Global Values Report 2026
The Values-Living Gap
This report presents findings from 9,656 individuals across 114 countries who completed the Values Institute Assessment between June 2025 and April 2026. The dataset includes three layers: values selection and ranking (9,656 respondents), a self-reported check-in covering stress, values clarity, purpose clarity, and fulfillment (9,327 respondents), and a nine-dimension wellbeing assessment (6,231 respondents). Together, these reveal a striking pattern we are calling the Values-Living Gap — the distance between what people say matters most and what they have the capacity to live.
Key Findings
Foreword
This report began with a simple question: what do people actually value?
Over the past year, 9,656 people across 114 countries completed the Values Institute Assessment. They selected the values that matter most to them. They told us how stressed they feel, how clear they are on their values and purpose, and how fulfilled they are. A majority also completed a detailed wellbeing assessment covering energy, connection, and mindset.
What we expected was an interesting snapshot of human priorities. What we found was something more uncomfortable.
When given the opportunity to reflect, people are remarkably consistent in what they identify as important. Family, Respect, Kindness, Empathy, Honesty — these are the values that dominate, across every generation, every gender, every country in the dataset. Wealth and Status barely register. And when asked at the outset of the assessment to rate their own values clarity, respondents averaged 4.49 out of 7 — above the midpoint. Many people arrive already feeling reasonably clear on what matters to them. The assessment process helps sharpen and articulate that clarity further.
But many of the people who feel clear on their values cannot live them. They are too exhausted. Too stressed. Too disconnected from the present moment. One in four people who rate their values clarity as high before even beginning the assessment also report high stress. The gap between knowing and doing is real, and it is widespread.
An important note on scope: this dataset is drawn from people who actively sought out a values assessment. These are individuals already motivated to reflect on what matters to them. We cannot claim that values clarity is universal. But what this data reveals is that even among people who feel clear on their values — and who then go through a structured process to deepen that clarity — many still lack the capacity to live by what they identify. Discovering what matters, or confirming what you already sensed, appears to be only the first step.
Values clarity is necessary. It is not sufficient.
That gap — the Values-Living Gap — is the subject of this report.
Brad Hook, Founder, Values Institute
Author, Start With Values (Penguin/Hatherleigh, 2025)
PART 1
When People Reflect, They Are Remarkably Clear on What Matters
The World’s Top Values
When asked to select their five most important values from a list of 48, respondents chose these values.
The top five values are entirely relational and moral. The list is dominated by how we treat each other and the bonds we form.
Family is the clearest point of consensus across the entire dataset — the #1 value in every generation, every gender, every country with sufficient sample size. Nearly one in four people (23.2%) rank it as their single most important value. The next closest — Kindness at 6.9% — sits at less than a third of that level.
The Culture Gap
In a culture that relentlessly promotes achievement, visibility, and financial success as markers of a life well-lived:
- Status: 0.8%
- Authority: 0.7%
- Visibility: 1.0%
- Wealth: 4.9%
Fewer than 5.4% of respondents placed Wealth or Status in their top five. Less than 1% chose Status at all.
Fewer than 5.4% of respondents place Wealth or Status in their top five values. Society rewards one set of priorities. People report living for another.
The Generational Story We Got Wrong
Gen Z — the generation routinely characterised as disconnected — values Family more than any other generation.
- Gen Z (18–24): 43.0% include Family in their top five
- Gen X (45–54): 40.2%
- 35–44: 38.3%
- Boomers (55+): 37.2%
- Millennials (25–34): 31.2%
Gen Z also rates Love significantly higher (25.4% vs 16.7% average) and Friendship dramatically higher (29.1% vs 13.9% — more than double the rest of the population). Their primary motivation is connection-driven (33.8%), the only generation where connection outranks meaning as the dominant motivator.
There is a tension in their profile. Gen Z also rates Wealth higher (9.6% vs 4.0%), Achievement higher (19.0% vs 15.0%), and Physical Fitness higher (13.2% vs 9.0%). They appear to want deep relationships and material success simultaneously. They are the generation of “and.”
Meanwhile, Curiosity and Collaboration — values associated with intellectual exploration and collective action — are strikingly low in Gen Z (8.7% and 4.0% respectively, compared to roughly 18% and 13% for everyone else). Whether that reflects developmental stage or a genuine generational shift is a question the data raises but cannot answer.
The Arc of a Life, Told in Values
As people age, a clear motivational arc emerges:
- Achievement-oriented: Gen Z 25.2% → Boomers 8.3%
- Meaning-centred: Gen Z 20.5% → Boomers 44.8%
Fairness nearly doubles across the lifespan (14.3% to 28.3%). Kindness, Honesty, and Spirituality climb steadily. Love follows a U-curve — high in Gen Z (25.4%), suppressed during the middle years of career and logistics (15.0%), rising again in the Boomers (18.9%).
We begin wanting to belong and succeed. Over time, we let go of achievement and reach for meaning. The question is whether younger generations must wait decades to make that shift — or whether the transition can be supported earlier.
Part 2
Many People Lack the Capacity to Live Their Values
Before beginning the values selection process, respondents were asked “How clear are you about your values?” on a 1–7 scale. The average score was 4.49 — above the midpoint. Many people arrive at the assessment already feeling reasonably clear on what matters to them. Some do not, and the assessment serves as a discovery process. But even among those who arrive with a sense of clarity, the gap between knowing and living persists.
Among people who rated their values clarity at 5 or above before the assessment, one in four (25.2%) also reported high stress (5 or above). They felt clear on what mattered. They were still overwhelmed.
Among people who reported high values clarity at the outset, one in four were also highly stressed. Feeling clear on your values does not protect you from being overwhelmed. The gap between knowing and doing is the central challenge.
Even among those with the highest clarity (6–7 out of 7), 23.0% report high stress. Clarity is not a shield. It may even sharpen the pain of misalignment — the clearer you are on what matters, the more acutely you feel the gap when you cannot live by it.
The Wellbeing Picture
Among 6,231 respondents who completed the nine-dimension wellbeing assessment, rest and presence are the two lowest-scoring dimensions:
- Rest: 3.88/7 average. 20.9% score ≤ 2 (severely exhausted).
- Presence: 3.61/7 average. 24.5% score ≤ 2 (very disconnected).
By contrast, the highest-scoring dimensions are empathy (5.79/7) and support (5.64/7). People are skilled at caring for others. They are significantly less skilled at sustaining themselves.
Among people who include Family in their top five values, the gap is stark:
- 40.6% are exhausted (rest score ≤ 3 out of 7)
- 49.6% are disconnected from the present moment (presence ≤ 3)
- 25.8% are both exhausted and disconnected simultaneously
One in four people who say Family is what matters most are too depleted to show up fully for the people they love. Nearly half score low on presence — physically there, mentally elsewhere.
Convergent Validation
The self-reported check-in data and the wellbeing assessment tell the same story through independent measures. Among people who report both high values clarity and high stress, the wellbeing assessment confirms: their average rest score is 3.59 and their average presence score is 3.63 — well below the population means. Among those with high clarity but low stress, rest rises to 4.90 and presence to 4.16.
Two independent measurement approaches converge on the same finding: knowing what matters and having the capacity to live by it are different things.
Women Are Carrying a Disproportionate Burden
Women report higher self-assessed stress than men across every age group (average 3.76 vs 3.45 out of 7). 27.2% of women report high stress (≥5) compared to 22.4% of men.
The wellbeing data confirms and deepens this. Women outscore men on empathy (5.86 vs 5.67) and social support (5.68 vs 5.63). On every other dimension, men score higher:
- Vitality: women 4.26, men 4.82 (gap: 0.55)
- Fitness: women 4.84, men 5.33 (gap: 0.49)
- Rest: women 3.78, men 4.19 (gap: 0.41)
- Presence: women 3.50, men 3.90 (gap: 0.41)
- Clarity: women 3.95, men 4.32 (gap: 0.37)
22.4% of women are severely exhausted (rest ≤ 2), compared to 16.0% of men.
Women score higher on empathy and support, but lower on every other wellbeing dimension and higher on self-reported stress. One in four women aged 35–44 is severely exhausted. The data suggests a gender that has cultivated extraordinary care for others while systematically depleting its own reserves.
Women also report lower purpose clarity than men (3.98 vs 4.29) and lower fulfillment (3.98 vs 4.08). The depletion pattern is consistent across self-reported and objective measures.
The 35–44 Pressure Point
Women aged 35–44 are the most affected group in the entire dataset:
- 28.1% report high stress (self-reported ≥5)
- 24.6% severely exhausted (wellbeing rest ≤ 2)
- 20.9% showing compound anxiety indicators (rest, clarity, and presence all ≤ 3)
- Their #1 value: Family (24.7%)
They know exactly what matters. They are running out of the capacity to live by it.
The Gender-Anxiety Gap
Using a composite anxiety proxy (scoring ≤ 3 on rest, clarity, and presence simultaneously):
- Women 35–44: 20.9% | Men 35–44: 14.4%
- Women 25–34: 20.1% | Men 25–34: 10.5%
- Women 18–24: 18.7% | Men 18–24: 11.9%
- Women 45–54: 18.4% | Men 45–54: 8.1%
Women are roughly twice as likely as men to show compound anxiety indicators across every age group. This is not a generational phenomenon. It is a gender phenomenon that persists across the lifespan.
Men and the Family Connection
Among men with low wellbeing, 21.3% name Family as their #1 value. Among men with high wellbeing, that rises to 33.6% — a 12.3-percentage-point jump, the largest value-wellbeing shift for any gender group in the dataset.
The data does not tell us whether valuing Family helps men thrive, or whether thriving men are more able to prioritise Family. But the association is striking, and it suggests that men who are connected to relational values may be better resourced across other dimensions of life.
Part 3
The Path Forward
Purpose: The Strongest Buffer
The relationship between purpose clarity and both stress and fulfillment is the most linear gradient in the entire dataset:
| Purpose clarity (1–7) | Average stress | Average fulfillment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4.12 | 2.15 |
| 2 | 4.04 | 2.93 |
| 3 | 3.91 | 3.38 |
| 4 | 3.68 | 3.96 |
| 5 | 3.53 | 4.61 |
| 6 | 3.35 | 5.13 |
| 7 | 3.07 | 5.41 |
As purpose rises, stress falls and fulfillment rises — in near-lockstep. The gradient is remarkably clean. Among the many variables in this dataset, purpose clarity shows the most consistent relationship with both lower stress and higher fulfillment.
As purpose clarity rises from 1 to 7, stress drops by 25% and fulfillment more than doubles. Purpose is not a luxury. It may be foundational infrastructure for managing the demands of modern life.
The Gratitude Effect
Within this dataset, Gratitude is the value most consistently associated with higher wellbeing. People who include Gratitude in their top five score higher on every single wellbeing dimension:
- Overall wellbeing: 4.87 vs 4.61 (those without Gratitude)
- Positivity: 5.25 vs 4.76
- Rest: 4.16 vs 3.84
- Connection (empathy + support): 5.93 vs 5.68
The self-reported check-in data confirms the pattern: Gratitude-valuers report lower stress (3.54 vs 3.70), higher purpose clarity (4.32 vs 4.01), and higher fulfillment (4.30 vs 3.95).
When Gratitude is someone’s #1 value, their overall wellbeing rises to 5.15 — the highest of any value group.
The relationship likely runs in both directions — Gratitude may support wellbeing, and wellbeing may make Gratitude more accessible. What we can say is that the association is the strongest and most consistent of any single value in the dataset.
Gratitude is the value most consistently associated with higher wellbeing, lower stress, higher purpose, and higher fulfillment across every measure in the dataset. Only 14.4% of respondents include it in their top five.
The Fairness Paradox
In this sample, prioritising Fairness is associated with the lowest wellbeing of any value group.
- Fairness in top 5: overall wellbeing 4.52/7
- No Fairness in top 5: overall wellbeing 4.69/7
Fairness-valuers also report higher stress (3.71 vs 3.67), lower purpose clarity (3.87 vs 4.10), and lower fulfillment (3.87 vs 4.03). Fairness + Respect as a top-two pairing produces the lowest wellbeing of any common combination (4.00/7).
This does not suggest Fairness is unhealthy or that caring about justice makes you miserable. One interpretation is that sustained concern for injustice — seeing the persistent gap between how things are and how they should be — may carry a psychological cost, particularly without sufficient rest and recovery. The people most attuned to what is wrong in the world may need more recovery, not less concern.
People who prioritise Fairness show the lowest wellbeing, highest stress, and lowest fulfillment of any values group — not because justice is bad for you, but perhaps because carrying the weight of the world’s problems requires more recovery than most people currently have.
Fairness nearly doubles from Gen Z (14.3%) to Boomers (28.3%). The awareness of injustice appears to accumulate across a lifetime — and so, potentially, does its toll.
How Values Shift Under Stress
One of the most striking patterns in the data is the way values shift between anxious and calm states. Across every generation, the same directional pattern emerges.
Values more prominent under anxiety: Peace, Kindness, Empathy, Creativity, Autonomy, Curiosity
Values more prominent when calm and resourced: Family, Respect, Teamwork, Leadership, Collaboration, Gratitude, Resilience, Achievement
The shifts are substantial. In Gen Z, Peace drops from 21.7% under anxiety to 6.9% when calm. In Millennials, Teamwork jumps from 2.5% under anxiety to 16.6% when calm — a sixfold increase.
Anxiety does not appear to change what people believe in. It changes what they have the capacity to act on. Under stress, people turn inward. When resourced, they turn outward toward leadership, collaboration, and contribution.
Under stress, the sphere of concern contracts. People turn inward — toward self-expression, emotional self-care, and the search for peace. When resourced, people turn outward — toward contribution, collective effort, and building something beyond themselves.
This has a direct implication for anyone leading a family, a team, or an organisation. If you want people to show up with leadership, collaboration, and resilience, you cannot simply ask for it. You must first build the conditions — rest, presence, energy, clarity — that make those values accessible. You cannot lead from empty.
The Wellbeing-Values Feedback Loop
The data reveals that values and wellbeing are not separate domains. They form a feedback loop.
In one direction: the values a person holds are associated with their wellbeing. Gratitude correlates with flourishing. Fairness correlates with depletion. Family and Respect correlate with above-average wellbeing.
In the other direction: a person’s wellbeing shapes which values they can access. High wellbeing opens the door to outward-facing values like leadership and collaboration. Low wellbeing narrows the field to self-protective values like autonomy and peace.
This feedback loop is the mechanism behind the Values-Living Gap. When energy drops, the values that require surplus — contribution, leadership, resilience — become inaccessible. People don’t stop believing in them. They simply can’t reach them.
The gap between what we value and what we can live may be the defining wellbeing challenge of our time.
The Fulfillment Plateau
Self-reported fulfillment barely moves across the working lifespan:
- 18–24: 4.05
- 25–34: 3.97
- 35–44: 3.98
- 45–54: 3.99
- 55–64: 3.99
- 65+: 4.19
People do not feel progressively more fulfilled as they advance in their careers. Decades of working, achieving, and building do not measurably increase fulfillment until retirement. Only the 65+ group shows a meaningful uptick — and even then, the shift is modest. This finding challenges the assumption that career advancement and material accumulation produce fulfillment. They do not appear to, at least not in this sample.
Deeper Look
A Portrait of Thriving
100 individuals — 1.6% of wellbeing respondents — scored 6 or higher on all nine wellbeing dimensions. They show us what it looks like when the Values-Living Gap closes.
Their values: Family (20.8%), Respect (15.6%), Love (8.3%), Gratitude (5.2%). Gratitude appears at more than three times the rate of the general population.
Their motivation: Meaning-centred (39.6%), with achievement close behind (22.9%). Freedom-seeking drops to just 10.4%. Thriving people are not trying to escape their lives. They are building within them.
Their gender: Almost perfectly balanced (49% male, 47% female) — strikingly different from the 66% female / 26% male split in the overall sample.
Their age: Concentrated in the 25–44 range. Thriving is not reserved for retirement. It is accessible during the most demanding years.
The struggling group — 17 individuals scoring ≤ 3 on all dimensions — presents a mirror image. Their #1 value: Fairness (23.5%). They see the world clearly. They lack the resources to sustain their engagement with it.
Deeper Look
Values Across Cultures
Family Is Universal. What Follows It Is Not.
Family appears in the top five values in every country with sufficient sample size — from the United States (43.2%) to Germany (23.3%). It is the closest thing in this dataset to a universal human priority. But what comes after Family reveals strikingly different cultural identities.
The Anglosphere: Relational and Moral
The six English-speaking nations (UK, US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland — n=7,245) form the dataset’s largest bloc. Their collective profile leads with Family (39%), followed by Kindness (31%), Respect (30%), Honesty (25%), and Empathy (25%).
But within the Anglosphere, the UK and US diverge significantly.
The United Kingdom (n=3,552) is the most Fairness-oriented country in the dataset (30.4% vs 22.2% global average). Kindness also runs high (34.7%). Love sits at just 10.4% — roughly a third of the US rate. The British values profile is prosocial and justice-oriented: collective decency, fair play, and kindness.
The United States (n=3,083) is the mirror image. Love dominates (27.6% — nearly three times the UK rate). Spirituality is prominent (15.0% vs 4.3% in the UK). But Fairness drops to 12.5% — less than half the UK rate — and Collaboration sits at 5.8% vs the UK’s 18.2%. The American profile is personally expressive and faith-influenced.
On wellbeing, American respondents score higher than British respondents across nearly every dimension — particularly rest (3.82 vs 3.63) and positivity (4.89 vs 4.66). Whether this reflects genuine differences, cultural reporting norms, or structural factors is an open question.
Australia (n=341) and New Zealand (n=198) share high Family rates but differ in flavour. Australia stands out on Balance (17.4%) and Courage (11.6%). New Zealand leads on Creativity (23.6%) and Physical Fitness (15.7%) — a profile that echoes the outdoors-creative identity of Aotearoa.
Continental Europe: Intellectual and Autonomous
European respondents outside the UK (n=383) present a distinctly different profile. Freedom-seeking is the dominant motivation (30.5%) — the only region where it outranks meaning.
Germany (n=75) is the most distinctive: Curiosity at 34.2% (nearly double the global average), Learning at 32.9%, Autonomy at 24.7%. Family, at 23.3%, is the lowest of any country with adequate sample size. The German values profile is intellectual and self-directed.
Asia-Pacific: Collective and Achievement-Oriented
The Philippines (n=309) is the standout. Respect dominates at 57.8% — the highest single-value rate for any country. Teamwork (26.6%) and Collaboration (25.3%) are roughly three times global rates. The Filipino values profile is deeply collective. The Philippines also reports the highest wellbeing scores in the dataset (overall 6.05 vs 4.65 global), likely reflecting both genuine cultural factors and different cultural norms around self-assessment.
India (n=72) leans toward Learning (27.1%), Peace (21.4%), and Empathy (31.4%) — a reflective, harmony-seeking profile.
Middle East and Africa: Meaning and Spirituality
Respondents from this region (n=162) are the most meaning-centred of any region (42.1%). South Africa (n=59) leads on Wisdom (25.0%) and Spirituality (23.2%).
What the Regional Data Reveals
The UK prioritises Fairness; the US prioritises Love. Germany prioritises Curiosity; the Philippines prioritises Respect. South Africa prioritises Wisdom; New Zealand prioritises Creativity. These are not better or worse value systems. They are cultural fingerprints — distinctive expressions of what each society holds dear beyond the universal anchor of Family.
For organisations operating across borders, this has practical implications. A values-based programme that resonates in London may need to be reframed for New York or Manila. The universal language is Family. Everything else requires cultural translation.
Founder Commentary
What this means
The following section represents my personal interpretation of the findings — clearly distinguished from the data itself. The data tells us what is. This section explores what it might mean.
One possible interpretation of these findings is this: if most people across cultures still value Family, Respect, Kindness, Empathy, and Honesty more than Wealth, Status, and Authority, then perhaps humanity’s deepest values are not broken.
What may be broken is our capacity to live by those values.
That could help explain one of the central contradictions of modern life: why societies filled with people who say they value love, fairness, and decency can still produce so much conflict, disconnection, and harm. Not because people are hypocrites. But because they are depleted.
Under pressure, values do not disappear — but our access to them can shrink.
Over two decades of working with individuals and organisations — from PwC, Bridgestone, and Electronic Arts to frontline teams and families under pressure — I have seen a consistent pattern. When people are running on frayed nervous systems, chronic overload, and too little recovery, they become less present, less patient, less generous, and less able to act in alignment with what they say matters most. They do not lose their values. They lose access to them.
The data in this report appears to confirm that pattern at scale. Under stress, the values that require surplus — leadership, collaboration, resilience, gratitude — become harder to reach. People contract inward. They cope rather than contribute. Not because they have chosen to, but because depletion leaves them no alternative.
The purpose data adds a critical dimension. As purpose clarity rises, stress drops and fulfillment rises in near-lockstep. Purpose appears to function as a kind of organising principle — when people know why they are doing what they are doing, the demands of life become more manageable. Without purpose, stress accumulates without a container. With purpose, the same demands become meaningful rather than merely burdensome.
If that interpretation is directionally right, then the path to a better future is not only moral or ideological. It is also physiological, emotional, relational, and cultural. We do not just need better values. We need better conditions for living them.
We are not confused about what matters. We are depleted.
That means investing in the things that sound unglamorous but may be foundational: rest, nervous system regulation, recovery, connection, presence, clarity, and meaning. Not as self-care luxuries. As infrastructure for values-aligned living.
When people are rested, they are kinder. When they are present, they are better parents. When they have clarity, they can lead. When they feel connected, they collaborate. When they have a sense of purpose, they contribute beyond themselves.
The data suggests that wellbeing is not separate from values. It may be the very thing that makes values liveable.
Values without wellbeing are aspirations. Values with wellbeing are a way of life.
If the Values-Living Gap is real — and this dataset suggests it is — then closing it may be one of the most important things we can do. Not just for individual health, but for the health of our families, our organisations, and our communities. The values are already there. What we need now is the capacity to live them.
— Brad Hook
Conclusion
Closing the Gap
This report set out to ask what people value. The answer is clear and, in many ways, hopeful. People value family, respect, kindness, empathy, and honesty. They do not value wealth, status, or authority. The moral compass of this sample points in a direction most of us would be proud of.
But the data also reveals that values clarity — however important — is only the beginning. Many of the people who hold these values cannot fully live them. They are too tired, too scattered, too stretched. The gap between knowing and doing is real, measurable, and confirmed by multiple independent measures within this dataset.
The people most affected are women — particularly those in the 35–44 sandwich generation — who are carrying extraordinary empathy and care while running on depleted reserves. The value most associated with depletion is Fairness: not because justice doesn’t matter, but because the weight of caring may require more recovery than most people currently build into their lives. The value most associated with flourishing is Gratitude — a resource that remains dramatically underutilised.
The strongest buffer against stress is purpose. The strongest predictor of fulfillment is purpose. As purpose rises, stress falls and fulfillment doubles. Purpose is not a luxury for the privileged. It appears to be foundational architecture for a liveable life.
And across every generation, the same pattern holds: when people are depleted, their values contract inward. When they are rested and present, their values expand outward — toward the leadership, collaboration, and contribution that families, organisations, and communities depend on.
“Anxiety doesn’t change what people believe. It changes what they can act on.”
The findings point toward a simple but consequential insight. If we want healthier families, stronger communities, and better leaders, the starting point is not another conversation about values. The starting point is building the capacity — the energy, rest, presence, clarity, purpose, and connection — that allows people to live the values they already hold.
The question is no longer “what do we value?”
The question is: “do we have the capacity to live it?”
GET STARTED
Practices from the Data
The patterns in this dataset point toward specific practices that may help close the Values-Living Gap. The list below is grounded in what the data revealed — not generic wellness advice, but practices anchored to the biggest depletions and the biggest protective factors we identified.
For Individuals
- Build a gratitude practice. Gratitude is the value most consistently associated with higher wellbeing in our dataset — yet only 14% of respondents include it in their top five. Adding a daily practice (three things you appreciated, written down before sleep, or named aloud at the dinner table) is one of the lowest-effort, highest-return interventions available.
- Clarify your purpose. Purpose was the strongest buffer against stress in the entire dataset — as purpose clarity rose from 1 to 7, stress dropped 25% and fulfillment more than doubled. Spending time articulating what your work and life are for is not indulgent. It may be foundational.
- Protect rest like infrastructure. Rest was the second-lowest-scoring wellbeing dimension across the sample, and exhaustion was strongly associated with the inability to live one’s values. Build genuine recovery into your week — not just sleep, but unstructured time, time outdoors, and time without screens.
- Regulate your nervous system. Anxiety doesn’t change what you believe; it changes what you can act on. Slow breathing, cold exposure, daily movement, and contemplative practices all train the nervous system to recover faster from stress. The data suggests this matters more than most people realise.
For Your Team
- Run weekly “what went well” check-ins. Begin team meetings by inviting each person to share something that went well or that they appreciated. This builds the gratitude effect at scale and shifts the team’s collective attention toward what is working.
- Build in micro-breaks. The data shows that sustained depletion fragments the values people can express. Five-minute pauses between meetings, walking one-on-ones, and protected lunch breaks are not productivity costs — they are the conditions under which higher-order values like collaboration and leadership become accessible.
- Name shared values explicitly. Teams that articulate their values publicly are more likely to live by them. Run a values exercise. Pick three to five team values together. Reference them in decisions. This converts values from private convictions into shared culture.
- Make purpose visible. Connect daily work to a clear “why.” Teams that understand the meaning of their work — not just the metrics — show consistently higher fulfillment in the broader research literature, and the purpose-stress gradient in this dataset suggests the same dynamic operates inside organisations.
These practices are not exhaustive. They are starting points — the kind of small, repeatable interventions that, over time, can begin to close the gap between what we value and what we have the capacity to live.
Summary
Key Findings at a Glance
- The world’s top five values are Family, Respect, Kindness, Empathy, and Honesty. Fewer than 5.4% place Wealth or Status in their top five.
- Family is the #1 value across every age group, gender, and country. Gen Z values Family more than any other generation (43%).
- The Values-Living Gap: among people who reported high values clarity before the assessment, one in four are simultaneously highly stressed. 26% of Family-valuers are too exhausted and disconnected to be present for the people they love.
- Women report higher stress than men across every age group. One in four women aged 35–44 is severely exhausted. Women are roughly twice as likely as men to show compound anxiety indicators.
- Purpose is the strongest buffer against stress. As purpose clarity rises from 1 to 7, stress drops by 25% and fulfillment more than doubles.
- Gratitude is the value most consistently associated with higher wellbeing, lower stress, higher purpose, and higher fulfillment. Only 14% include it in their top five.
- Prioritising Fairness is associated with the lowest wellbeing and highest stress of any value group — possibly reflecting the emotional toll of sustained concern for injustice without sufficient recovery.
- Under stress, values contract inward. When resourced, values expand outward. Anxiety doesn’t change what people believe — it changes what they can act on.
- Fulfillment barely increases across the working lifespan (ages 25–64). Decades of career advancement do not measurably increase fulfillment until retirement.
- Family is the clearest common anchor across countries in this dataset.
- Thriving individuals are meaning-centred, gender-balanced, and disproportionately value Family, Respect, and Gratitude. They are not escaping — they are building.
- For many people, the next challenge is not values discovery — it is capacity.
The Study
Between June 2025 and April 2026, 9,656 individuals completed the Values Institute Assessment at app.values.institute. The assessment collects three layers of data:
- Layer 1 — Values (9,656 respondents): Respondents selected values from a curated list of 48, organised across four categories (Belonging, Growth, Impact, and Fulfillment — 12 values each), then ranked their top five. Each respondent was assigned a values archetype (8 types) and primary motivation style (4 types).
- Layer 2 — Self-reported check-in (9,327 respondents): Four questions asked early in the assessment process, before values selection, on a 1–7 Likert scale: “How clear are you about your values?”, “How stressed do you feel right now?”, “Do you feel a clear sense of purpose?”, and “How fulfilled do you feel overall?” These capture the respondent’s baseline state at the point of entry.
- Layer 3 — Wellbeing assessment (6,231 respondents): Nine dimensions across three clusters, each rated 1–7. Energy: vitality, fitness, rest. Connection: positivity, empathy, support. Mindset: focus, clarity, presence.
The sample spans 114 countries, with the largest groups from the United Kingdom (36.8%), the United States (31.9%), Australia (3.5%), the Philippines (3.2%), and Canada (2.3%). Two-thirds of respondents (65.7%) are female, one-quarter (26.0%) male, with the remainder selecting non-binary, other, or preferring not to say. Age distribution spans six brackets from 18 to 65+, with the largest cohort aged 35–44 (27.6%).
This is a self-selected sample. These are people who chose to explore their values — which means they are likely more reflective than the average population. That limits certain claims but strengthens others: when even the most self-aware, values-motivated people show a significant gap between their stated values and their lived capacity, the finding is arguably more concerning, not less.
Wellbeing and check-in scores are self-reported. Composite measures for burnout and anxiety are proxy indicators, not clinical diagnoses. Correlations throughout this report do not imply causation. Where we offer interpretation, we name it as such.
Analytical Methodology
Assessment Design
The Values Institute Assessment (v3) employs a structured multi-stage instrument. Respondents first select values within four thematic categories (Belonging, Growth, Impact, Fulfillment — 12 values per category, 48 total), choosing up to three per category. This categorical pre-selection reduces choice overload and ensures representation across value domains. Respondents then rank their aggregated selections, from which the top five are extracted for analysis.
Values archetypes are assigned algorithmically based on the distribution of selected values across the four categories and the composition of the top five, using a rule-based classification system (8 archetypes). Motivation style is similarly derived from a weighted analysis of value selections and their categorical distribution (4 motivation types).
Wellbeing Instrument
The wellbeing module comprises nine items across three conceptual clusters: Energy (vitality, fitness, rest), Connection (positivity, empathy, support), and Mindset (focus, clarity, presence). Each item uses a 1–7 Likert-type scale anchored from “Very Poor” to “Excellent.” Items are framed as self-assessments of current state (e.g., “I wake up feeling rested and refreshed most mornings”) rather than trait measures.
Self-Reported Check-In
Four items administered early in the assessment flow, before values selection begins, capture subjective stress, values clarity, purpose clarity, and fulfillment on 1–7 scales. These represent the respondent’s baseline state at the point of entry — not a post-assessment reflection. This sequencing means the values clarity score (average 4.49/7) reflects how clear respondents feel about their values before the structured discovery process, providing an independent subjective layer that can be cross-validated against the wellbeing dimensions and the values they subsequently identify.
Analytical Approach
All analyses are descriptive and correlational. No inferential statistics or significance testing have been applied, as the sample is self-selected and non-probabilistic, rendering traditional p-values potentially misleading.
Primary analyses include:
- Frequency analysis of value selections across the full sample and disaggregated by demographic variables (gender, age bracket, country, region).
- Cross-tabulation of value selections against wellbeing dimension scores and check-in variables, using tercile and quartile splits to compare high-scoring and low-scoring subgroups.
- Composite proxy indicators for burnout (rest ≤ 3 AND vitality ≤ 3 AND positivity ≤ 3) and anxiety (rest ≤ 3 AND clarity ≤ 3 AND presence ≤ 3). These are analytical constructs, not validated clinical instruments.
- Value-pair analysis examining mean wellbeing scores for the most common two-value combinations in positions 1 and 2.
- Stress-state comparison contrasting values profiles of respondents in high-anxiety states (rest, clarity, and presence all ≤ 3) against those in calm states (all ≥ 5) within each generational cohort.
- Convergent validation cross-referencing self-reported stress and values clarity (check-in layer) against objective wellbeing dimension scores (wellbeing layer) for the 6,175 respondents who completed both.
Generational Definitions
This report uses age brackets (18–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, 55+) as the primary unit of analysis. Generational labels (Gen Z, Boomers) are used only where the bracket maps cleanly to one generation.
Data Cleaning
Records were included if they had a status of “completed.” A small number of records (fewer than 20) contained placeholder values (e.g., “Name of First Ranked Value,” “Fifth Value Placeholder”) or test archetype assignments; these were excluded from relevant analyses where identified. No imputation was performed on missing demographic or wellbeing data; analyses use the available sample for each variable.
Limitations and Cautions
Self-selection bias: Respondents chose to take a values assessment, likely overrepresenting individuals who are reflective, self-improvement-oriented, or experiencing a period of transition or questioning. Findings about values clarity should be interpreted in this context.
Gender composition: The sample is approximately two-thirds female. Gender-disaggregated findings are reported as within-group comparisons to mitigate composition effects, but overall population figures will reflect the female-majority composition.
Cultural response styles: Cross-national comparisons of self-reported wellbeing may reflect cultural differences in response tendencies (e.g., acquiescence bias, modesty norms) as well as genuine wellbeing differences. The Philippines’ notably high wellbeing scores, for example, likely reflect a combination of both factors.
Causality: All relationships reported are correlational. The association between Gratitude and higher wellbeing, for instance, may reflect Gratitude supporting wellbeing, higher wellbeing enabling Gratitude, shared underlying factors, or some combination. No causal claims are made.
Score uniformity: Value “scores” (typically 85, 82, 78, 75, 72) are algorithmically assigned based on rank position rather than individually weighted. All analyses use value selection and rank order, not scores.
Assessment versioning: Three versions of the assessment form were used during the data collection period. The core values selection and ranking mechanism is consistent across versions; supplementary questions vary. Analyses focus on the shared elements.
Methodology Summary
Assessment: Values Institute Assessment (v3) at values.institute. 48 values across 4 categories. Respondents select and rank their top 5. Values archetype (8 types) and motivation style (4 types) assigned algorithmically.
Check-in: 4 self-report items (stress, values clarity, purpose clarity, fulfillment) on 1–7 Likert scales.
Wellbeing: 9 dimensions across 3 clusters (Energy, Connection, Mindset) on 1–7 Likert scales.
Sample: 9,656 completed assessments, June 2025 – April 2026. 114 countries. 65.7% female, 26.0% male, 8.3% other/undisclosed. 9,327 completed the check-in. 6,231 completed the wellbeing module. 6,175 completed both.
Design: Cross-sectional, self-selected, non-probabilistic. Descriptive and correlational analysis only. No inferential statistics applied. Proxy indicators are analytical constructs, not validated clinical instruments.
The Values Institute is an independent research and assessment platform founded by Brad Hook, author of Start With Values (Penguin/Hatherleigh, 2025).
For media enquiries, partnerships, or to take the free assessment: values.institute
Email: hello@values.institute
Brad Hook is a speaker, author, and human performance consultant with over 20 years of experience working with organizations including PwC, Shell, Bridgestone, and Electronic Arts. He is the creator of the FLAME Method for workplace performance and the director of the documentary Waves of Freedom.
