value-instantiating beliefs
Definition
Value-instantiating beliefs refers to beliefs about whether a particular event or action benefits or threatens a specific basic human value, integrating a target, a value, and a direction of consequence. Each belief captures the perceived act-by-value link, for example the judgment that a war protects personal security or harms the weak and vulnerable, and together they produce a profile of the motivational meaning an individual assigns to an event. Because people universally endorse abstract values yet disagree about which concrete actions express them, value-instantiating beliefs represent the missing link between held values and actual behaviour: individuals act on a value only when they believe the relevant action has consequences for it. In a survey of 973 Russian citizens conducted in August 2022, latent profile analysis of ipsatised value-instantiating beliefs toward the war in Ukraine identified two distinct construal profiles, one in which the war was seen as enhancing Conservation values and one in which it was seen as undermining them, with large between-group effect sizes on Security, Conformity, and Tradition. Profile membership predicted pro-war attitudes and intentions to take political action beyond the contributions of right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and national identity.
Sources: Ponizovskiy et al. (2026)
Related Terms
- collective action (1 shared article)
- authoritarianism (1 shared article)
- propaganda (1 shared article)
- Russia (1 shared article)
- Ukraine (1 shared article)
- values (1 shared article)
Applications
Value-instantiating Beliefs and Media Consumption
Consumption of state media versus independent media was associated with systematically different value-instantiating belief profiles toward the war in Ukraine. Pro-state media consumption linked to seeing the war as positive for Conformity and Tradition and negative for Stimulation and Achievement, while independent media consumption showed the opposite pattern. This covariation supports the interpretation that media exposure, whether through causal influence or self-selection, shapes how citizens construe the motivational meaning of political events rather than merely whether they approve of them.
Sources: Ponizovskiy et al. (2026)
Value-instantiating Beliefs and War Support
After controlling for right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and national identity, seven of nine value-instantiating belief dimensions were associated with war attitudes among Russian respondents. More Conservation-aligned construals related to pro-war views, while Universalism, Stimulation, Hedonism, and Achievement-Power aligned with less favorable views. Intentions to support the war were higher among those with stronger Tradition-aligned construals, and intentions to resist were weakly linked to more Benevolence-aligned and less Tradition-aligned construals.
Sources: Ponizovskiy et al. (2026)
Value-instantiating Beliefs and Basic Human Values
Value-instantiating beliefs are conceptually grounded in a framework that treats security, benevolence, achievement, and related goals as abstract motivational priorities that guide evaluation and behaviour. The beliefs operationalise those abstract priorities at the level of concrete events, specifying for each of the ten basic value types whether a given action is seen as beneficial or threatening. This structure allows researchers to assess the full motivational profile an individual assigns to an event rather than relying on general value endorsement alone.
Sources: Ponizovskiy et al. (2026)
