Influences of Adaptation to Communist Rule on Value Priorities in Eastern Europe

The basic value priorities prevalent in Eastern Europe are studied in a cross‐national comparison. Analyses of the implications of adaptation to life circumstances under communist regimes lead to the hypotheses that East European samples are likely to attribute especially high importance to conservatism and hierarchy values and low importance to egalitarianism, intellectual and affective autonomy, and mastery values. The same hypotheses apply to differences between countries within Eastern Europe in which there was greater or lesser communist penetration. These hypotheses are largely supported with data both from samples of school teachers and of university students from nine Eastern European and 12 Western European countries. Various possible alternative explanations are discussed: national economic level, religion, earlier shared history, effects of totalitarianism, and distinctiveness of Western Europe.