To answer a little more conceptually:
SelectedValuePath
defines which property (by its name) of the objects bound to the ListBox's ItemsSource
will be used as the item's SelectedValue
.
For example, if your ListBox is bound to a collection of Person
objects, each of which has Name
, Age
, and Gender
properties, SelectedValuePath=Name
will cause the value of the selected Person
's Name
property to be returned in SelectedValue
.
Note that if you override the ListBox's ControlTemplate (or apply a Style) that specifies what property should display, SelectedValuePath
cannot be used.
SelectedItem
, meanwhile, returns the entire Person
object currently selected.
(Here's a further example from MSDN, using TreeView)
Update: As @Joe pointed out, the DisplayMemberPath property is unrelated to the Selected* properties. Its proper description follows:
Note that these values are distinct from DisplayMemberPath
(which is defined on ItemsControl, not Selector), but that property has similar behavior to SelectedValuePath
: in the absence of a style/template, it identifies which property of the object bound to item should be used as its string representation.