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Under the Behavior

Values card sort: what matters most to you?

Sort value cards one at a time into three piles. Then cut the top pile down to five. No score, no type, nothing sent.

See all 83 cards
Values card sort

One card at a time. Put each value in a pile: very important, important or not important to you. Then pick your top five.

The sort needs JavaScript. Without it, every card is in the list below.

Not a test. There are no right answers, and nothing you tap leaves your browser.

Personal values list: all 83 cards

The Personal Values Card Sort (Miller, C'de Baca, Matthews and Wilbourne, 2001).

  1. Acceptance to be accepted as I am
  2. Accuracy to be accurate in my opinions and beliefs
  3. Achievement to have important accomplishments
  4. Adventure to have new and exciting experiences
  5. Attractiveness to be physically attractive
  6. Authority to be in charge of and responsible for others
  7. Autonomy to be self-determined and independent
  8. Beauty to appreciate beauty around me
  9. Caring to take care of others
  10. Challenge to take on difficult tasks and problems
  11. Change to have a life full of change and variety
  12. Comfort to have a pleasant and comfortable life
  13. Commitment to make enduring, meaningful commitments
  14. Compassion to feel and act on concern for others
  15. Contribution to make a lasting contribution in the world
  16. Cooperation to work collaboratively with others
  17. Courtesy to be considerate and polite toward others
  18. Creativity to have new and original ideas
  19. Dependability to be reliable and trustworthy
  20. Duty to carry out my duties and obligations
  21. Ecology to live in harmony with the environment
  22. Excitement to have a life full of thrills and stimulation
  23. Faithfulness to be loyal and true in relationships
  24. Fame to be known and recognized
  25. Family to have a happy, loving family
  26. Fitness to be physically fit and strong
  27. Flexibility to adjust to new circumstances easily
  28. Forgiveness to be forgiving of others
  29. Friendship to have close, supportive friends
  30. Fun to play and have fun
  31. Generosity to give what I have to others
  32. Genuineness to act in a manner that is true to who I am
  33. God's will to seek and obey the will of God
  34. Growth to keep changing and growing
  35. Health to be physically well and healthy
  36. Helpfulness to be helpful to others
  37. Honesty to be honest and truthful
  38. Hope to maintain a positive and optimistic outlook
  39. Humility to be modest and unassuming
  40. Humor to see the humorous side of myself and the world
  41. Independence to be free from dependence on others
  42. Industry to work hard and well at my life tasks
  43. Inner peace to experience personal peace
  44. Intimacy to share my innermost experiences with others
  45. Justice to promote fair and equal treatment for all
  46. Knowledge to learn and contribute valuable knowledge
  47. Leisure to take time to relax and enjoy
  48. Loved to be loved by those close to me
  49. Loving to give love to others
  50. Mastery to be competent in my everyday activities
  51. Mindfulness to live conscious and mindful of the present moment
  52. Moderation to avoid excesses and find a middle ground
  53. Monogamy to have one close, loving relationship
  54. Non-conformity to question and challenge authority and norms
  55. Nurturance to take care of and nurture others
  56. Openness to be open to new experiences, ideas, and options
  57. Order to have a life that is well-ordered and organized
  58. Passion to have deep feelings about ideas, activities, or people
  59. Pleasure to feel good
  60. Popularity to be well-liked by many people
  61. Power to have control over others
  62. Purpose to have meaning and direction in my life
  63. Rationality to be guided by reason and logic
  64. Realism to see and act realistically and practically
  65. Responsibility to make and carry out responsible decisions
  66. Risk to take risks and chances
  67. Romance to have intense, exciting love in my life
  68. Self-acceptance to accept myself as I am
  69. Safety to be safe and secure
  70. Self-control to be disciplined in my own actions
  71. Self-esteem to feel good about myself
  72. Self-knowledge to have a deep and honest understanding of myself
  73. Service to be of service to others
  74. Sexuality to have an active and satisfying sex life
  75. Simplicity to live life simply, with minimal needs
  76. Solitude to have time and space where I can be apart from others
  77. Spirituality to grow and mature spiritually
  78. Stability to have a life that stays fairly consistent
  79. Tolerance to accept and respect those who differ from me
  80. Tradition to keep to respected patterns of the past
  81. Virtue to live a morally pure and excellent life
  82. Wealth to have plenty of money
  83. World peace to work to promote peace in the world

What values work is used for

The cards are the Personal Values Card Sort, made in 2001 at the University of New Mexico by William Miller and three colleagues. Miller first described motivational interviewing in 1983. The card set says it is in the public domain and may be copied, adapted and used without permission.

Values work is also central to acceptance and commitment therapy. In the model Steven Hayes and colleagues reviewed in 2006, values are one of six core processes. Later researchers built questionnaires that measure how closely people act on their values.

In a 2005 lab study, 85 people did either a short values task or a control task before a stressful lab challenge. The values group had lower cortisol responses to the stress.

This is called self-affirmation research, and its results do not always repeat. A large school replication in 2017 found no effect of a brief values writing task. A 2014 review by Geoffrey Cohen and David Sherman covers when it has and has not helped.

Not a test. The sort has no score, no type and no right answer. It does not measure anything about you, and it is not therapy. Your top five is simply the cards you chose, in your own order.

Questions

What is a values card sort?

A deck of cards, each naming a value such as honesty or adventure. You sort them into piles by how much each matters to you, then pick a few from the top pile. This page uses the 83 cards of the Personal Values Card Sort.

Is the Personal Values Card Sort free to use?

Yes. The card set from the University of New Mexico says it is in the public domain and may be copied, adapted and used without permission.

Can therapists use this values card sort online with clients?

Yes. No account, and nothing goes to a server. A client can sort on a phone, then send the top five as a link or print the whole sort. It is a talking aid, not a treatment.

Does my top five say what kind of person I am?

No. There is no score, no type and no right answer. The result is your own list of the cards you chose, in your own order, and it can change next month.

Is this the values card sort used in ACT?

ACT treats values as one of its six core processes. This deck comes from William Miller's team and is not tied to one therapy.

Sources (7)

  1. Miller, W. R., C'de Baca, J., Matthews, D. B., and Wilbourne, P. L. (2001). Personal values card sort. University of New Mexico. Public domain. casaa.unm.edu
  2. Miller, W. R. (1983). Motivational interviewing with problem drinkers. Behavioural Psychotherapy, 11(2), 147 to 172. doi.org/10.1017/S0141347300006583
  3. Hayes, S. C., Luoma, J. B., Bond, F. W., Masuda, A., and Lillis, J. (2006). Acceptance and commitment therapy: Model, processes and outcomes. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44(1), 1 to 25. doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2005.06.006
  4. Wilson, K. G., Sandoz, E. K., Kitchens, J., and Roberts, M. (2010). The Valued Living Questionnaire: Defining and measuring valued action within a behavioral framework. The Psychological Record, 60(2), 249 to 272. doi.org/10.1007/BF03395706
  5. Creswell, J. D., Welch, W. T., Taylor, S. E., Sherman, D. K., Gruenewald, T. L., and Mann, T. (2005). Affirmation of personal values buffers neuroendocrine and psychological stress responses. Psychological Science, 16(11), 846 to 851. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01624.x
  6. Hanselman, P., Rozek, C. S., Grigg, J., and Borman, G. D. (2017). New evidence on self-affirmation effects and theorized sources of heterogeneity from large-scale replications. Journal of Educational Psychology, 109(3), 405 to 424. doi.org/10.1037/edu0000141
  7. Cohen, G. L., and Sherman, D. K. (2014). The psychology of change: Self-affirmation and social psychological intervention. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 333 to 371. doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115137

The 83 cards are the public domain Personal Values Card Sort as printed, except sentence case names and one word on card 80. The rest is our own wording.

Updated