Personal value statistics: Authority

Authority appeared in the ranked ten of 3.0% of the 2,099,004 assessments completed since 2020, which makes it the 60th most frequently ranked of the 62 core values.

What authority means as a value →

Authority

I make decisions and lead others. I don’t accept being overlooked or ignored.

51/62

At a glance, 2020 to 2026

Appearance rateof assessments rank it in their ten. 60th of 62 values.: 3.0%
First placeof assessments put it first. 61st of 62 on this measure.: 0.1%
Top threeof assessments put it in the top three. 16% of those who rank it.: 0.5%
Average positionis its mean position, out of ten, where it is ranked at all.: 6.5

In the overall ranking authority sits just below Tradition (4.9%) and just above Popularity (2.8%).

How the Popularity of Authority Has Changed

In 2020 authority appeared in 2.8% of assessments and ranked 60th. In 2026 so far it appeared in 3.5% and ranked 61st, a rise of 0.8 percentage points.

Pick a measure, and read it by year or month by month. A month holds a few thousand assessments, so it moves more than a year does. The gaps are months the archive has no data for.

Authority, year by year

Each rank is among the 62 values that year, by appearance rate. The arrow is its move from the year before.

Authority by year: assessments, appearance rate and rank, first place, top three and average position
Year	Assessments	Appearance rate	Rank	First place	Top three	Average position
2020	84,378	2.8%	60th	0.1%	0.4%	6.6
2021	224,096	2.9%	60th	0.1%	0.5%	6.5
2022	179,271	2.8%	60th	0.1%	0.5%	6.5
2023	397,249	2.9%	60th	0.1%	0.5%	6.4
2024	460,244	2.9%	60th	0.1%	0.5%	6.5
2025	449,233	2.9%	60th	0.1%	0.4%	6.7
2026 so far	304,533	3.5%	61st▼1	0.1%	0.6%	6.7

2020 holds 6 months of data and 2022 holds 7 months of data, so their figures cover part of the year. 2026 covers January to September 2026.

Authority by Country

Of the 25 countries with enough assessments to publish, participants in Saudi Arabia rank authority most often, at 7.0%, and those in Brazil least often, at 2.1%.

Country is recorded for the assessments from December 2025 to September 2026, so this section reads those 272,982 assessments and compares each country with all of them.

Where authority is ranked most often

3.5% of participants rank authority in their top ten, from 7.0% in Saudi Arabia to 2.1% in Brazil. Tap or hover a country to see its top values.

2–3%
3–4%
4–5%
5–5%
5–6%
6–7%
too few assessments

Appearance rate of authority by country, December 2025 to September 2026
Country	Assessments	Appearance rate	vs average (pp)	Rank there
Saudi Arabia	768	7.0%	+3.6	58th of 62
Egypt	3,089	6.2%	+2.7	54th of 62
Mexico	941	5.6%	+2.2	57th of 62
India	7,202	5.4%	+1.9	58th of 62
United Arab Emirates	481	5.4%	+1.9	59th of 62
France	667	5.4%	+1.9	56th of 62
Netherlands	2,246	5.1%	+1.6	58th of 62
Singapore	2,481	4.8%	+1.3	59th of 62
Malaysia	1,057	4.6%	+1.2	59th of 62
Romania	1,535	4.6%	+1.1	59th of 62
Hong Kong SAR China	369	4.3%	+0.9	56th of 62
Indonesia	1,533	4.2%	+0.7	59th of 62
Switzerland	1,067	4.0%	+0.6	60th of 62
Italy	564	3.9%	+0.4	61st of 62
Poland	423	3.8%	+0.3	57th of 62
Ireland	385	3.6%	+0.2	61st of 62
Philippines	5,645	3.3%	−0.2	58th of 62
South Africa	2,608	3.3%	−0.2	60th of 62
Canada	18,667	3.3%	−0.2	61st of 62
United States	154,508	3.2%	−0.2	61st of 62
Germany	2,274	3.1%	−0.4	59th of 62
United Kingdom	13,561	3.0%	−0.5	61st of 62
Australia	22,203	2.9%	−0.5	61st of 62
New Zealand	5,381	2.8%	−0.7	62nd of 62
Brazil	373	2.1%	−1.3	60th of 62

Every assessment with a known country, 3.5%

Authority by Age

Authority is ranked less often with age, from 4.5% of assessments among participants under 18 to 4.1% among those 65 and over, about 0.4 points per band.

Age is an optional question after the ranking, so this section reads the 66,624 assessments from December 2025 to September 2026 whose participants gave one. A difference between bands mixes what changes as people age with what differs between generations.

Appearance rate of authority by age band, December 2025 to September 2026
Age	Assessments	Appearance rate	vs average (pp)	Rank there
Under 18	14,615	4.5%	+0.9	62nd of 62
18–24	15,203	4.0%	+0.4	60th of 62
25–34	14,080	3.2%	−0.4	59th of 62
35–44	11,071	3.0%	−0.6	60th of 62
45–54	7,261	3.2%	−0.5	60th of 62
55–64	3,296	2.4%	−1.2	61st of 62
65 and over	1,098	4.1%	+0.5	62nd of 62

Everyone who gave an age, 3.6%

Authority by Gender

Men rank authority more often than women, by 2.1 percentage points.

Gender is optional too, asked beside age, so this section reads the 64,656 assessments from December 2025 to September 2026 whose participants gave one. “Prefer not to say” is counted in no group.

Appearance rate of authority by gender, December 2025 to September 2026
Gender	Assessments	Appearance rate	vs average (pp)	Rank there
Women	37,968	2.8%	−0.8	61st of 62
Men	25,478	4.9%	+1.3	58th of 62
Non-binary	1,210	3.6%	−0.1	59th of 62

Everyone who gave a gender, 3.6%

About These Figures

Every figure on this page is a share of completed assessments on Personalvalu.es, read from the same aggregates as the Global Values Research. The appearance rate is how often authority is among a participant's ten most important values. It is not a score, and a difference between groups describes the participants in them without explaining it.

How the aggregates are built, and why some countries and groups are left out, is set out in the methodology. Month-by-month figures for every value are in the monthly archive.

Statistics for every value

Where does authority stand among your own values? Rank your own values.