What the Super's WVI measures
Donald Super’s Life-Span, Life-Space theory reshaped career psychology. Choosing a career, he argued, is not the skill-matching exercise the RIASEC model describes. It is the process of implementing one's self-concept. Work Values are the bridge between identity and career. If a person's deepest value is "Altruism," but they work as a corporate tax auditor, they will experience severe existential emptiness, regardless of their salary.
The dimensions it assesses
- Altruism: Helping others and improving society.
- Esthetics: Making things beautiful and contributing to art/culture.
- Creativity: Inventing new things, ideas, or processes.
- Intellectual Stimulation: Engaging in independent thinking and learning how things work.
- Achievement: Doing work that yields tangible, visible results.
- Independence: Working in your own way, at your own pace.
- Prestige: Being highly respected and looked up to by others.
- Management: Directing the work of others and holding authority.
- Economic Returns: Making a high standard of living and accumulating wealth.
- Security: Having certainty in employment and a stable routine.
- Surroundings: Working in a physically pleasant, clean, and safe environment.
- Supervisory Relations: Having a boss who is fair and easy to get along with.
What to do with your result
- The "Non-Profit" Trap: If a user scores high on Altruism but also high on Economic Returns, they will be miserable in a standard low-paying non-profit. They must find "Social Enterprise" roles or Corporate ESG divisions where they can do good while still achieving financial wealth.
- De-stigmatizing Extrinsic Values: Many users feel guilty admitting they value Prestige and Money over Altruism. The report must validate that Extrinsic values are completely healthy. If someone admits they just want to be rich (Economic Returns), they can clearly target Investment Banking or Tech Sales, rather than pretending to care about the company's "mission."
- The Managerial Shift: A great software engineer (High Intellectual Stimulation, Low Management) should not be promoted to Director. A promotion to management means giving up the work they value (coding) to do work they hate (supervising people).
Common questions about the Super's WVI
- What does the Super's WVI measure?
- Measurement of 12 distinct intrinsic and extrinsic values that individuals seek to satisfy through their occupational choices.
- Can the Super's WVI diagnose me?
- No. Work Values (Super's WVI) is a screening questionnaire, not a diagnostic tool. It can flag that something may need a closer look. It cannot tell you what is causing it. It describes tendencies rather than diagnosing anything, and no result here is a condition or something to fix.
- Is this Super's WVI test really free?
- Yes. No account, no email address, no payment. Psychometrics Today is funded by donations rather than advertising, which is also what allows us to publish instruments whose authors permit free but non-commercial use.
- Are my answers stored or shared?
- No. Your answers are scored inside your browser and never sent to us. There is no database of responses, because we never receive any. Closing the tab erases them, which is why results cannot be recovered afterwards.
- How often should I retake the Super's WVI?
- Traits and preferences move slowly, so retaking this every few months is more informative than retaking it often. Larger shifts usually follow a genuine change in circumstances.
- How accurate is the Super's WVI?
- Screening questionnaires are good at flagging that something merits attention and poor at establishing what it is. This one is sensitive to how you feel on the day you take it, and many instruments were validated on narrow populations whose cut-offs may not transfer cleanly to everyone. The references at the foot of this page are the primary sources.
- Why can I not take the Super's WVI here?
- The WVI is a published commercial instrument. We will not reproduce a questionnaire we have no right to reproduce, so this page explains what it measures instead. The O*NET Work Importance Profiler measures the same values in the public domain — already in the catalogue.
Sources
Rights held by Donald Super's Work Values Inventory, published commercially. Developed and validated by the researchers cited below.
- Super, D. E. (1970). Manual for the Work Values Inventory. Houghton Mifflin.
- Super, D. E. (1980). A life-span, life-space approach to career development. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 16(3), 282-298.
Licensing
restricted. The WVI is a published commercial instrument.