The American Values Survey (AVS) is American Environics' signature methodology-the primary driver for all AE services. Our team of social values researchers has over 30 years of experience, resulting in the most sophisticated social values, political psychology, and psychographic targeting tool of its kind.

The AVS allows for the segmentation of the American public into actionable political clusters. The survey included oversamples of 486 registered voters nationwide and 552 California residents, with resulting working samples of 1,792 (MOE +/- 2.3%) and 755 (MOE = +/- 3.6%) respectively. This comprehensive survey includes more than 900 questionnaire items drawn from established academic research and political polling, with each values construct comprised of multiple questionnaire items.

This large size allows for a more statistically reliable segmentation of key constituencies. We do this survey in home to avoid what social scientists call the social desirability bias-the tendency of respondents to tell interviewers what they believe they want to hear rather than what they honestly believe. In addition, to ensure accurate representation to U.S. Census data, we conduct the survey over several weeks, not a few days. This allows our team of sampling analysts to continually monitor the fielding effort and redirect respondent recruitment to compensate for any gaps in key geodemographic segments.

Some of the more than 130 independent values it measures include Acceptance of Violence, Obedience to Authority, Active Government, Adaptation to Complexity, American Entitlement, and Just Desserts (the belief that people get what they deserve). This year's questionnaire adds more than 30 distinct new factors related to political psychology, such as the Big Five personality measure, Social Dominance Orientation, Belief in Good & Evil, Death Anxiety, and Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The questionnaire also includes questions on key issues such as global warming, racial attitudes, abortion, energy, education, immigration, unions, foreign policy, terrorism, sexuality, stem cells, marriage, privacy, end-of-life concerns, as well as media/Internet consumption and detailed demographic information.

The American Values Survey is a powerful tool for social change strategists and philanthropists to inform the creation of new strategies and evaluate the effectiveness of old ones. American Environics has pioneered a number of methods for combining the AVS with its other tools, including cognitive analyses and strategic initiative workshops.

Most engagements with American Environics begin by creating a values-based Road Map. Using our social values data, this extensive research identifies potential political paths to building an issue majority by activating certain values and narratives. Through our analysis of the social values survey data, the Road Map:

The Road Map looks at the entire landscape of human values in order to understand how an issue's values operate in the context of the complex, contradictory and highly variegated worldviews that make up America's cultural and psychological landscape. This research is the critical starting point for the process of crafting political initiatives that will begin to change that landscape.

AE frequently recruits focus groups utilizing psychographic, not demographic, segments, resulting in a high degree of values coherence among focus group participants. The AVS offers a stable psychographic political segmentation system that is optimized to differentiate political identity, attitudes, and behavior across a wide variety of issues. It can be used for the development of policies and platforms, as well as communications messages. Because the survey is extensive, each segment is imaged in terms of media consumption and behavior, lifestyle, as well as political behavior and values. Each segment is highly coherent psychographically, and there is high differentiation between the segments.

American Environics offers a political segmentation system that can be used for micro-targeting down to the neighborhood and household level. To strengthen client targeting capabilities, the AVS data can be merged with demographic and geodemographic overlay data. Depending on the quality of the lists and data utilized, we can identify the key psychological drivers of consumers and voters down to the neighborhood, block and, in some cases, even the household. This information allows strategists to target their key constituencies and prospects more efficiently with strategic initiatives and/or tailored messages designed just for them.