30),

but the third through fifth dimensions did not increase fit as much

(⌬stress ⫽ .05 or less). Moreover, R

measures revealed that the first

dimension explained 54% of the variance, and a second dimension

added an additional 38%, but the third through fifth dimensions did

not add large enough amounts of variance (i.e., ⬍ 5%) to warrant their

inclusion in the model. In terms of reproducibility, similar patterns of

results were also found when MDS analyses were conducted on each

of the 15 culture samples individually; here, the median stress indi-

cator for the second dimension was .11. Moreover, the average R

change was 20% for an added second dimension, whereas it was only

5% for a third dimension, suggesting again that adding a third dimen-

sion provided little in the way of additional information. In sum, these

results suggest that a two-dimensional model of goal structure was

more parsimonious and valid, as well as more reproducible across the

15 cultures, than was a model including any other number of dimensions.

An initial model. Having established that a two-dimensional

model worked well to organize the goals, we next used the MDS

analyses to examine whether the goals were organized in a way

supportive of our hypotheses. The MDS analysis based on the

entire sample of subjects yielded the representation in Figure 1.

The hypothesis of equivalent intercepts across numerous samples (e.g.,

more than 10) is difficult to reach, as found by Spini (2003) with Schwartz’s

(1992) values. Of course, partial equivalence could also have been tested to

assess equivalence in a smaller number of nations, but we shared Spini’s and

Schwartz’s objectives considering only universality and, so, full invariance.

It should be recalled here that MDS analysis yields a two-dimensional

space representation without meaningful axes. Positions of the orthogonal

axes according to each other (i.e., where the two axes cross each other) are

essentially arbitrary and guided by the hypothesis. Therefore, axes should

be considered as two orthogonal continuums rather than frontiers that

organize goals in rigid categories.

806

GROUZET ET AL.

Examination of this figure yields several conclusions. First, the

goal importance ratings do indeed appear to be organized in a

circumplex fashion. Second, one of the dimensions that seemed to

organize goal placements (represented in Figure 1 as the vertical

dimension) appears quite similar to what we suggested would be

self-transcendent versus physical. On the top of this dimension are

aspirations that represent going beyond or outside of oneself;

spiritual strivings are the primary representation of this end of the

dimension, and community feeling and conformity aspirations are

also involved. At the bottom of this dimension are aspirations that

primarily concern the physical body; hedonism aspirations are

especially representative of this, as are safety, physical health, and

financial success aspirations.

The other, horizontal dimension seems to support previous work

suggesting that goals are also organized along an intrinsic versus

extrinsic dimension. On the right of the circumplex are the theo-

rized intrinsic goals of self-acceptance, affiliation, community

feeling, and physical health. Notably, safety aspirations also fall

into this cluster, as would be predicted by Maslovian theory

(Maslow, 1954). On the left of this axis are the three extrinsic

goals found in past research (i.e., financial success, image, and

popularity) as well as the newly measured conformity goal, which

Kasser (2002b) predicted would fall with these extrinsic goals. In

sum, the results suggest that across cultures people do experience

goals as falling along an intrinsic– extrinsic dimension.

Consistency of the model across cultures. Figure 1 presents a

model of a configuration of goals that ignores potential differences

between the cultures by averaging across them. We undertook

several different types of analyses to test whether the compatibil-

ities and conflicts represented in Figure 1 also revealed themselves

within individual cultures.

To begin, we computed a measure of the ipsative distance

between pairs of goals on the basis of MDS analyses within each

culture. As described above, we considered goals to be compatible

if this ipsative distance measure was positive and conflictual if it

was negative. One way to examine whether the goal pairs were

Table 3

Overall Fit Indices for Configural Models (i.e., Without Equality Constraints), Equal Factor Loadings Models (Metric Invariance),

and Equal Means Loadings (Scalar Invariance), and Change in Fit

Subscale Items

SB chi-square Absolute fit indices Comparative fit indices

␹

df p CFI SRMR RMSEA RMSEA CI ⌬SB-

␹

⌬df p ⌬CFI

Hedonism 3

Metric invariance 3 31.7894 28 .283 .997 .065 .009 [.000, .021]

Scalar invariance 3 352.9836 56 .000 .956 .152 .054 [.048, .059] 391.44 28 .000 ⫺.041

Safety 4 38.2179 30 .144 .995 .032 .012 [.000, .023]

Metric invariance 4 121.0954 72 .000 .970 .096 .019 [.013, .025] 81.81 42 .000 ⫺.025

Scalar invariance 4 451.4008 114 .000 .928 .121 .040 [.036, .044] 426.05 42 .000 ⫺.042

Physical Health 4 149.1787 30 .000 .950 .063 .046 [.039, .054]

Metric invariance 4 236.2161 72 .000 .932 .137 .035 [.030, .040] 96.74 42 .000 ⴚ.019

Scalar invariance 4 861.3459 114 .000 .858 .394 .060 [.056, .063] 1,027.56 42 .000 ⫺.074

Self-Acceptance 7 325.1833 210 .000 .956 .065 .017 [.013, .021]

Metric invariance 7 426.2373 294 .000 .950 .105 .016 [.012, .019] 102.55 84 .083 ⴚ.006

Scalar invariance 7 986.0803 378 .000 .907 .124 .030 [.027, .032] 939.00 84 .000 ⫺.043

Affiliation 5 99.6315 75 .030 .985 .047 .013 [.004, .020]

Metric invariance 5 164.0732 131 .027 .980 .100 .012 [.004, .017] 65.47 56 .181 ⴚ.005

Scalar invariance 5 420.4861 187 .000 .943 .111 .026 [.023, .029] 375.68 56 .000 ⫺.037

Community Feeling 3

Metric invariance 3 33.1505 28 .230 .996 .067 .010 [.000, .021]

Scalar invariance 3 134.6749 56 .000 .987 .071 .028 [.022, .033] 113.07 28 .000 ⴚ.009

Spirituality 5 119.8520 75 .001 .995 .034 .018 [.012, .024]

Metric invariance 5 231.3218 131 .000 .988 .100 .020 [.016, .025] 116.43 56 .000 ⴚ.006

Scalar invariance 5 553.7881 187 .000 .982 .114 .033 [.029, .036] 426.12 56 .000 ⴚ.006

Conformity 4 74.7544 30 .000 .987 .058 .028 [.020, .036]

Metric invariance 4 167.4642 72 .000 .972 .095 .027 [.021, .032] 91.77 42 .000 ⴚ.015

Scalar invariance 4 1,382.3340 114 .000 .848 .324 .078 [.074, .081] 1,879.05 42 .000 ⫺.124

Popularity 3

Metric invariance 3 32.0619 28 .272 .998 .064 .009 [.000, .021]

Scalar invariance 3 203.5553 56 .000 .988 .074 .038 [.032, .043] 190.30 28 .000 ⴚ.010

Image 5 138.0259 75 .000 .980 .052 .021 [.016, .027]

Metric invariance 5 262.8648 131 .000 .958 .103 .023 [.019, .027] 126.34 56 .000 ⫺.022

Scalar invariance 5 907.6270 187 .000 .909 .197 .046 [.043, .049] 891.10 56 .000 ⫺.049

Financial Success 4 110.8379 30 .000 .978 .042 .038 [.031, .046]

Metric invariance 4 194.7192 72 .000 .966 .100 .030 [.025, .035] 80.68 42 .000 ⴚ.012

Scalar invariance 4 513.0700 114 .000 .953 .113 .044 [.040, .047] 373.01 42 .000 ⴚ.013

Note. SB ⫽ Satorra–Bentler; SB

␹

⫽ SB adjusted chi-square; CFI ⫽ robust confirmatory fit index (Bentler, 1990) based on the acceptable null model

SB chi-square (CFI ⱖ .95 in bold); SRMR ⫽ standardized root-mean-square residual (SRMR ⬍ .08 in bold); RMSEA ⫽ robust root-mean-square error

of approximation (RMSEA ⱕ .06 in bold); CI ⫽ confidence interval (upper limit ⬍ .08 in bold); ⌬SB

␹

⫽ difference in SB

␹

for nested models (i.e.,

the configural versus the metric invariance models; the metric invariance versus the scalar invariance models) adjusted following Satorra and Bentler

(2001); ⌬CFI ⫽ difference in CFI for nested models (absolute ⌬CFI ⬍ .02 in bold).

807

GOAL CONTENTS ACROSS CULTURES

compatible or conflictual was to calculate the proportion of cul-

tures (out of the 15) in which the goal pairs were either compatible

or conflictual.

This method, however, did not provide an indi

cation of the strength of the compatibility or conflict. Thus, we

also computed the mean ipsative distance for each goal pairing and

used t tests to determine whether this mean ipsative distance score

was significantly different from zero (i.e., the number that repre-

sents neither conflict nor compatibility). We followed this proce-

dure for each goal pair by working clockwise around the circum-

plex and for the clusters of goals at each end of the dimensions

resulting from the MDS analyses.

As can be seen in the second and third columns of Table 4 (see

also Note), each goal type was compatible with its adjacent goal

types on the circumplex in at least 10 samples (67%); six of the

compatibilities occurred in 14 (93%) or all of the cultures. Further,

the mean ipsative distance score was significantly greater than zero

(indicating compatibility) in all but three cases: the compatibilities

of conformity and spirituality, of hedonism and safety–physical

health, and of hedonism and financial success. Despite these few

variations, the results overall indicate that most cultures agree that

goals next to each other in Figure 1 are compatible and that these

compatibilities are reasonably strong.

Next we examined the compatibilities of clusters of goals rep-

resenting the ends of the two dimensions represented in Figure 1.

As can be seen in the bottom portion of Table 4, the intrinsic and

extrinsic clusters were each compatible within themselves in all 15

cultures, and the strength of this compatibility was significant (i.e.,

⬎0). Results were somewhat weaker for the physical cluster, as it

was apparent in only 11 of 15 cultures, and even weaker for the

self-transcendence cluster, which occurred in only 9 of the 15

cultures and whose mean ipsative distance score was not signifi-

cantly different than zero.

Turning now to the conflicts between clusters, intrinsic and

extrinsic goals were clearly in conflict with each other, as were the

physical and self-transcendence dimensions. As can be seen there,

the intrinsic and extrinsic clusters were each in conflict with each

other in all 15 cultures, and the strength of this conflict was

significant (i.e., ⬍0). A very similar pattern of results can be seen

concerning the physical/self-transcendence conflict.

Wealthier and poorer cultures. Using MDS analyses, we next

examined whether the basic ordering of goals around the circum-

plex was essentially the same in wealthier (Figure 2A) and poorer

(Figure 2B) cultures. As can be seen in Figure 2, the ordering was

essentially the same, although three small differences in the rela-

tive placement of goals emerged. First, safety and physical health

appeared to be somewhat closer to hedonism (and thus had a

somewhat more physical character) in the wealthier cultures than

in the poorer cultures. Second, community feeling and conformity

For compatibilities among goal types, we reported the mean of dis

tances for each possible pair of value type. For instance, in the case of the

conformity–spirituality– community feeling cluster, we reported the mean

of the conformity–spirituality, the community feeling– conformity, and the

spirituality– conformity ipsative distances. For conflicts among value

types, we reported the mean of distances for each possible conflict of value

type. For instance, in the case of the affiliation/self-acceptance versus

appearance–social recognition conflict, we reported the mean of the

affiliation–appearance, the affiliation–social recognition, the self-

acceptance/appearance, and the self-acceptance/social recognition ipsative

distances.

Figure 1. Two-dimensional representation of the goals resulting from multidimensional scaling analysis for all

samples.

808

GROUZET ET AL.

appeared to be somewhat closer to spirituality (and thus had a

somewhat more self-transcendent quality) in the poorer cultures

than in the wealthier cultures. Third, financial success appeared to

have a somewhat less physical character and a somewhat less

extrinsic flavor in the poorer cultures, although it still fell with the

other extrinsic aspirations. Again, however, these small differences

do not eclipse the overall similarity between Figures 2A and 2B.

We next examined the proportion of wealthier and poorer cul-

tures in which ipsative distance scores for the goal pairings were

above or below zero, as above. These results suggested similar

levels of compatibility (or conflict) for wealthier and poorer cul-

tures, except in two cases. First, the compatibility of physical

health–safety and hedonism was weaker in the poorer cultures.

Second, the self-transcendence cluster (i.e., community feeling,

spirituality, and conformity) was not as compatible within itself for

the wealthier cultures.

Next, we examined whether the mean ipsative distance scores

for compatibilities or conflicts were different in size between the

wealthier and the poorer cultures. Notably, the degrees of freedom

(13) here were quite small, and so results should be treated with

extreme caution. Two significant differences between rich and

poor cultures emerged, as reported in Table 4. First, the extrinsic

cluster (i.e., popularity, image, financial success, and conformity)

of goals was significantly more compact in wealthier cultures than

Table 4

Hypothesis Testing on Compatibilities and Conflicts Among Goal Types

Goal type

Proportion

of cultures

(N ⫽ 15)

Mean

ipsative

distance

Wealthier

cultures

(n ⫽ 8)

Poorer

cultures

(n ⫽ 7)

t test on ipsative

distances between

wealthier and poorer

cultures

(df ⫽ 13)

Compatibilities (circumplex-like perspective two-by-two)

Spirituality–community feeling 13/15 0.54** 7/8 6/7 ⫺0.570

Community feeling–affiliation/self-acceptance

13/15 0.56** 6/8 7/7 ⫺0.665

Affiliation/self-acceptance

–physical health/safety

14/15 0.69*** 8/8 6/7 1.370

Physical health/safety

–hedonism

11/15 0.62

7/8 4/7 0.059

Hedonism–financial success 12/15 0.46

6/8 6/7 ⫺1.369

Financial success–image/popularity

15/15 1.08*** 8/8 7/7 1.417

Image/popularity

–conformity

14/15 0.64*** 8/8 6/7 2.988

Conformity–spirituality 10/15 0.33 5/8 5/7 ⫺0.665

Compatibilities (dimensional perspective by cluster)

Community feeling/affiliation/self-acceptance/

physical health/safety (i.e., intrinsic) cluster 15/15 0.67*** 8/8 7/7 ⫺0.492

Conformity/image/popularity/financial success

(i.e., extrinsic) cluster 15/15 0.82*** 8/8 7/7 2.938

Community feeling/spirituality/conformity (i.e.,

self-transcendence) cluster 9/15 0.11 3/8 6/7 ⫺3.220

Financial success/hedonism/safety/physical health

(i.e., physical self) cluster 11/15 0.51** 5/8 6/7 ⫺0.945

Conflicts (dimensional perspective cluster-against-cluster)

Community feeling/affiliation/self-acceptance/

physical health/safety vs. conformity/image/

popularity/financial success (i.e., intrinsic vs.

extrinsic) 15/15 ⫺0.46*** 8/8 7/7 ⫺0.044

Conformity/spirituality/community feeling vs.

financial success/hedonism/physical

health/safety (i.e., self-transcendence vs.

physical self) 15/15 ⫺0.66*** 8/8 7/7 ⫺0.904

Community feeling vs. appearance/social

recognition/financial success 14/15 0.99** 8/8 6/7 2.171†

Conformity vs. affiliation/self-acceptance/physical

health/safety 12/15 0.71** 6/8 6/7 ⫺0.996

Note. Unless otherwise indicated, values are nonsignificant at p ⬎ .10.

Between-group coding: 1 ⫽ wealthy cultures, 2 ⫽ poorer cultures.

Compatibilities between affiliation/self-acceptance (15/15; ⫺1.51***), physical

health/safety (13/15; ⫺0.97***), and appearance/social recognition (14/15; ⫺1.37***) were strong, and then they were considered as a pair rather than

individually.

Test statistics were nonsignificant after Bonferroni adjustment according to Jaccard and Wan’s (1996, p. 30) method.

It should be noted

that we dropped out Chinese sample in this t test because it seemed to be an outlier. The mean for the poorer nation group including China was ⫺.30, and

the t test was close to significance, t(13) ⫽ 1.747, p ⬍ .10 (see Footnote 12).

† p ⬍ .10. * p ⬍ .05. ** p ⬍ .01. *** p ⬍ .001.

809

GOAL CONTENTS ACROSS CULTURES

Figure 2. Two-dimensional representation of the goals resulting from multidimensional scaling analysis for

wealthy countries (A) and poor countries (B).

810

GROUZET ET AL.

in poorer cultures (M ⫽⫺1.01 vs. M ⫽⫺0.61), t(13) ⫽⫺2.938,

p ⬍ .05. Second, the self-transcendence goal cluster was more

compact in the poorer cultures (M ⫽ –.50)

than in the wealthier

cultures (M ⫽ .07), t(12) ⫽ 3.220, p ⬍ .007.

Circumplex Representation: CIRCUM Analysis

(Hypothesis 2B)

An initial model. We next examined whether the Aspiration

Index would yield a circular configuration, which is a more spe-

cific hypothesis than the prediction that the organization would

reflect a two-dimensional space (Gurtman & Pincus, 2003). This

subsequent step (after MDS analysis) was important because it

permitted us to validate the circumplex shape of goal placements

on the two-dimensional representation that the MDS results

showed in Figures 1, 2A, and 2B.

The CIRCUM analysis converged (residual cosine ⬍ 0.0001)

after 15 iterations. The RMSEA was .065 (90% CI: .058, .072),

indicating a close fit. All ratios of reproduced variances to input

variances were fairly close to 1, ranging from 0.98 to 1.019. The

estimated polar angles are represented graphically in Figure 3, and

their point estimates and 95% CIs are shown in Table 5. The

estimated item communality indices (i.e., the correlations between

measured and common score variables) ranged from .54 to .85. As

can be seen in Figure 3, positions of goal variables on the circle are

similar to those obtained with MDS. This result confirms that the

nature of the relationships among goal contents can be described as

an ordering of variables along the circumference of a circle.

Wealthier and poorer cultures. The results from CIRCUM

analyses showed that the basic ordering of goals around the circle

was essentially the same in wealthier and poorer cultures (see

Table 5). Furthermore, the polar position of the 11 variables was

almost identical in wealthier and poorer cultures (correlation ⫽

.99). As with MDS, a couple of small differences in the relative

placement of goals emerged, however. First, safety and physical

health had slightly different positions in the wealthier and poorer

cultures. Second, as observed in MDS results, financial success

appeared to have a somewhat less extrinsic flavor in the poorer

cultures, being a bit closer to affiliation than in wealthier cultures

(angle ⫽ 81° vs. 108°).

Discussion

The current study examined the goal importance ratings of 1,854

college students from 15 cultures around the world in an attempt to

better understand (a) what goals people typically strive for and (b)

how those goals are organized in people’s psyches. Given the

consistent organizations that have emerged for personality traits

(e.g., McCrae & Allik, 2002) and for values (Schwartz, 1992), we

were interested in the extent to which consistent results would

occur for importance ratings of goal contents.

Overview of Results

We began by demonstrating the reliability and cross-cultural

validity of the measure we implemented in this study (the Aspi-

ration Index) through a series of analyses, including MACS (Little,

1997). Our results suggested that the 11 goal domains assessed

herein each had acceptable internal reliability and measurement

equivalence across the 15 cultures. These validity checks on the

Aspiration Index also suggested that the 11 different domains of

goals we assessed are notable cross-culturally (see Table 2). Multidi-

mensional scaling analyses suggested that two dimensions best sum-

marized the organization of the goals; these MDS analyses along with

ipsative distance analyses and confirmatory CIRCUM analyses fur-

ther showed that the goal-importance ratings were organized in a very

similar circumplex fashion across cultures (see Figures 1 and 3), with

some goals viewed as consistent with each other and other goals

viewed as being in conflict with each other. Despite a few small

cross-cultural variations, the two–dimensional circumplex organi-

zation of goals was essentially the same in both wealthier and

poorer nations (see Figures 2a and 2b and Tables 4 and 5).

The 11 goals that we assessed in this study were on the whole

well organized by two underlying dimensions suggested by pre-

vious empirical and theoretical work. The first dimension supports

past work from the self-determination theory tradition (e.g., Deci

& Ryan, 2000; Kasser, 2002b; Kasser & Ryan, 1996), suggesting

that goals differ in terms of whether they are intrinsically oriented

and focused on the satisfaction of inherent psychological needs or

whether they are extrinsically oriented and focused on rewards and

praise. The current data confirmed past research that intrinsically

oriented goals included self-acceptance, affiliation, community

feeling, and physical health; safety goals also clustered here, in

line with predictions derived from Maslovian theory (Maslow,

1954). Extrinsically oriented goals included financial success, im-

age, and popularity, confirming past work; conformity was also

added to this list, as predicted by Kasser (2002b). It is particularly

important to note that MDS analyses including ipsative distance

scores suggested that the intrinsic and extrinsic clusters were

strongly consistent within themselves and strongly opposed to

each other in all 15 cultures surveyed.

The second dimension represents goals that are primarily con-

cerned with maintaining and enhancing one’s own physical plea-

sure and survival as opposed to those that concern something

higher; this dimension is reflected not only in religious writings

but also in the theories of several psychologists (e.g., James,

1892/1985). Specifically, the self-transcendent end of the dimen-

sion included goals that involve matching society’s desires (e.g.,

conformity), benefiting society and future generations (e.g., com-

munity feeling), and seeking out universal meanings and under-

standings (e.g., spirituality), whereas the physical end concerned

bodily pleasures (e.g., hedonism), physical survival (e.g., safety

and health), and the material means to both of these (e.g., financial

success). Although this self-transcendent versus physical dimen-

sion was clearly identified and the two sets of pursuits were

certainly in opposition with each other, we also note that neither

self-transcendent nor physical goals were as strongly consistent

within themselves as were intrinsic and extrinsic goals (see results

on ipsative distance scores, Table 4). Although this does not

invalidate the self-transcendent versus physical dimension, it does

suggest that the intrinsic versus extrinsic dimension is powerful and

attracts goals on the right and left sides of the two-dimensional space.

It should be noted that we dropped out the Chinese sample in this t test

because it seemed to be an outlier. The mean for the poorer nation group

including China was –.30, and the t test was close to significance: t(13) ⫽

1.747, p ⬍ .10.

811

GOAL CONTENTS ACROSS CULTURES

Although the results described above were on the whole

consistent in both wealthier and poorer cultures, two differences

based on cultural wealth are worthy of comment. Given the low

degrees of freedom for these analyses, the following specula-

tions should be treated with caution. First, financial success had

a less extrinsic and less physical character in the poorer cultures

than in the wealthier cultures. That is, financial success was

further from hedonism and closer to safety–physical health

goals in the poorer cultures than in the wealthier cultures. This

makes good sense, given that financial success in poorer cul-

tures is probably more likely to concern basic survival than in

wealthier cultures, where financial success is more often a

means to acquire status and nonessential pleasantries (i.e., goals

related to image and popularity; e.g., see Wong & Ahuvia,

1998). Similarly, the finding that financial success aspirations

were somewhat closer to affiliation in poorer nations than in

wealthier nations might reflect that individuals in poorer na-

tions may strive to make money to ensure the basic welfare of

those they care about. Second, the compatibilities of the clusters

defining each end of the self-transcendent versus physical di-

mension were somewhat weaker in the poorer cultures than in

the wealthier ones. At this point of our investigations, it is unfor-

tunately difficult to explain this last difference between wealthier

and poorer cultures.

Figure 3. Circular representation of the goals, resulting from CIRCUM analysis for all samples.

Table 5

Point Estimates and 95% Confidence Intervals (CIs) of Variable Polar Angles for the Total

Sample as Well as for Wealthier and Poorer Culture Groups

Goal type

Total sample

(N ⫽ 1,854)

Wealthier cultures

(n ⫽ 815)

Poorer cultures

(n ⫽ 1,039)

Estimate 95% CI Estimate 95% CI Estimate 95% CI

Affiliation 0° [0, 0] 0° [0, 0] 0° [0, 0]

Self-acceptance 6° [0, 12] 6° [355, 17] 1° [353, 8]

Physical health 31° [24, 37] 32° [16, 47] 34° [25, 43]

Safety 31° [24, 39] 37° [24, 49] 32° [23, 41]

Hedonism 59° [51, 68] 67° [50, 84] 63° [52, 74]

Financial success 105° [98, 113] 108° [95, 122] 81° [71, 91]

Image 138° [131, 146] 135° [122, 148] 129° [119, 140]

Popularity 147° [139, 155] 139° [125, 153] 144° [132, 156]

Conformity 184° [175, 193] 174° [158, 190] 192° [180, 205]

Spirituality 248° [238, 259] 252° [235, 269] 274° [260, 289]

Community feeling 297° [289, 305] 284° [270, 299] 292° [281, 302]

Note. Correlation between wealthier and poorer culture point estimates ⫽ .99.

812

GROUZET ET AL.

Theoretical Implications

The two orthogonal dimensions of intrinsic versus extrinsic and

self-transcendent versus physical provide an interesting and intu-

itively appealing way to categorize and understand the nature of

different types of goals and perhaps of human motivational sys-

tems. That is, these results suggest that an understanding of a

consciously articulated goal for which a person might strive can be

classified on the basis of how much it is oriented toward inherent

psychological needs or to external rewards or praise and how much

it is oriented toward one’s own physical pleasure and survival or

toward societally and spiritually self-transcendent aims. To exem-

plify this, let us follow the circumplex presented in Figures 1–3

around the circumference, beginning with spirituality. Spirituality

goals are clearly self-transcendent, concerning themselves with

large universal issues outside of one’s physical self, but they are

inherently neither intrinsic nor extrinsic in nature, as spirituality is

sometimes pursued for satisfaction of intrinsic needs (as when a

sense of communion with one’s church is attained) but can also be

motivated largely by fears of punishment and by guilt (Ryan,

Rigby, & King, 1993). Community feeling has a self-transcendent

quality, being concerned with the welfare of society and future

generations, but it is also intrinsic, as such pursuits can frequently

satisfy needs for relatedness as well as for competence and auton-

omy. Self-acceptance and affiliation are clearly intrinsic in nature,

as they very directly relate to the satisfaction of inherent psycho-

logical needs, but they fall midway between the physical and the

self-transcendent, as they primarily concern the personal, psycho-

logical realm of the ego (Freud, 1960); the material–social self

(James, 1892/1985); or the individual or relational selves (Brewer

& Gardner, 1996). Physical health and safety also fall with intrin-

sic goals, as all people need to feel safe and healthy (Bowlby,

1988; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1997); these goals are

more physically based than the other intrinsic goals, however,

given that health and safety concern bodily integrity. Hedonism is

clearly concerned with the body, although its focus on pleasure

rather than safety moves it out of the realm of intrinsic pursuits;

further, the fact that hedonism can sometimes be pursued for sheer

pleasure but frequently is a way to avoid that which is anxiety

provoking (Baumeister, 1991) shows that it is neither inherently

intrinsic nor extrinsic in nature (see also Veenhoven, 2003). Fi-

nancial success, with its focus on rewards and social status, is an

extrinsic goal but has a physical flavor given that money is

typically used to ensure survival and to purchase momentary,

fleeting pleasures of the flesh. Image and popularity share an

extrinsic character but are more self-transcendent than financial

success, with their greater focus on others’ opinions. Finally,

conformity typifies the blending of extrinsic concerns for fitting in

to others’ desires with the self-transcendent concern of that which

is outside of one’s self (i.e., society).

The fact that these characterizations can be made with some

degree of generalizability given their consistency across 15 nations

suggests that motivational systems, as they concern goals, involve

some commonality across people, regardless of their cultural sit-

uation. Specifically, as they approach their goals in life, people

apparently take into consideration their psychological needs (in-

trinsic), their physical survival and pleasure (physical), their de-

sires for rewards and praise (extrinsic), and their existential quest

to have a meaningful place in the broader world (self-

transcendence). These influences on goals might be considered as

four occasionally overlapping but sometimes conflictual motiva-

tional systems that people must negotiate as they make their way

through life. Of course, some individuals will organize their lives

more around one of these systems than around others; some will be

spiritual individuals who attempt to solve the problems of the

world, others will involve themselves in the pleasures of the body,

others will pursue wealth and status, and others will look for a

simpler life focused on family and personal growth. In future

work, we hope to build on this and past research to examine

whether such clusters of individuals can be identified and whether

people’s well-being relates to the choices they make about how

their goals in life represent and blend these basic motivational

systems.

On a final theoretical note, it is interesting to see that our present

circumplex model had both similarities with and differences from

Schwartz’s (1992) well-known value model. Like Schwartz, our

analyses found that goal-importance ratings were organized in a

very similar circumplex fashion across cultures, as some goals

were relatively consistent with each other whereas other goals

were in conflict with each other. Second, two dimensions were

found to underlie the goal-importance ratings, but they were not

exactly the same as what Schwartz found in his work on values.

The first dimension of intrinsic versus extrinsic goals that we

identified as underlying goal pursuits bears relatively little con-

ceptual similarity to Schwartz’s dimension of openness to change

versus conservatism. The second dimension, which we identified

as self-transcendent versus physical, certainly bears a conceptual

resemblance to Schwartz’s self-transcendent versus self-enhancing

dimension, even if the goals comprising the dimensions are not

exactly the same. That is, we found that strivings for financial

success, hedonism, physical health, and safety that are primarily

concerned with maintaining and enhancing one’s own physical

pleasure and survival do in fact cluster together and oppose an-

other cluster that is concerned with something higher, be it soci-

ety’s desires (e.g., conformity), benefiting society and future gen-

erations (e.g., community feeling), or transcending the self (e.g.,

spirituality).

Another difference between our results in Figures 1 and 3 and

those of Schwartz (1992) concerns the placement of two of the

goals in the circumplex. First, Schwartz found that conformity

values lie between benevolence and security, whereas in our data,

such goals were almost directly opposed to the two parallel goals

we assessed (i.e., affiliation and safety). Our understanding of this

result is that conformity goals are a type of extrinsic pursuit, given

that they primarily concern desires to fit in with others and receive

social praise for being one of the crowd (see above). Indeed,

conformity goals did cluster with other extrinsic goals of image

and popularity in 14 of 15 cultures. Safety goals were the second

pursuit that yielded results rather different from Schwartz’s model.

Security values in Schwartz’s model are wedged between

conformity–tradition and power, whereas our results show safety

as opposing these extrinsic-type pursuits and instead having a

physical and intrinsic flavor. We believe that these results suggest

that when safety is considered at the level of a personal goal rather

than a value, it clusters with other types of goals that concern the

satisfaction of psychological needs. That is, just as intrinsic goals

for self-acceptance, affiliation, and community feeling are rela-

tively good ways to satisfy one’s psychological needs, safety goals

813

GOAL CONTENTS ACROSS CULTURES

might concern other needs whose satisfaction is a prerequisite for

good psychological health. Examination of the items composing

the safety goal and the fact that it landed most closely to physical

health goals in the circumplex both suggest that the aim of safety

is primarily about ensuring physical survival, which of course is an

important motivator of human behavior recognized by many the-

ories (see above) and is probably a need in its own right (Kasser,

2002; Maslow, 1968).

Limitations and Future Directions

Although we believe that the present results provide some

important information about the fundamental organization of hu-

man strivings and pursuits, our study is of course limited in many

respects. First, research that involves latent variables and latent

dimensions, such as those identified via CFA and MDS, are not

immune from the subjectivity involved in the labeling process. The

present study was no exception. We therefore acknowledge that

our labeling of the two dimensions in the goal circumplex was

motivated primarily by our theoretical approach concerning goal

structure. Thus, just as some researchers have relabeled Schwartz’s

(1992) dimensions (e.g., Oishi, Schimmack, Diener, & Suh, 1998;

Rohan, 2000), we acknowledge that other researchers may have

potentially different ways of labeling the dimensions we identified.

A second limitation of the study concerns sampling. Our sample

consisted only of college students, who of course are not a repre-

sentative sample of people in general and are probably even less

representative of people who live in the poorer cultures from

which we sampled. Although the intrinsic–extrinsic dimension has

been found in samples of U.S. and German adults (Kasser & Ryan,

1996; Schmuck, 2001; Sheldon & Kasser, 2001) and Schwartz and

Sagiv (1995) found that the organization of values in college

students is quite similar to that for adult teachers, any claims

regarding the generalizability of this model must be tempered by

this limitation of sampling. Furthermore, we sampled from only 15

cultures and provinces around the world, and although every

populated continent was represented, sub-Saharan Africa was no-

tably absent from among the cultures we investigated. And of

course all cultures and subcultures have their own particularities

that make them worthy of sampling, especially if one’s aim is to

catalogue all possible pursuits and the way in which they are

organized.

Third, the measure we used, like all measures, has its limits, and

thus it would be interesting to see whether parallel results emerge

with other measures that operationalize people’s aims in life in

other ways. For example, it would be interesting to examine

whether idiographic means of assessing people’s goals (e.g., Em-

mons, 1989; Sheldon & Kasser, 1995) result in similar goal orga-

nizations. Relatedly, because the Aspiration Index was designed

by Westerners, it is possible that some goals that non-Westerners

pursue were absent and thus unable to influence the form of the

circumplex. It would be worthwhile to conduct future studies in

which participants from a variety of cultures generate goals rather

than respond to goal items provided by the experimenters. Such

research could thus determine whether any frequently occurring

contents have been missed in the present study and then determine

whether the addition of such goals modifies the circumplex orga-

nization that we identified in the present study.

Finally, we surely did not sample all possible pursuits for which

humans might strive: for example, goals for knowledge or aesthet-

ics (Maslow, 1968) or for ecologically sustainable ways of living

(e.g., Dunlap & Mertig, 1995; Schwartz & Boehnke, 2004; Stern

& Dietz, 1994) are notably absent, as are a variety of other goals

around which individuals might organize their lives. The real

challenge of future research will be to make specific predictions

about where any additional goals might fall in the circumplex we

present in Figures 1 and 3. For example, we would hypothesize

that goals for knowledge would probably have more of a self-

transcendent and intrinsic than physical and extrinsic quality and

would thus fall somewhere close to community feeling in the

circumplex; that prediction, like others that might be made, is an

empirical question. Further, if enough additional goals were mea-

sured, perhaps a third dimension might be identified; thus, we

recognize that the present two-dimensional model may not be the

final word on goal organization, even though it is seemingly a clear

advance over extant models.

In addition to studies addressing the limitations listed above,

future research could address a variety of other questions based on

the circumplex model of aspirations we have described. For ex-

ample, we are already in the process of analyzing data to investi-

gate how cultures are similar and/or different in the relative im-

portance they place on the different goals listed in Table 1 and how

ratings of the importance and likelihood of attainment of those

goals relate to measures of happiness and well-being. A variety of

other constructs might also be predictable from the model pre-

sented in Figures 1 and 3, including political, social, and environ-

mental behavior; quality of relationships; and personal interests.

Further, it would be of great interest to better understand the

developmental precursors of the relative importance people place

on particular goals (e.g., Kasser, Koestner, & Lekes, 2002; Kasser,

Ryan, Zax, & Sameroff, 1995) as well as how the importance they

place on different goals changes throughout the life span (e.g.,

Sheldon & Kasser, 2001).

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Received July 8, 2004

Revision received May 17, 2005

Accepted June 7, 2005 䡲

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William James

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Tim Kasser

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