Explore insights from 2,131,634 personal values assessments collected through Personalvalu.es.
By Arkadiusz Zalewski, founder of personalvalu.esData updated
Each assessment asks a person to choose, from a fixed list of 62 core values, the ones that matter most to them, and then to put ten of them in order through a series of choices between two values at a time. The dataset is the aggregate of those rankings.
Read together, they show which personal values people consider important, which they put first, how that has changed since 2020, and how it differs between groups of participants.
Last updated . Figures are rebuilt from the underlying assessments periodically, so every headline figure states the period it covers.
Chapter 02, Key findings
15 observations about which values people put first, how that differs between groups and how it has shifted over time. Each one is drawn from the rankings people made in completed Personalvalu.es assessments, and comes with the figures behind it.
Two values have held the top two places every year since 2020.
They are family and health. Their order changes from one year to the next. In seven yearly rankings, from 2020 to 2026 so far, no other value has broken into the group.
See every value ranked since 2020 →13.1% of the 2,131,634 assessments completed since 2020 put family first. No other value is picked first as often.
Health is the value people rank most often. It is in 46.2% of assessments since 2020, against 41.5% for family. But family is picked first more often, 13.1% against 10.7%. Being ranked often and being ranked first are two different things.
See the figures for family →46.2% is the highest share any value reaches since 2020. Not one of the 62 values is ranked by half of participants.
Every assessment ranks ten of the 62 values. Health was in 985,476 of those tens, more than any other value. Most people still leave it out.
See all 62 values →4.7 points separate health from family. It is the widest gap between two neighbours in the top ten since 2020.
Health is ranked in 46.2% of assessments. Family, the next value down, is in 41.5%. The other steps in the top ten average 2.1 points. The top ten is tight everywhere except at the top.
See the figures for health →4.5% of assessments since 2020 ranked religion first. Only 11.4% ranked it at all.
By how often it is ranked, religion is 40th of 62 values. By first place it is fourth. The people who do rank it put it at position 3.55 on average. Few people pick it, and those who do put it near the top.
See the figures for religion →23.8% of people put family or health first since 2020. The other 60 values share the rest.
Family is the first value for 13.1% of the 2,131,634 people who ranked their values since 2020, and health for 10.7%. Love comes third at 4.8%. From there the figures fall away, and 32 of the 62 values are first for fewer than one person in a hundred.
See every value ranked since 2020 →59.6% of the people who rank family put it in their top three. No other value in the top ten since 2020 does as well.
Family is ranked in 41.5% of assessments since 2020. It reaches the first three places in 24.7% of them. Its average position is 3.57. When people choose family, they choose it early.
See the figures for family →7.00 out of 10 is the average position of commitment since 2020. Among values ranked by at least 5% of participants, none sits lower.
9.2% of assessments rank commitment somewhere. 0.38% put it first. People add it to their ten and then leave it near the bottom.
See the figures for commitment →Three values have filled the last three places every year since 2020.
They are popularity, authority and fame. Across everything since 2020, fame is last, in 2.7% of assessments. Health appears 17 times as often. What people leave out is as steady as what they pick.
See all 62 values →+84.1% is the sharpest one-year rise in the data. Contribution rose that much between 2025 and 2026 so far.
Contribution was in 4.20% of 2025 assessments and 7.73% of those from 2026 so far. That is 3.53 percentage points. Across everything since 2020 it is 57th of 62 values.
See the figures for contribution →−30.1% is the sharpest one-year fall in the data. Pleasure fell that much between 2025 and 2026 so far.
Pleasure was in 30.35% of 2025 assessments and 21.22% of those from 2026 so far. That is 9.13 percentage points. Across everything since 2020 it is 8th of 62 values.
See the figures for pleasure →+6.3 points is the biggest gain in share since 2020. Friendship gained it between 2020 and 2026 so far.
Friendship was in 23.1% of 2020 assessments. In 2026 so far it was in 29.5%. That is a rise of 27.4%. It moved from 12th to 8th of 62 values.
See the figures for friendship →76% of all year-to-year moves in the ranking are two places or fewer.
Every value is compared with its own place in the year before. That is 372 comparisons across seven yearly rankings. The median move is one place. The changes above are real. The ranking as a whole moves slowly.
Browse the statistics archive →50% of countries rank family above every other value. 25 of them have it in their top five.
The exceptions are health in Australia, the United Kingdom, India, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Italy, Poland and Hong Kong SAR China, financial stability in Singapore, South Africa and Indonesia and peace in the Philippines. Everywhere else family comes first.
See the country table →33.3 points separate the countries that rank health most and least often. No value splits the countries more.
In Hong Kong SAR China health is in 57.5% of assessments. In Brazil it is in 24.1%.
See the figures for health →Chapter 03, Values
Which personal values do people consider most important? The answer depends on what “most important” is taken to mean. A value can be chosen by many people and put first by few, or chosen by few and put first by nearly all of them.
This chapter reads all 2,131,634 assessments since 2020 as one period and ranks the 62 core values three ways: by how often they are included, by how often they come first, and on every measure side by side.
Popular values
Which values appear most often among people's top ten? Based on the 2,131,634 assessments completed since 2020, these are the values most commonly included.
How it is measured. A value counts when it is one of the ten a person puts in order at the end of the assessment. Its appearance rate is the share of all completed assessments that include it. That makes it a measure of how widely a value is held rather than how highly it is placed, so a value can be common here and still rarely come first.
The share of assessments whose ranked ten includes the value.
41.5%
37.4%
36.4%
35.3%
32.5%
30.0%
29.7%
28.0%
24.9%
Share of the 2,131,634 assessments completed since 2020 whose ranked ten includes the value. Bars run from 0% to 50%.
46.2% of people include Health among their top ten, ahead of Family at 41.5%.
Health is included in 46.2% of assessments, but only 10.7% of people rank it as their number one value.
Health
46.2%
include it in their top ten
Health
10.7%
rank it as their number one
How to read this ranking. Each rate is the share of assessments that put the value among their ten. Even Health, at the top, is left out of most.
Ranked highest
Being in someone's top ten is one thing. Being put at the very top is another. Across the 2,131,634 assessments completed since 2020, these are the values people most often put in first place, and anywhere in their top three.
How it is measured. First place is the share of all completed assessments that put the value in position one, and top three the share that put it anywhere in positions one to three. Both are shares of every assessment, not only of those that include the value, so they read directly against the appearance rate above.
13.1% of people put Family in first place, ahead of Health at 10.7%. Health is included in more rankings, in 46.2% of them, but is put at the top of fewer.
The share of assessments that put the value at number one.
Share of the 2,131,634 assessments completed since 2020 that put the value first, over all 62 values. Bars run from 0% to 15%.
The share of assessments that put the value anywhere in their top three.
Share of the 2,131,634 assessments completed since 2020 that put the value in their top three, over all 62 values. Bars run from 0% to 30%.
How to read it. These two lists measure how strongly a value is held rather than how widely. Where a value sits higher here than in the list of the most popular personal values, the people who choose it tend to put it near the top of their ranking. Where it sits lower, it is often included but seldom the value a person puts first.
The measures
“Most popular” can mean several things. The page uses four measures, each answering a different question, and they order the values differently. That is why they are never merged into a single score.
| Value | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Health | 46.23% | 10.67% | 25.43% | 3.84 |
| 2 | Family | 41.52% | 13.10% | 24.74% | 3.57 |
| 3 | Trust | 37.39% | 3.47% | 12.54% | 5.05 |
| 4 | Peace | 36.42% | 4.36% | 13.95% | 4.88 |
| 5 | Financial stability | 35.32% | 3.66% | 13.26% | 4.81 |
| 6 | Love | 32.51% | 4.82% | 13.52% | 4.64 |
| 7 | Respect | 29.97% | 1.91% | 7.82% | 5.54 |
| 8 | Pleasure | 29.68% | 2.37% | 8.87% | 5.35 |
| 9 | Freedom | 27.99% | 2.81% | 6.75% | 6.30 |
| 10 | Friendship | 24.88% | 1.70% | 6.82% | 5.58 |
Figures for the 2,131,634 assessments completed since 2020, given to two decimal places. The number is each value's position by appearance rate. Select a column heading to sort by it.
Chapter 04, Trends
Pleasure has moved further than any other value since 2020. It was in 32.2% of assessments that year and in 21.2% of those from 2026 so far, a fall of 11.0 percentage points.
How to read the chart. Each line follows one value from 2020 to 2026. A point at 40% means the value was among the ten most important in 40% of the assessments completed that year. It counts how often the value was chosen, not how high it was placed. 2026 is still under way, so its point covers January to October 2026 only.
| Value | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | Change (pp) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pleasure | 32.2% | 32.4% | 32.3% | 31.4% | 30.9% | 30.4% | 21.2% | −11.0 |
| Health | 45.4% | 45.8% | 46.4% | 48.0% | 48.5% | 49.2% | 37.5% | −7.9 |
| Friendship | 23.1% | 23.6% | 24.6% | 23.7% | 24.0% | 24.5% | 29.5% | +6.3 |
| Freedom | 29.7% | 30.9% | 30.3% | 29.3% | 29.0% | 26.1% | 24.0% | −5.7 |
| Equality | 19.3% | 17.0% | 15.5% | 13.0% | 11.4% | 11.1% | 13.7% | −5.5 |
The last column is the change from 2020 to 2026 so far in percentage points. A value that falls from 30% to 20% has lost 10 points, not a third.
Chapter 05, The world
Among Personalvalu.es participants in the Philippines, peace appears in 52.3% of assessments, against 33.5% across all participants whose country is known. That is the widest gap of any country here with at least 1,000 assessments behind it.
What the figures cover. Country is recorded for 83.8% of the 359,170 assessments completed in December 2025 to October 2026, which is 300,899 assessments in total. Rates below are shares of each country's own assessments, and each is compared against the same group rather than against the whole archive.
39.6% of participants rank family in their top ten, from 50.7% in Hong Kong SAR China to 29.8% in Indonesia. Tap or hover a country to see its top values.
| Country | Assessments | Most often ranked | Most above average |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 169,355 | Family 40.0%, Love 36.0%, Trust 35.8% | Religion +2.6 |
| Australia | 24,120 | Health 41.4%, Family 40.8%, Trust 36.5% | Respect +3.5 |
| Canada | 20,718 | Family 40.7%, Health 40.6%, Trust 34.8% | Health +2.2 |
| United Kingdom | 16,156 | Health 41.7%, Family 39.7%, Financial stability 35.3% | Meaningful work +6.2 |
| India | 7,529 | Health 44.1%, Peace 40.6%, Family 38.3% | Discipline +11.6 |
| New Zealand | 5,974 | Family 40.9%, Health 37.6%, Trust 37.0% | Friendship +3.6 |
| Philippines | 5,806 | Peace 52.3%, Financial stability 47.4%, Health 45.7% | Peace +18.7 |
| Egypt | 3,420 | Family 44.8%, Peace 44.2%, Health 43.9% | Religion +14.0 |
| Singapore | 3,167 | Financial stability 40.6%, Health 39.8%, Peace 37.3% | Financial stability +6.7 |
| South Africa | 2,712 | Financial stability 44.8%, Health 39.6%, Peace 39.4% | Discipline +11.2 |
| Germany | 2,525 | Health 44.8%, Financial stability 34.9%, Family 32.8% | Curiosity +10.1 |
| Netherlands | 2,457 | Health 43.1%, Family 34.8%, Financial stability 34.6% | Freedom +8.3 |
| Indonesia | 1,649 | Financial stability 41.5%, Peace 38.2%, Growth 35.2% | Financial stability +7.6 |
| Romania | 1,647 | Health 45.0%, Financial stability 41.3%, Family 39.6% | Freedom +8.0 |
| Mexico | 1,357 | Family 40.3%, Love 39.7%, Respect 37.2% | Discipline +12.5 |
| Switzerland | 1,225 | Family 41.5%, Health 40.6%, Respect 35.6% | Ambition +10.3 |
| Malaysia | 1,197 | Family 39.9%, Financial stability 38.0%, Growth 34.9% | Freedom +7.3 |
| Saudi Arabia | 957 | Family 46.2%, Health 40.2%, Respect 37.9% | Religion +11.6 |
| France | 837 | Family 40.3%, Respect 39.1%, Friendship 34.8% | Ambition +15.2 |
| United Arab Emirates | 634 | Family 42.1%, Respect 41.6%, Health 38.0% | Respect +9.4 |
| Italy | 564 | Health 47.3%, Family 42.4%, Love 37.4% | Freedom +11.0 |
| Poland | 524 | Health 52.9%, Financial stability 51.0%, Family 36.3% | Financial stability +17.0 |
| Ireland | 489 | Family 42.9%, Health 41.5%, Financial stability 33.9% | Variety +4.6 |
| Brazil | 373 | Family 42.4%, Growth 34.0%, Financial stability 31.6% | Ethics +11.8 |
| Hong Kong SAR China | 369 | Health 57.5%, Family 50.7%, Financial stability 37.9% | Wealth +19.6 |
| Vietnam | 344 | Family 45.3%, Friendship 38.1%, Freedom 37.5% | Freedom +14.1 |
Chapter 06, Age and gender
Age and gender are optional questions on the result page, so these sections describe the participants who chose to answer them. What they add to the global ranking is the difference between groups: which values climb or fall from one age band to the next, and which values women and men rank at different rates.
Among Personalvalu.es participants, authenticity rises from 11.7% of assessments among participants under 18 to 33.7% among those aged 55–64. Over the same bands, wealth falls from 22.9% of assessments among participants under 18 to 5.3% among those aged 55–64.
Share of the assessments with an age, by band, December 2025 to October 2026.
Appearance rate in each age band, youngest on the left. The values whose rate climbs most steadily from one band to the next.
+4.0 points per band on average
+3.3 points per band on average
+2.5 points per band on average
+2.3 points per band on average
Appearance rate in each age band, youngest on the left. The values whose rate drops most steadily from one band to the next.
−3.5 points per band on average
−3.3 points per band on average
−3.2 points per band on average
−2.3 points per band on average
| Age | Assessments | Most often ranked | Most above average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 18 | 16,624 | Family 37.2%, Friendship 36.4%, Love 35.8% | Friendship +10.6 |
| 18–24 | 17,103 | Financial stability 35.5%, Love 34.8%, Family 34.3% | Wealth +3.6 |
| 25–34 | 15,899 | Financial stability 39.1%, Growth 38.5%, Health 37.7% | Growth +6.6 |
| 35–44 | 12,520 | Family 42.6%, Financial stability 38.9%, Health 37.4% | Authenticity +5.3 |
| 45–54 | 8,282 | Family 46.3%, Health 39.5%, Financial stability 37.7% | Family +8.1 |
| 55–64 | 3,773 | Family 44.3%, Health 42.9%, Financial stability 38.2% | Authenticity +11.0 |
| 65 and over | 1,248 | Health 47.2%, Family 42.3%, Financial stability 35.5% | Health +11.2 |
A difference between bands is a difference between the participants in them, and it mixes two things these figures cannot separate: what changes as people age, and what differs between generations. How the figures are built is set out in the methodology.
Among Personalvalu.es participants who gave a gender, discipline appears in 24.2% of men's assessments and 13.5% of women's. Compassion leans the other way, at 25.1% of women's against 15.1% of men's. Around those gaps, 8 of the ten values women rank most often are also among the ten men rank most often.
Share of the assessments with a gender, by group, December 2025 to October 2026.
Appearance rate among women and among men, widest gap first.
Appearance rate among women and among men, widest gap first.
| Gender | Assessments | Most often ranked | Most above average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Women | 43,248 | Family 40.8%, Health 36.3%, Love 36.0% | Compassion +3.8 |
| Men | 28,538 | Health 36.3%, Family 35.7%, Financial stability 34.5% | Discipline +6.6 |
| Non-binary | 1,382 | Creativity 38.7%, Curiosity 35.5%, Love 33.4% | Creativity +19.1 |
Chapter 07, Explore the data
Explore the dataset by year and by value.
Every year and each of the 62 values has a research page of its own, built from 2,131,634 assessments in the Personalvalu.es dataset.
See how value rankings change over time.
2020
The five values ranked most often
2021
The five values ranked most often
2022
The five values ranked most often
2023
The five values ranked most often
2024
The five values ranked most often
2025
The five values ranked most often
2026
The five values ranked most often, to the end of October
337,163
assessments in 2026to the end of October
Where each value stands by year, country, age and gender. Ranked by how often it is among the ten a participant chooses, across every assessment since 2020.
What happens when people take the assessment twice: how much of a Top 10 appears again, and how often the same value comes first.
Chapter 08, Methodology
Every figure here is calculated directly from 2,131,634 completed Personalvalu.es assessments, collected from July 2020 to October 2026. Each assessment ranks ten of the same 62 core values.
There is no survey panel, third-party data, modelling or weighting.
Individual assessments
Each person ranks 10 of the 62 values
One dataset
2,131,634 assessments, aggregated
Value statistics
Results for each of the 62 values
Each assessment ranks ten values from the same set of 62. We aggregate how often each value appears and where it is ranked. The aggregates store no individual rankings or participant identifiers.
In full: What is countedAppearance rate, first place and top three are shares of assessments in a period. Average position is the mean rank from 1 to 10 among assessments that include the value.
In full: How the measures workA large self-selected group, not a representative sample of any population. It shows how values are chosen and ranked within this dataset, not why people choose them.
In full: What it representsWe publish the dataset methodology, definitions and limitations so every figure can be understood in context.
Writing about values, or teaching them? You are welcome to use these figures in an article, a lesson, a presentation or a paper. Mention Personalvalu.es and link back to this page, and the citations below are ready to copy. Quoting a single figure? Every key finding has its own number and link, so you can point readers straight to it.
The data is shared under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0), so you can reuse it freely as long as you credit the source.
