You say compassion matters to you, but something feels off. You're not sure if it's a genuine core value or just something you think you should care about, something you've absorbed from people whose approval you needed.
Who This Is For
This page is for you if you have already done some reflection work on your values, you are familiar with the names of common values like compassion or integrity or autonomy, and you are trying to figure out which ones are actually driving your decisions—not which ones sound noble when you talk about yourself.
You would benefit most from this if you notice a gap between what you say matters and what you actually spend energy on. You cancel plans to help someone in crisis but feel resentful doing it. You give money to causes you barely care about because refusing felt selfish. You sense that your version of compassion might look different from what you inherited, and you want to know whether the difference matters.
You should skip this if you are new to thinking about values at all, or if you are looking for permission to feel good about yourself. This work is not about validating your intentions. It is about seeing clearly whether a value is actually yours or whether it lives in you like a borrowed coat you wore so long you forgot you picked it up from someone else's closet.
What You Will Discover
Once you work through this, you will be able to distinguish between compassion as your authentic value and compassion as something you internalized from family, religion, culture, or the people whose love felt conditional on your kindness. That distinction changes everything. It stops you from spending energy on a value that was never really yours, or it deepens your commitment to one that is, because you chose it consciously rather than receiving it as dogma. Schwartz's research framework, tested across 80 countries and replicated consistently since 1992, shows that values exist in tension with each other—compassion sits adjacent to universalism and benevolence in the circumplex structure, but opposite to values like power and achievement. Understanding where compassion sits in relation to your other authentic values shows you where you will naturally feel pulled and where you will feel the strain of trying to be someone you're not.
You will also see exactly what your version of compassion looks like in practice. Not everyone's compassion is the same. Some people's compassion means active caretaking. Others feel compassion most authentically through boundaries that protect their energy for the people who matter most. Some people's compassion extends to strangers and systems; others feel it most deeply for people they know. None of these are wrong. But they are different. And until you know which one is actually yours, you will keep making choices that feel obligatory rather than true.
Common Reasons People Wait
The first reason is that you worry taking this on will mean having to change something. It might. But more often, clarity about your actual values stops you from changing things that don't need changing. You can stop trying to be the kind of compassionate person your mother was, or your religion asked you to be, and start being the kind you actually are. Sometimes that looks like more compassion. Sometimes it looks like less, but fiercer. The assessment does not dictate what you should feel. It shows you what you actually do feel, beneath the shoulds.
The second reason is that you suspect compassion might not rank as high as you wanted it to. This is the fear that sits underneath many of these assessments. The worry that you will discover something unflattering about yourself. But what gets discovered is not flattering or unflattering—it is true. And true is where your actual life gets built. If achievement ranks higher than compassion in your value circumplex, you can stop the internal punishment for not being softer than you are. You can make decisions from what is actually important to you instead of making decisions, then feeling guilty about them.
The third reason is that you are not sure it will change anything. You already know yourself pretty well, or you think you do. But there is a specific kind of clarity that comes from seeing your values ranked and mapped against research that has held up across decades and cultures. It stops the argument in your head. You will see not just that you hold a value, but where you fall in the distribution, which values pull you in opposite directions, and where your lived choices actually land. That is different from self-reflection alone. Schwartz's circumplex structure shows the geometry of how values compete and align. Most people do not change their values because of an assessment. Most people change their choices because they finally understand which values are actually worth defending.
Next Steps
The My Values assessment surfaces your values, ranks them, and shows you where you are and are not living them.
How do I know if compassion is really my core value and not just something I think I should value?
Your actual values show up in what you do when there is a cost. If you give money to a cause but resent it, or cancel plans to help but feel obligated, compassion might not be your core value—you might be performing it. Schwartz's framework helps you see this by asking about your choices and preferences, not your intentions. What you prioritize when you have to choose between competing values is what actually matters to you.
Can someone have compassion as a value but not be a caretaker or constantly help others?
Yes. Compassion and how you express it are not the same thing. Some people with strong compassion values maintain firm boundaries. Others show compassion through systemic work rather than direct caregiving. The value is about whether you care about reducing suffering; how you do it depends on your other values and your circumstances. This distinction is critical because many people think they lack compassion when they actually have it—they just do not express it the way they were taught they should.
What if the assessment shows that compassion is not as important to me as I thought it was?
That is information, not judgment. Schwartz's research shows that different values matter to different people, and that variation is normal and cross-cultural. If achievement, autonomy, or power ranks higher for you than compassion, that is not a character flaw—it is your actual value structure. Knowing it stops you from making choices aligned with someone else's values while feeling guilty about not being someone you are not.
How does the My Values assessment work differently than just thinking about my values myself?
Self-reflection is useful, but it tends to be general and easily influenced by how you want to see yourself. The assessment uses Schwartz's validated questions that map to his circumplex of 10 universal value types, giving you concrete rankings and showing you where your values align or conflict. You see not just what you value, but how your values compare to each other—which one actually wins when there is a choice to make.