New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study

Last updated
New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study
Type of project Longitudinal study
Location New Zealand
Key people Chris Sibley
Launched2009
Website www.nzavs.auckland.ac.nz

The New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS) is a longitudinal study conducted in New Zealand. [1] The NZAVS was started in 2009 by Chris Sibley, [2] a professor in psychology at the University of Auckland. The NZAVS was inspired by major social surveys conducted internationally, such as the National Election Studies, the World Values Survey and the General Social Survey, and aims to provide a similar resource for New Zealand. As of January 29, 2024, the NZAVS research team had published over 250 peer reviewed publications using data from the study. [3]

Contents


Sample details

Questionnaires

The NZAVS uses a self-report inventory to collect information. The questionnaire is administered via both postal mail and an online survey. The NZAVS includes a large range of scales including those measuring self-esteem, national and personal wellbeing, satisfaction with life, religious beliefs, personality, psychological distress, ideologies, political and environmental attitudes.

Data structure

The NZAVS has a nested data structure. [1] Participants are modeled as the Level 1 or lower-level unit. The NZAVS contains geographic information from mesh blocks for each participant. Mesh blocks contain information about each participants local neighborhood based on census data from each mesh block. This information is modeled as the Level 2, or higher-level unit in many of the NZAVS research papers. Mesh blocks are small geographic area units, each containing roughly 100 people, with defined boundaries. Each mesh block is in turn nested within larger census area units (CAU; roughly 1000 people in size). Statistics New Zealand provide detailed demographic information about the population of each mesh block based on census data, such as median income, ethnic proportions and size, religious affiliation, etc. This information is integrated into the NZAVS datasets. Of particular note are the New Zealand Deprivation Index (an index of poverty or socio-economic status based on a principal components analysis of indicators of deprivation for each area unit); [4] and a CAU-based Gini coefficient derived by Chris Sibley for use in the NZAVS, which provides an indicator of the income disparity within each region of New Zealand.

Data analysis

The NZAVS is a quantitative study, and data analysis for the NZAVS is conducted primarily in Mplus. [5] Scripts outlining the statistical models developed using data from the NZAVS are provided online at the official NZAVS Open Science Framework page. [3] These scripts are provided to help promote research collaboration and transparency in data analysis. The study employs many different types of statistical analyses, including Latent Growth Modeling, Bayesian Linear Regression, Structural Equation Modeling, and analyses employing Mixture model and Multilevel model designs.

Key findings

The NZAVS has been central in answering a variety of important research questions. This section lists research findings from the NZAVS that have received academic and media attention.

COVID-19 Lockdowns in New Zealand

Data from the NZAVS has been used to examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on attitudes towards the government and institutional trust, as well as health and well-being. [6]

The March 15th Christchurch Terrorist Attack

Following the terrorist attack in Christchurch on March 15, 2019, data from the NZAVS has been used to examine attitudes towards Muslims and satisfaction with the government. [7] [8]

Religion and the Christchurch earthquakes

NZAVS researchers Joseph Bulbulia and Chris Sibley published a study in PLoS ONE looking at how the Christchurch earthquakes may be linked to change in religious affiliation. [9]

Personality in New Zealand

Data from the NZAVS has also been used to help validate and extend a public domain personality test assessing the Big-Six dimensions of personality in New Zealand. This personality scale is known as the Mini-IPIP6, and is based on the International Personality Item Pool. [10] The Mini-IPIP6 is a 24-item self-report personality measure, which extends the original Big-Five Mini-IPIP scale [11] to also include a sixth dimension of personality based on the HEXACO model of personality structure. The Mini-IPIP provides marker items for the following six dimensions of personality: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, and Honesty-humility. The Mini-IPIP6 has been validated for use in New Zealand in a series of peer-reviewed publications, [12] [13] [14] and is in the public domain.

The Multi-dimensional Model of Māori and Cultural Engagement

NZAVS researchers Carla Houkamau and Chris Sibley have also used data from the NZAVS to help design programmes that benefit Māori people particularly in relation to health and education. They studied Māori identity and the factors that make Māori feel positive about themselves and Māori culture. This identity scale is known as the Multi-dimensional Model of Māori Identity and Cultural Engagement (MMM-ICE) and consists of six dimensions;(1) Group Membership Evaluation, (2) Socio-Political Consciousness, (3) Cultural Efficacy and Active Identity Engagement, (4) Spirituality, (5) Interdependent Self-Concept, and (6) Authenticity Beliefs. [15]

The Pacific Identity and Wellbeing Scale

Sam Manuela, a senior lecturer from the University of Auckland, used the NZAVS data as part of his doctoral thesis to develop a culturally sensitive self-report inventory to assess identity and subjective well-being among Pacific populations in New Zealand. The measure, known as The Pacific Identity and Wellbeing Scale, assesses five distinct, yet interconnected dimensions of Pacific identity and wellbeing; (1) Group Membership Evaluation, (2) Pacific Connectedness and Belonging, (3) Religious Centrality and Embeddedness, (4) Perceived Familial Wellbeing, (5) Perceived Societal Wellbeing. [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pākehā</span> Māori term for non-Māori or White New Zealanders

Pākehā is a Māori-language term that has been adopted in English, particularly New Zealand English, for a New Zealander who has no Polynesian ethnic ancestry, or specifically for a European New Zealander. Most inclusively, the term can apply to any non-Māori New Zealander. It is not a legal term and has no definition under New Zealand law. Papa'a has a similar meaning in Cook Islands Māori.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Attitude (psychology)</span> Concept in psychology and communication studies

An attitude "is a summary evaluation of an object of thought. An attitude object can be anything a person discriminates or holds in mind." Attitudes include beliefs (cognition), emotional responses (affect) and behavioral tendencies. In the classical definition an attitude is persistent, while in more contemporary conceptualizations, attitudes may vary depending upon situations, context, or moods.

Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being responsible, careful or diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to be efficient and organized as opposed to easy-going and disorderly. They tend to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; they display planned rather than spontaneous behavior; and they are generally dependable. Conscientiousness manifests in characteristic behaviors such as being neat, systematic, careful, thorough, and deliberate.

The authoritarian personality is a personality type characterized by a disposition to treat authority figures with unquestioning obedience and respect. Conceptually, the term authoritarian personality originated from the writings of Erich Fromm, and usually is applied to people who exhibit a strict and oppressive personality towards their subordinates. Regardless of whether authoritarianism is more of a personality, attitude, ideology or disposition, scholars find it has significant influence on public opinion and political behavior.

Social dominance orientation (SDO) is a personality trait measuring an individual's support for social hierarchy and the extent to which they desire their in-group be superior to out-groups. SDO is conceptualized under social dominance theory as a measure of individual differences in levels of group-based discrimination; that is, it is a measure of an individual's preference for hierarchy within any social system and the domination over lower-status groups. It is a predisposition toward anti-egalitarianism within and between groups.

In psychology, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) is a set of attitudes, describing somebody who is highly submissive to their authority figures, acts aggressively in the name of said authorities, and is conformist in thought and behavior. The prevalence of this attitude in a population varies from culture to culture, as a person's upbringing and education play a strong role in determining whether somebody develops this sort of worldview.

Lewis R. Goldberg is an American personality psychologist and a professor emeritus at the University of Oregon. He is closely associated with the lexical hypothesis that any culturally important personality characteristic will be represented in the language of that culture. This hypothesis led to a five factor structure of personality trait adjectives. When applied to personality items this structure is also known as the five-factor model (FFM) of personality. He is the creator of the International Personality Item Pool(IPIP), a website that provides public-domain personality measures.

Openness to experience is one of the domains which are used to describe human personality in the Five Factor Model. Openness involves six facets, or dimensions: active imagination (fantasy), aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety (adventurousness), intellectual curiosity, and challenging authority. A great deal of psychometric research has demonstrated that these facets or qualities are significantly correlated. Thus, openness can be viewed as a global personality trait consisting of a set of specific traits, habits, and tendencies that cluster together.

Social dominance theory (SDT) is a social psychological theory of intergroup relations that examines the caste-like features of group-based social hierarchies, and how these hierarchies remain stable and perpetuate themselves. According to the theory, group-based inequalities are maintained through three primary mechanisms: institutional discrimination, aggregated individual discrimination, and behavioral asymmetry. The theory proposes that widely shared cultural ideologies provide the moral and intellectual justification for these intergroup behaviors by serving to make privilege normal. For data collection and validation of predictions, the social dominance orientation (SDO) scale was composed to measure acceptance of and desire for group-based social hierarchy, which was assessed through two factors: support for group-based dominance and generalized opposition to equality, regardless of the ingroup's position in the power structure.

The Revised NEO Personality Inventory is a personality inventory that assesses an individual on five dimensions of personality. These are the same dimensions found in the Big Five personality traits. These traits are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion(-introversion), agreeableness, and neuroticism. In addition, the NEO PI-R also reports on six subcategories of each Big Five personality trait.

Synthetic Aperture Personality Assessment (SAPA) is a method used for telemetric assessment of individual differences, primarily in the context of online surveys. The SAPA method uses data collected from the administration of large inventories of personality assessment items to large pools of participants, though it differs from traditional data collection methods in that each participant responds to only a small subset of all available items. In other words, each participant receives a random subset of the items under study. As long as some of the items are overlapping between pairs of participants, the smaller subset is more palatable for individual participants yet can be combined to synthesize large covariance matrices. In this way, the SAPA methodology is well-suited for assessing personality and individual differences across multiple domains. It is also a highly efficient means for new item prototyping and scale construction.

The International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) is a public domain collection of items for use in personality tests. It is managed by the Oregon Research Institute.

The multi-dimensional model of Māori identity and cultural engagement (MMM-ICE) is a self-report (Likert-type) questionnaire designed to assess and evaluate Māori identity in seven distinct dimensions of identity and cultural engagement in Māori populations: group-membership evaluation, socio-political consciousness, cultural efficacy and active identity engagement, spirituality, interdependent self-concept, authenticity of beliefs, and perceived appearance.

The Pacific Identity and Wellbeing Scale (PIWBS) is a self-report inventory with a Likert scale format, designed to assess five distinct dimensions of identity and subjective well-being among Pacific populations in New Zealand:

  1. Group Membership Evaluation
  2. Pacific Connectedness and Belonging
  3. Religious Centrality and Embeddedness
  4. Perceived Familial Wellbeing
  5. Perceived Societal Wellbeing
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Sibley</span> New Zealand academic

Chris G. Sibley is a Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland and the lead investigator for the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study. Sibley's research focuses on understanding how people's connections with others around them interact with environmental and economic factors to cause change in personality, political attitudes, social values and psychological health over time. In 2014, he was the recipient of the Erik Erikson Award for Early Career Achievement, awarded by the International Society of Political Psychology. Sibley is also the editor of the Cambridge Handbook of the Psychology of Prejudice and the Cambridge Handbook of Political Psychology, as well as one of the developers of the Multi-dimensional model of Māori identity and cultural engagement.

Joseph A. Bulbulia is a Professor of Psychology in the Faculty of Science at Victoria University of Wellington (2020-present). He was the Maclaurin Goodfellow Chair in the School of Humanities, Faculty of Arts at University of Auckland (2018-2020). He previously served as a Professor in the School of Art History, Classics and Religious Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. Bulbulia is regarded as one of the founders of the contemporary evolutionary religious studies. He is a past president of the International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion and is currently co-editor of Religion, Brain & Behavior. Bulbulia is one of four on the Senior Management Team of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study, a national longitudinal study started in 2009 that has repeatedly sampled over 45,000 New Zealanders. He is an associate investigator for Pulotu, a database of 116 Pacific cultures purpose-built to investigate the evolutionary dynamics of religion. In 2016 Bulbulia won a Research Excellence Award at Victoria University.

Domestic violence in New Zealand, often called family violence or family harm is defined under New Zealand law as not only intimate partner violence but also violence against other family members, including children and extended family or whānau, as well as people living together in the same household, such as flatmates. It is estimated that one third of people in New Zealand have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) within their lifetime, making New Zealand have the highest rate of domestic violence in 14 OECD countries. In 2020, New Zealand police responded to a domestic violence call every 4 minutes.

Māori identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as a Māori person and as relating to being Māori (Māoriness). The most commonly cited central pillar of Māori identity is whakapapa (genealogy), which in its most literal sense requires blood-ancestry to Māori people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waikaremoana Waitoki</span> New Zealand psychologist

Waikaremoana Waitoki is a New Zealand clinical psychologist, academic, and former president of the New Zealand Psychological Society from 2020 until 2022. She is an associate professor at the University of Waikato, and focuses her research on indigenous psychology, Mātauranga Māori and cultural competency.

Carla Houkamau is a New Zealand social psychologist and a full professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in Māori identity and cultural relations.

References

  1. 1 2 "The New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study". University of Auckland. Retrieved 2024-01-29.
  2. ↑ "Professor Chris G Sibley". University of Auckland. Retrieved 2024-01-29.
  3. 1 2 Osborne, Danny; Da Costa Marques, Mathew; Sibley, Chris G.; Barlow, Fiona; Bulbulia, Joseph A.; Overall, Nickola; Howard, Chloe; Satherley, Nicole; Hobbs, Matthew; Milfont, Taciano L.; Zubielevitch, Elena; Lilly, Kieren James (2024-01-29). "New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study". Open Science Framework . doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/75SNB.
  4. ↑ "NZDep2006 Index of Deprivation | Ministry of Health NZ". Health.govt.nz. 2007-08-02. Archived from the original on 2013-01-14. Retrieved 2013-01-14.
  5. ↑ "Muthén & Muthén - Home Page". Statmodel.com. Retrieved 2013-01-14.
  6. ↑ Sibley, Chris G.; Greaves, Lara M.; Satherley, Nicole; Wilson, Marc S.; Overall, Nickola C.; Lee, Carol H. J.; Milojev, Petar; Bulbulia, Joseph; Osborne, Danny; Milfont, Taciano L.; Houkamau, Carla A.; Duck, Isabelle M.; Vickers-Jones, Raine; Barlow, Fiona Kate (2020-07-01). "Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdown on trust, attitudes toward government, and well-being". American Psychologist. 75 (5): 618–630. doi:10.1037/amp0000662. ISSN   1935-990X. PMID   32496074. S2CID   219312044.
  7. ↑ Satherley, Nicole; Yogeeswaran, Kumar; Osborne, Danny; Shanaah, Sadi; Sibley, Chris G. (2023-11-02). "Investigating the Effects of Right-Wing Terrorism on Government Satisfaction: A Time Course Analysis of the 2019 Christchurch Terror Attack". Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. 46 (11): 2174–2187. doi:10.1080/1057610X.2021.1913819. ISSN   1057-610X. S2CID   234871547.
  8. ↑ Shanaah, Sadi; Yogeeswaran, Kumar; Greaves, Lara; Bulbulia, Joseph A.; Osborne, Danny; Afzali, M. Usman; Sibley, Chris G. (2023-01-02). "Hate Begets Warmth? The Impact of an Anti-Muslim Terrorist Attack on Public Attitudes toward Muslims". Terrorism and Political Violence. 35 (1): 156–174. doi:10.1080/09546553.2021.1877673. hdl: 2292/64005 . ISSN   0954-6553.
  9. ↑ Sibley, C. G., & Bulbulia, J. (2012). Faith after an earthquake: a longitudinal study of religion and perceived health before and after the 2011 Christchurch New Zealand earthquake. PLoS ONE, 7, e49648.
  10. ↑ "International Personality Item Pool". Ipip.ori.org. Retrieved 2013-01-14.
  11. ↑ Donnellan, M.B., Frederick, L., Oswald, B.M.B, & Lucas, R.E. (2006). The Mini-IPIP scales: Tiny-yet-effective measures of the Big Five factors of personality. Psychological Assessment, 18, 192-203.
  12. ↑ Sibley, C. G. (2012). The Mini-IPIP6: Item Response Theory analysis of a short measure of the big-six factors of personality in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 41, 21-31.
  13. ↑ Sibley, C. G., Luyten, N., Purnomo, M., Moberly, A., Wootton, L. W., Hammond, M. D., Sengupta, N., Perry, R., West-Newman, T., Wilson, M. S., McLellan, L., Hoverd, W. J., & Robertson, A. (2011). The Mini-IPIP6: Validation and extension of a short measure of the Big-Six factors of personality in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 40, 142-159.
  14. ↑ Sibley, C. G., & Pirie, D. J. (in press). Personality in New Zealand: Scale norms and demographic differences in the Mini-IPIP6. New Zealand Journal of Psychology.
  15. ↑ Houkamau, C. A., & Sibley, C. G. (2010). The Multi-Dimensional Model of Māori Identity and Cultural Engagement. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 39, 8–28
  16. ↑ Manuela, S. & Sibley, C. G. (2012). The Pacific Identity and Wellbeing Scale (PIWBS): A Culturally-Appropriate Self Report Measure for Pacific Peoples in New Zealand. Social Indicators Research, 1, 83-103.
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