Axio-factor of openness to change values in Ukrainian, Polish and Romanian young adults

Abstract

This study makes use of Schwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ; Schwartz, 1994; Schwartz et al., 2001) to examine the psychometric properties of Openness to Change (OC) factor in large young adults sample from Poland, Romania and Ukraine. Additional purpose is to examine value differences across cultures by applying a one-factor model focused on OC as salient process of personality development. Participants were 383 young adults aged from 18 to 45 years from Poland (n = 220), Romania (n = 183) and Ukraine (n = 200). Results support for the generalizability of the one-factor model on openness to change values in Poland, Ukraine and Romania. Three separate models were tested in the Poland, Romanian and Ukrainian groups, respectively. The models showed a very good fi t. The CFA model estimated via SEM was analyzed for the Polish data set χ²(N = 603) = 72.01, p = .026, CFI = .919, RMSEA = .095), for the Romanian data set χ²(N = 603) = 26.03, p = .026, CFI = .939, RMSEA = .069) and for the Ukraine data set χ²(N = 603) = 25.91, p = .017, CFI = .929, RMSEA = .071) separately. The associations of self-direction and stimulation items loadings within three groups were all statistically signifi cant. The results showed a consistent relation between factor loadings for OC one-factor model in Ukrainian, Polish and Romanian groups. We found support for path models for all samples testing three separate models in the Polish, Romanian and Ukrainian groups, respectively. The results of the models fi t statistics were largely satisfactory. The prospective of future research is cross-cultural comparison with data for Belgian, Polish, Romanian and Ukrainian samples to study such basic concept about personality development and values’ becoming in social and cultural space as openness to changes in the personal system of values including west- and east- Europeans spaces.