Personal ValuesValues Research & Tools

Personal value statistics: Certainty

Certainty appeared in the ranked ten of 17.9% of the 2,131,634 assessments completed since 2020, which makes it the 21st most frequently ranked of the 62 core values.

By , founder of personalvalu.esData updated

What certainty means as a value →

At a glance, 2020 to 2026

Appearance rateof assessments rank it in their ten. 21st of 62 values.
17.9%
First placeof assessments put it first. 11th of 62 on this measure.
2.2%
Top threeof assessments put it in the top three. 36% of those who rank it.
6.5%
Average positionis its mean position, out of ten, where it is ranked at all.
5.1

In the overall ranking certainty sits just below Compassion (18.1%) and just above Control (17.5%).

How the Popularity of Certainty Has Changed

In 2020 certainty appeared in 17.8% of assessments and ranked 22nd. In 2026 so far it appeared in 14.1% and ranked 31st, a fall of 3.7 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.

Certainty, year by year

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

Certainty by year: assessments, appearance rate and rank, first place, top three and average position
YearAssessmentsAppearance rateRankFirst placeTop threeAverage position
202084,37817.8%22nd2.2%6.8%4.9
2021224,09618.1%20th▲22.4%7.0%4.9
2022179,27118.4%18th▲22.5%7.2%4.9
2023397,24918.7%17th▲12.5%7.1%5.0
2024460,24419.0%17th2.4%7.2%5.0
2025449,23318.5%21st▼42.1%6.3%5.3
2026 so far337,16314.1%31st▼101.3%4.2%5.6

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 October 2026.

Certainty by Country

Of the 26 countries with enough assessments to publish, participants in Singapore rank certainty most often, at 20.2%, and those in Brazil least often, at 6.2%.

Country is recorded for the assessments from December 2025 to October 2026, so this section reads those 300,899 assessments and compares each country with all of them.

Where certainty is ranked most often

14.5% of participants rank certainty in their top ten, from 20.2% in Singapore to 6.2% in Brazil. Tap or hover a country to see its top values.

  • 6–9%
  • 9–11%
  • 11–14%
  • 14–16%
  • 16–19%
  • 19–21%
  • too few assessments
Appearance rate of certainty by country, December 2025 to October 2026
CountryAppearance ratevs average (pp)Rank there
Singapore
20.2%
+5.716th of 62
Romania
20.2%
+5.619th of 62
Indonesia
19.3%
+4.818th of 62
Egypt
19.1%
+4.519th of 62
Poland
18.9%
+4.418th of 62
South Africa
18.7%
+4.217th of 62
Philippines
18.2%
+3.719th of 62
Hong Kong SAR China
16.8%
+2.321st of 62
United Kingdom
15.8%
+1.324th of 62
Germany
15.5%
+1.027th of 62
Netherlands
15.3%
+0.827th of 62
Ireland
14.5%
−0.030th of 62
Canada
14.3%
−0.330th of 62
United States
14.1%
−0.433rd of 62
India
14.1%
−0.430th of 62
Switzerland
13.9%
−0.732nd of 62
New Zealand
13.8%
−0.737th of 62
Australia
13.5%
−1.133rd of 62
Saudi Arabia
13.0%
−1.634th of 62
Malaysia
11.9%
−2.744th of 62
Mexico
11.0%
−3.642nd of 62
Vietnam
10.5%
−4.142nd of 62
United Arab Emirates
9.8%
−4.849th of 62
Italy
9.8%
−4.844th of 62
France
8.6%
−5.946th of 62
Brazil
6.2%
−8.457th of 62

Every assessment with a known country, 14.5%

Certainty by Age

Certainty is ranked more often with age, from 10.6% of assessments among participants under 18 to 12.9% among those 65 and over, about 0.3 points per band.

Age is an optional question after the ranking, so this section reads the 75,449 assessments from December 2025 to October 2026 whose participants gave one. A difference between bands mixes what changes as people age with what differs between generations.

Appearance rate of certainty by age band, December 2025 to October 2026
AgeAppearance ratevs average (pp)Rank there
Under 18
10.6%
−3.144th of 62
18–24
14.8%
+1.131st of 62
25–34
15.8%
+2.126th of 62
35–44
15.0%
+1.328th of 62
45–54
12.3%
−1.338th of 62
55–64
12.2%
−1.538th of 62
65 and over
12.9%
−0.836th of 62

Everyone who gave an age, 13.7%

Certainty by Gender

Women rank certainty more often than men, by 1.0 percentage points.

Gender is optional too, asked beside age, so this section reads the 73,168 assessments from December 2025 to October 2026 whose participants gave one. “Prefer not to say” is counted in no group.

Appearance rate of certainty by gender, December 2025 to October 2026
GenderAppearance ratevs average (pp)Rank there
Women
14.0%
+0.430th of 62
Men
13.0%
−0.638th of 62
Non-binary
14.3%
+0.731st of 62

Everyone who gave a gender, 13.6%

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 certainty 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 certainty stand among your own values? Rank your own values.

Copyright 2026 © personalvalu.es