ABSTRACT:
For decades after its initial development in 1931, the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values (SOV) had a substantial impact on psychological practice and research. At one point it was the third most referenced nonprojective psychological instrument. We review the history of the venerable SOV, the immpressive evidence of validity and utility, and the reason for its descent into psychological oblivion--viz., that numerous items had become very dated. In recent years several researchers have lamented the limited validity of currently used measures of values, and have called for the development of a measure that relies on behavioral scenarios. (The use of behavioral scenarious mitigates against requiring respondents to consciously access and report values.) Ironically, such a measurement method has long existed, in the SOV. The existence of a newly-revised 4th Edition (published in the Journal of Vocational Psychology in 2003) is noted. Once again, a scenario-based measure of values is available for use
