Pandemie und Wertewandel?: Verschiebungen von Wertprioritäten in der österreichischen Bevölkerung und in einzelnen Wähler*innenschichten als Reaktion auf die COVID-19-Pandemie

Recent sociological diagnoses suggest that profound social crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic challenge our value orientations and could change them even in the relatively short term. Based on this observation, we investigate whether significant shifts in value priorities according to the Shalom Schwartz scale took place in Austria in the period May 2020 to March/April 2021. The first two waves of the Values in Crisis panel study serve as data material. Two theoretical assumptions are central to the interpretation of the results: first, the thesis of a trend toward conservatism and second, the thesis of the effective power of political discourses in times of (re)emerging populism. The article also pays special attention to a methodological discussion of changes in the meaning of questionnaire items due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The empirical analyses confirm a clear stability of value orientations. Above all, the value of conformity has changed, becoming more important for a significant part of the population; at the same time, the desire for a hedonistic lifestyle lost some of its importance. Conformity became more important, particularly for voters of the governing political parties, while this trend was not apparent, especially among voters of the FPÖ. Since the observed shift in value priorities mainly concerns “pandemic-sensitive” value dimensions, the results suggest a short-term reaction to the crisis rather than a long-term change in values.