Talk:World Values Survey

Reception and criticism

I don't think the "Reception and criticism" part makes any sense at all for several reasons. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.241.235.108 (talk • 69.241.235.108) 10 July 2006.

Then on 26 July 2006, contribs removed the said section, which had read:

The Dutch intercultural researcher Geert Hofstede positively receives the WVS results. Referring specifically to Inglehart's two-dimensional reduction of his results as represented by the Inglehart Map, Hofstede claims that it supports his own work. "Inglehart's key cultural dimensions were significantly correlated with [my] dimensions. Well-being versus survival correlated strongly with individualism and masculinity; secular-rational versus traditional authority correlated negatively with power distance." However, Inglehart's two dimensions are not identical to Hofstede's five dimensions. Given the differences in methodology (Hofstede's research came from work values surveys given to IBM employees) it is unsurprising that there are differences between his results and those of the World Values Survey.

The reason given in the edit summary was: Removed irrelevant comment about work by Ron Inglehart based on the WVS, comment was not about the WVS itself and thus was off-topic.

It seems to me that the above paragraph could have been better written. But to say it is off-topic is a bit harsh. It's closely related to the Inglehart Map, which the article says is one of the "most well-known results of the WVS survey". Given that someone has gone to the trouble of finding this reference and providing the information about Hofstede's partial validation of the Inglehart Map, it doesn't seem appropriate for this material to be removed from Wikipedia altogether. Could it go somewhere else, e.g. in Post-materialism? Would 69.241.235.108 like to specify what the "several reasons" for objecting were? -- JimR 03:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure I could have written it better - edits are welcome. But it was carefully researched, so it's strange to remove it completely. I don't like the way an anonymous user removed it - might be someone with an axe to grind. I'm reinserting it. If there is serious objection to it, please use the talk page and don't be anonymous. BTW, I don't personally agree with Hofstede at all; I was just trying to reflect important literary comment. Caravaca 10:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I removed it because it is not about the WVS, plain and simple, it is about work derived from the WVS. There are dozens and dozens of papers that use the WVS data (I have co-authored one), should there be comments about all of them on the WVS page? It should go on a page about Inglehart's cultural map. That someone "has gone to the trouble of finding this reference" is completely irrelevant for its inclusion on this page. Finding a reference is not sufficient validation for posting something to Wikipedia. Maybe if I write a paragraph about my paper and cite it nicely it can stay here? No! There is so much that could be said about the WVS, the different variables used, the changes in wave 4, the lead investigators in each country, differences in the questions asked in each country, and other things. Since there is a section on findings, and a part there that mentions Inglehart's map work, the comment about the map should be subsumed under that section, but the map is not the survey. As the Wikipedia page correctly poins out, the first part of the first wave of the WVS did not even involve Inglehart, it was done as the European Values Survey. An axe to grind, I find that amusing. I don't know Hofstede, I don't know his work, and I've never met Inglehart although I did work at ISR when I was a PhD student. I sent him an email once about the 5th wave, but he never replied. I made it clear that the comment was not about the WVS, and it isn't, it's about Inglehart's map, which is different. The way the page was before gives such short shrift to everyone who has worked so hard collecting the data, translating the questions appropriately into so many different languages and cultural contexts, and organizing the data for analysis (I am not one of those people, nor do I know any). Yes, Inglehart is the current lead, but don't make the page about him or the work that he has done with data from the WVS. You can give him his own page, and give his map work its own page (the map is pretty cool, imho). If you want to have criticism of the WVS, that's fine. But this is criticism of work derived from the WVS, and that is a vastly different thing. Who I am is irrelevant, all that matters is my point: the comment is not about the WVS, so does not belong on the page (unless it is subsumed under the map subsection which is under the results section -- currently it is not). What is your reason for reinserting it? Just because you didn't like that I removed it? That is also not an appropriate reason to have anything in a Wikipedia entry. I can tell you that my name is Nathaniel Poor, and that I have a PhD from UM, and you can look me up online and email me to actually verify that, but none of that changes my point that the comment is not about the WVS. 20 March, 2007.

Nathan, I'm glad to hear you are a published author and PhD holder. As you have these abilities, please also take the trouble to find out about getting a username and signing your name with ~~~~ as this raises your wiki-credibility to match your real world credibility. As regards your deletion of this paragraph, please find out what an edit war is. The appropriate Wikipedian way forward here would be for you, as an expert in the field, to start a new article/subsection on literature deriving from the WVS. Caravaca 06:48, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion for resolving this edit war

I've returned the deleted section, as there are definitely more Wikipedians in favour of retaining it than deleting it (at least 2 versus 1 at the moment). However I have also added an expert tag and changed the wording slightly. An expert in the field would perhaps like to expand the section to be more representative of literature deriving from the WVS. Expansion would be better than deletion. Caravaca 06:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

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How can it be that in this map Uraguay is placed in Catholic Europe and Portugal in Latin America? How can something like that be published? Gravydog 14:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)gravydog

GravyDog, you don't understand the map, and the map is not the WVS so shouldn't be discussed on this page. It's cultural groupings, not geographic. They then attempt to fit geography (mostly) onto culture, given the measures from the survey. See http://margaux.grandvinum.se/SebTest/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_54 .

I agree with Gravydog. Take a look at Greece for instance: value-wise it is placed amidst Catholic Europe but the author was careful enough to surround it with the appropriate colour for Protestant countries. The same should have been done for Portugal. I suggest that the article mention this geographical fact error. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.135.165.160 (talk) 19:51, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

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"Secretariat in Sweden Stockholm" and Sweden is on the upper right corner of the map. Doesn't that say all? 80.226.24.8 (talk) 18:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Section on "Literature derived from the WVS"

I've removed this section: there is a very large body of research using WVS data, and there is no particular reason to discuss Hofstede's instead of, say, Veenhoven's. I'm not convinced a section like this is useful or possible. But I'm happy to hear other views. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 11:08, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

No original research

I removed the criticism section which didn't provide verifiable sources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability

Wikipedia does not publish the personal opinions of Wikipedians, only material from reliable, third-party sources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

"All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles and all editors."

If the criticisms expressed toward Inglehart's research fall under the "significant views that have been published by reliable sources", then you may please revert this change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.105.201.227 (talk) 18:38, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Inglehart Map

It's buggy. X-axis scale goes from -2 to -2, should of course be -2 to 2 ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.3.43.72 (talk) 09:22, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

The map

There are serious flaws in the map. Uruguay is in catholic Europe and Portugal is in Latin America!!--Knight1993 (talk) 21:20, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

That is what happens with these kinds of clustering and "labelling". The clusters are named after cultural geography, but the actual clustering analysis shows that Uruguay is closer to catholic European countries than anything else, wile Portugal closely resembles values of Argentia, Chile and Dominican Republic and is, in that regard, closer to Latin America than Europe. I.e. the map follows the results first, geographical labels patched on later, and those possibly slightly off. Arnoutf (talk) 21:35, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh I see. Thanks for explaining that--Knight1993 (talk) 03:13, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Elaborate and simplify

As the WVS work expands with its current 5th wave, I think it would be useful to review the texts in the different sections throughout the page. At the moment, some sections are quite difficult to understand if you are not familiar with the WVS work. (For example, see confusion in a discussion from 2007-2008 about the global cultural map). It can therefore be beneficial to simplify and concretize adding new examples and work with more references. I will make some suggested changes and am happy to hear the community’s comments and views. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Valuesresearch (talk • contribs) 16:10, 23 April 2011 (UTC)