What are
Social Values?

While the roots of the term ‘Social Values’ goes back centuries, today, we generally define them as the deeper motivations behind human behaviour. These values represent a person’s mental posture or fundamental world view and they set the context for someone’s reactions to situations, events, opportunities or challenges.

Social Values History Texts & Books

Inaugural year of Social Values tracking

Canadians surveyed each year

Social Values Constructs

Applying Social Values To Business Problems

Values set the context for consumer choice. Two customers who might be demographically identical can be fundamentally different from a psychographic perspective. Social Values (or psychographics) relate to people’s values, motivations and attitudes. These reveal why consumers do what they do and helps to complement traditional demographics. They are the underlying driver for shaping brand perceptions, product needs and ultimately purchase behaviour and decision making in general.

Utilizing an understanding of these underlying values provides a wide range of applications when solving business problems for any organization, including:

Understanding Trends

Segmenting The Market

Target Selection

Personifying Targets

Developing Positioning

Messaging & Advertising

Product Innovation

How Are Social Values Measured?

Environics Research has been measuring Social Values in Canada since 1983. Each year, we survey over 5,000 Canadians (and 5,000 Americans) which allows us to precisely track changes in Social Values over time.

Each of these surveys are made up of a large battery of statements or ‘items’ that can be agreed with or disagreed with on a five-point scale. Together they build over 100+ Social Values constructs that exist among the general population.

2025 Trending Social Values

Our trending Social Values are newly defined constructs that measure the changes and effects in society, particularly in how consumers’ expectations have shifted due to technology. Environics Research has identified the following trending Social Values constructs to help understand how decisions are being influenced in the current Canadian consumer landscape.

Understanding Our Framework

The Social Values framework plots trends on two axis; Authority & Individuality (y-axis) and Survival & Fulfillment (x-axis), which produces the following quadrant framework.

The four quadrants of the Social Values framework are: Exclusion and Intensity (EI), Status and Security (SS), Authenticity and Responsibility (AR) and Idealism and Autonomy (IA). Where each individual Social Value construct lies in this quadrant structure gives us an understanding of the type of person that would most strongly hold that viewpoint and helps us recognize and group the type of individual whose values might co-relate.

Exclusion and Intensity

In the top left quadrant, we find Exclusion and Intensity. These individuals live on the edge and take risks for the thrill or for personal gain. They flaunt their success and crave constant attention, excitement and distraction while displaying anti-conformist behaviour.

Idealism and Autonomy

Moving to the top right quadrant, we find Idealism and Autonomy. Those holding values residing in this quadrant are self-reliant and idealistic. They are open-minded and reject what they believe are “outdated” institutions and norms.

Status and Security

In the bottom left quadrant, we have Status and Security. Individuals with values residing in this quadrant follow accepted rules and norms. They hold a strong works ethic, strive to achieve material success and demonstrations of social standing.

Authenticity and Responsibility

In the bottom right quadrant, we see Authenticity and Responsibility. These individuals hold a strong sense of duty and responsibility to others. They care deeply about ethics and fair mindedness and take care of mind, body and spirituality in the face of daily challenges.