Description
The purpose of this paper is to present George Kelly’s The Psychology of Personal
Constructs and to discuss how Repertory Grid Technique can aid a better understanding of friends and
members in an arts marketing context
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
Understanding individual membership at heritage sites
Alix Slater
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Alix Slater, (2010),"Understanding individual membership at heritage sites", International J ournal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality
Research, Vol. 4 Iss 1 pp. 44 - 56
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Understanding individual membership at
heritage sites
Alix Slater
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present George Kelly’s The Psychology of Personal
Constructs and to discuss how Repertory Grid Technique can aid a better understanding of friends and
members in an arts marketing context.
Design/methodology/approach – The project is a phenomenological study drawing on Kelly’s The
Psychologyof Personal Constructs. Theauthor conducted16unstructuredface-to-faceinterviewsacross
the UK during 2007 with individuals who were friends or members of at least ?ve heritage supporter
groups as part of a larger mixed methods study. The interviews included the building of Repertory Grids.
Findings – Analysis of the Repertory Grids gives a detailed understanding of participants’ perceptions
of, and involvement in, heritage supporter groups. Five themes emerged from the analysis:
Organization; Engagement with the Organization; Involvement; Motivation; and Relationships with
other members.
Practical implications – The paper provides a rich understanding of the portfolio of memberships that
individuals have and of how they perceive and interact with them.
Originality/value – The paper contributes to the arts marketing literature methodologically by
illustrating how to use Repertory Grid Technique in an arts marketing context and by focusing on friends
and members, whose perspectives the academic literature does not cover extensively.
Keywords Heritage, Arts, Individual psychology
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to apply Kelly’s theory of personal constructs and discuss how
researchers can use Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) to increase understanding of friends
and members of heritage supporter groups. The ?rst part of the paper presents Kelly’s
(1955) The Psychology of Personal Constructs and RGT, a method to collect data from both
individuals and groups. The second part of the paper discusses a speci?c example of the
use of repertory grids (RGs) during unstructured interviews. The interviews form part of a
yearlong mixed methods inquiry into supporter groups of heritage sites across the UK and
their friends and members. The article then goes on to discuss the usefulness of this method
in an arts marketing context, thus contributing to the existing bodies of work on personal
construct theory, friends and members, local associations and the heritage sector.
In his book, The Psychology of Personal Constructs, Kelly (1955) presents his philosophy of
‘‘Constructive Alternativism’’(Fransella, 1995; Cassell and Walsh, 2005). Scholars describe
Kelly’s ideas as ‘‘fundamentally a theory of human action’’ (Hinkle, 1970, p. 91 in Fransella,
1995, p. 14) that can help to explore individuals’ perceptions of reality. Kelly argues that
individuals form hypotheses (expectations) from their experiences and develop theories (a
?nite set of dichotomous constructs) through which they view their world (Fransella, 1995).
As individuals test their theories (Kelly, 1970) they may be reaf?rmed or result in an
individuals re-construing their views and changing their behavior.
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VOL. 4 NO. 1 2010, pp. 44-56, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1750-6182 DOI 10.1108/17506181011024751
Alix Slater is a Senior
Lecturer based at the
London College of
Communication, University
of the Arts London, London,
UK.
Received January 2008
Revised June 2008
Accepted July 2008
The data the author reports on
in this paper are part of a mixed
methods study undertaken
jointly with Dr Kirsten Holmes
and funded by the University of
Surrey and University of
Greenwich.
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Heritage supporter groups, also known as friends groups, membership schemes, societies
and associations are diverse in their nature, ranging from a handful of members to
sophisticated schemes such as the membership scheme of the National Trust in the UK,
which has more than 3.5 million members (National Trust, 2007). Groups are formed to
support sites by: generating income; pools of advocates; lobbyists and volunteers; or as a
bridge to the community (Heaton, 1992). Members often lead tours, and organize lectures
and social activities for visitors and their own members. These organizations are growing
incrementally due to the increasing number of heritage sites open to the public and
individual interest from within local communities and areas such as parks and open
spaces.
Despite this growth in heritage supporter groups understanding of groups and members
continues to receive scant attention from academics. The focus of extant literature is
individual supporter groups, motivations of members, participation, commitment and
lapsing behavior almost universally using quantitative methods (e.g. Bhattacharya, 1998;
Cress et al., 1997; Glynn et al., 1996; Lansley, 1996; Slater, 2003). The exceptions are
Heaton’s report on the state of Friends schemes published for the Museum and Galleries
Commission (1992) and focus groups commissioned by the Arts Council of England
exploring the motivations of friends and members of different types of arts organizations
(Burns Sadek Research Limited, 1992). Hayes and Slater’s (2003) paper looks at
membership organizations and develops a typology of membership schemes that Slater
tests and develops in later publications (Slater, 2004, 2005).
2. Personal construct theory
Kelly (1955) attempts to bring all the dimensions of human experiencing, learning,
motivation, emotions and perceptions under the umbrella of his Psychology of Personal
Constructs. His theory is really about how humans experience things, process them and the
(possible) changes in their behavior (Fransella, 1995). This results in a better understanding
of how individuals construe the world around themselves and their behavior. As Kelly (1991,
p. 139) states, ‘‘Thus, for any of us, the sharing of personal experience is a matter of
construing the other person’s experience and not merely a matter of having him hand it to us
intact across the desk. The psychology of personal constructs therefore lends itself quite
conveniently to the handling of the theoretical problem of gaining access to private worlds.’’
Kelly names this personal process of perceiving things as construing. Construing is
inter-related with experiencing, as you cannot do one without the other. He presents his
personal construct theory as a fundamental postulate with a number of corollaries: choice;
construction; experience; individuality; organization; dichotomy; range; fragmentation;
commonality; and sociality (Bannister and Fransella, 1980). These corollaries provide a
skeleton for Kelly’s (1955) theory in which he elaborates on each of them in detail.
Kelly’s philosophy of ‘‘constructive alternativism,’’ which underpins his Psychology of
Personal Constructs, is in?uenced by other authors and his own multi-disciplinary
background in mathematics, physics and engineering (Fransella, 2005). Kelly draws on the
philosophies of Dewey, phenomenology and on Korzybski, who believes individuals create
reality by selecting material for the life around them and giving labels to these abstractions
(Fransella, 1995; 2005). Kelly’s focus of convenience is psychotherapy but his ideas ?t with
physicists who have similar ontological ideas regarding reality and truth. Fransella (1995,
2005) argues that at the time, Kelly’s holistic approach to looking at individual’s thoughts and
feelings was revolutionary and describes his breadth of vision as ‘‘quite unlike anything in
psychology in those years up to the 1950s’’ (Fransella, 1995, p. 13).
Kelly (1955) was taking an ontological stance (Creswell, 2007) as individuals’ mental
abstractions are not identical to how reality is they only access the reality that they create
(Fransella, 1995). The presentation of his theory is also unique. His approach is holistic,
re?exive, and put forward in abstract terms, as general processes that do not limit them to a
particular culture or era (Bannister and Fransella, 1980, 2005). The range of studies this
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article references and the speci?c example of its use in exploring friends and members’
perceptions provide evidence to support this view.
3. Repertory grids
The repertory grid (RG), originally known as the ‘‘role construct repertory test’’, is one
method that Kelly applies to operationalize his theory of personal constructs (Fransella,
2005). Kelly (1991, p. 152) explains the RG as ‘‘a new diagnostic instrument which illustrates
how our theoretical thinking can be applied to the practical needs of the psychotherapist’’.
Fransella et al. (2004, p. 1) describe the grid as ‘‘personal construct theory in action’’. By the
1980s, RGT was dominating research in personal construct theory although their usage
subsequently declined (Fransella, 2005). Taking a phenomenological approach, the
purpose of a RG is to function as a ‘‘conversational technology’’ (Stephens, 1994, p. 76 in
Cassell and Walsh, 2005), a framework built around elements and constructs on a speci?c
topic that facilitates a structured interview and illustrates ‘‘how a person thinks’’ (Jankowicz,
2004, p. 19). Fransella (1995, p. 89) describes them as an ‘‘idiographic signature’’. Until the
1960s RGs were largely con?ned to clinical studies. For example, Bannister used them to
diagnose schizophrenics during the 1960s (Fransella et al., 2004). They then began to
feature in organizational and work psychology studies, for example: job analysis;
employment selection; induction training; and gender differences in performance
evaluation (Cassell and Walsh, 2005). Researchers also use RG’s to examine individual’s
relationships with others, for example, with sexual abuse survivors (e.g. Harter et al., 2004).
The cultural, hospitality, and tourism ?elds use the technique with individuals and products.
For example, Naoi et al. (2007) examine Japanese students’ perceptions of a historical
district in Japan using photographs and laddering analysis. Waitt et al. (2003, p. 530)
explore the ‘‘collective affective meanings of tourists responding to promotional imagery’’ in
Australia. Jones (2002) uses RGT to examine facilities management in hotels and Caldwell
and Coshall (2002) to explore visitors’ brand associations of eleven museums. Canning and
Holmes’ (2006) exploratory study illustrates how RGT was successfully used to understand
the perceptions, expectations and experiences of community projects from the perspective
of a socially excluded and ethnically diverse local community.
4. Constructing repertory grids
Constructing RGs occurs in three stages. Firstly, the researcher selects elements, then
constructs. Elements are the entities under investigation, for example different types of
membership scheme. Constructs are the ways in which individuals see and differentiate
between the elements. Constructs are bi-polar dimensions such as warm-v-cold or
loyal-v-disloyal. The ?nal stage is the construction of a matrix using the grid of constructs
and elements. The interviewee rates (or ranks) the elements on the constructs and these
ratings (or rankings) tell the researcher how a person construes the elements (Jankowicz,
2004).
The elements in a grid are therefore crucial to its success. They can be people, places,
events, objects or organizations an individual belongs to depending on whether the grid has
been designed to ?nd ‘‘out how an individual construes people or events in their life’’
(Fransella, 2005, p. 45). In some studies (e.g. Caldwell and Coshall, 2002), the researcher
pre-determines the elements s/he wishes to explore; in other studies, the researcher elicits
the elements from the interviewee. Usually, the element labels head the columns and are
positioned across the top of the grid, whilst the construct labels are positioned horizontally,
labelling the rows of the grid. The key issue is that the elements are in the range of
convenience of the constructs. Elements should also be homogeneous and representative
of the area under exploration (Fransella et al., 2004).
Fransella et al. (2004, p. 7) describe Kelly’s constructs as ‘‘a way in which two or more things
are alike and thereby different froma third or more things’’. Fransella (1995) argues that they
re?ect Kelly as a man of vision, a philosopher and somebody who was obsessed with detail.
The bi-polar constructs, which the interviewee identi?es, are a ‘‘breadth of vision versus
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attention to detail’’ (Fransella, 1995, p. 16). They are the dimensions through which a person
sees their environment, in contrast, for example, to concepts that merely deal with
similarities. They re?ect Kelly’s theory that a person is a process. They are also predictive, as
they tell us what people expect from other people and events (Fransella et al., 2004).
Constructs are not static and may change over time as people use their experiences to
perceive things in new ways although underpinning values tend to remain constant. During
the interview, the researcher and interviewer build a picture of the topic under consideration
and map the constructs onto a RG as the interviewee makes comparisons between the
elements (e.g. Organizations). The ?rst elicited pole is the emergent pole. The opposite is
the implicit pole (Fransella et al., 2004). The implicit pole is important as ‘‘the opposite pole of
the construct often provides considerable insight into the idiosyncratic meaning of that
construct’’ (Fransella, 1995, p. 89). The constructs (i.e. the two poles) are the core of
personal construct psychology as they are the interviewee’s interpretation of the topic they
are discussing.
The researcher elicits constructs in different ways. Kelly (1955) describes six triadic
methods including the: full context form; minimum context card form; self identi?cation form;
personal role form; and sequential form. All of these approaches use the difference method
that involves the researcher asking the interviewee to compare three of the elements (e.g.
organizations, events or roles) and to say how two are similar and one is different from the
third. For example, the interviewee may say they volunteer in two of the organizations but not
in the third. Importantly, the opposite pole must be the subjective opposite of the emergent
pole. Triadic elicitation of constructs can be too complex for some groups and many other
ways of eliciting constructs exist to cater for such groups. For instance, researchers elicit
constructs from written materials and drawings and pictures, asking individuals about their
core values, characteristics and earliest memories. Debates rage about the elicitation of
constructs in the literature, including their sequence. However, one key advantage of RGT is
that the interviewee determines the construct overcoming interviewer bias. Fransella et al.
(2004) discuss these in more detail.
In the cultural, heritage and tourism studies described previously, Jones (2002) offers the
elements on different cards, randomly chooses three and then asks each hotelier to make
comparisons by identifying a characteristic that was the same for two of the elements and
different for a third. She repeats this process using different sets of triads, then maps the
elements and constructs onto the grid, scores and anayzes them. Caldwell and Coshall’s
study of museum brands (2002) takes a similar approach.
RG studies often use laddering to elicit constructs. Hinkle (1965, in Fransella et al., 2004,
p. 39) describes the process as ‘‘eliciting increasingly super ordinate constructs – that is,
constructs of a higher order of abstraction than those elicited from the original triads or
dyads of elements’’. Fransella et al. (2004) support this view. They argue that laddering
results in super ordinate constructs that contain fuller descriptions, more implications and
greater meaning than the constructs from which they originated. Jankowicz (2004) also
examines the super ordinate-subordinate relationship by exploring and expanding on each
pole separately. Land?eld (1971) calls this pyramiding, but this method is also referred to as
‘‘downward laddering’’ (Jankowicz, 2004).
Researchers may also supply constructs to interviewees. These can emerge from the
literature or individual or group interviews. Kelly’s personal construct theory includes a
commonality corollary, however, some scholars criticise this aggregation of data. Both
approaches have advantages and disadvantages. For example, elicitation of constructs
from individuals can result in more extreme and cognitively complex constructs due to their
emotional involvement compared to those which researchers provide (Fransella et al., 2004:
47). Rayment (2000) combines both approaches. He identi?es constructs and then asks art
teachers to add new constructs if the ones he provides do not represent what they think.
Individual’s super ordinate constructs (values) tend to remain relatively stable over time but
at a lower level, the way individuals see things can alter due to new experiences. Thus, if a
researcher builds RGs with the same interviewee at different times, constructs can change
and they may attach more or less importance to speci?c constructs.
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5. Analysis of repertory grids
Researchers analyze RGs during and after the interviewee process to make meaning out of
what the interviewee has said. The focus is on relationships and patterns between the
‘‘entities in the grid’’ (Beail, 1985, p. 19). The interviewer may test hypotheses they form
about these relationships during the interviewee for validation by the interviewee (or not, as
the case may be) or during further interpretation of the data after the interview.
The ?rst step of analysis after the interview is to describe the basic data in the RG using
techniques such as process analysis, eyeball analysis and construct characterisation. The
elicitation of elements, constructs and ratings and the RG is important. Eyeball analysis of
the RG is the observation of how the interviewee construes the various elements using the
constructs in the grid. Construct characterisation is the analysis of constructs to determine
whether they are core or peripheral, their degree of super?ciality or complexity and their
relationships with other constructs through their frequency and signi?cance. These
processes apply to all constructs, whether they express emotions, opinions or are attributes
that explain particular behaviors. The second step of analysis is to describe the structure of
the RG by exploring the relationships between elements and between constructs. Several
techniques are available, that enable the researcher to identify relationships between
elements and between constructs including cluster and principal component anayzes.
In their study of brand associations, Caldwell and Coshall (2002) analyze the data using
principal component analysis. This use of factorial analysis is quite common; although in
their study of teachers Castejon and Martinez (2001, p. 115) argue for other methods that
enable a ‘‘mathematical treatment of constructs and elements’’. Kelly offers a personal
approach to factor analysis that provides a statistical method of analysing RGs. He
describes this reduction of large amounts of information to a minimum of terms as
interweaving, ‘‘. . . to give substance to the fabric of society’’ (Kelly, 1991, p. 189). Jones’
(2002) uses INGRID in his study of the hospitality sector. This package identi?es
co-ordinates that indicate relationships between constructs and elements. The researcher
plots this data onto a two-dimensional map and shows both poles of the constructs.
Elements appear on the ‘‘map’’ as points in the space de?ned by the constructs. The
researcher then measures the strength of the relationships by looking at the relative positions
of constructs to constructs, elements to elements, and constructs to elements. This process
is complex due to the different ways grids are used, the number of elements and methods of
generating constructs. Janowicz (2004) and Fransella et al.(2004) consider these points in
some detail in their respective publications.
6. Friends and members of heritage supporter groups
This part of the paper discusses the application of RGT in an arts marketing context to
explore individual friends and members’ perceptions of their membership of heritage
supporter groups. The researchers administered RGs to participants during face-to-face
interviews in the ?nal phase of a mixed methods study of heritage supporter groups in 2007.
The study takes a sequential approach due to the limited literature in the ?eld of cultural
membership. Phase one involved compiling a database of friends and membership
schemes within the UK heritage sector whose purpose is to support a heritage site or
collection. The study did not include special interest groups formed solely for member
bene?t. The ?nal sample of over 1,000 friends, membership and supporter associations
includes groups af?liated to heritage visitor attractions, historic houses, listed buildings and
monuments, museums, historic ships and other heritage transport attractions, historic parks
and gardens, churches, cathedrals, cemeteries and industrial heritage sites.
The second phase of the study takes a quantitative approach using a survey to collect data
about supporter groups members belongto. This phase has a dual focus. To scope thesector
(andmakecomparisonswithasimilar questionnaireconductedpreviously) andtogainaccess
to individual members for the third and fourth phases that focus on individual members. The
researchers sent a questionnaire by email or post to the 1,000 groups identi?ed during phase
one (depending on the contact details the researchers had). This mailing yielded 222 usable
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questionnairesand76supporter groupsindicatedtheir interest inassistingwithafurther phase
of theproject. ThestudyincludesThestepsinthestudyincludesselecting32supporter groups
to assist in the distribution of approximately 1,800 questionnaires to their members. This
yielded 665 usable individual questionnaires during phase three.
The questionnaire asked friends and members whether the researcher could contact them
to conduct face-to-face interviews during a fourth phase of data collection; 358 of the 665
respondents provided contact details. The researchers approached them systematically by
selecting participants from across the membership groups to represent the different types,
sizes and geographical location of the groups. This qualitative phase of research was
important in order to compare the ?ndings with the quantitative data collected in phase three
and to test two methods of interviewing, one of which is RGT. The willingness of respondents
to take part resulted in 52 interviews, more than was originally planned. Of those 52
interviewees, 16 had ?ve or more memberships of heritage related organizations. The
researchers invited these interviewees to built personal RGs during their interview. The
remaining interviews involved a biographical approach. The next section of the paper
discusses the construction and analysis of these RGs during phase four.
7. Pro?le of interviewees
The 16 interviewees who completed RGs came from 13 supporter groups (see Figure 1).
Females completed half of the RGs although they only comprise 40 percent of the total
sample (n ¼ 665). Their age pro?le was very similar to the main sample. A total of 81 percent
were 55 years and over compared to 84 percent of the total sample. A total of 73 percent of
the group was retired, 13 percent in full time paid work and 13 percent in part time work.
Amongst the whole sample, work status was more complex – the comparative ?gures are 66
percent, 17 percent and 8 percent. This indicates that a slightly higher share of the
interviewees who built RGs were retired or undertaking part time work. Nobody was a carer,
studying or full-time volunteer as other members of the larger sample had described
themselves (see Table I).
8. Construction of RGs
Thepurposeof theinterviewwasto?ndout moreabout themembershipsindividualshadlisted
andprovidedinformationabout intheindividual questionnaireduringphasethreeof thestudy.
The elements in the RGare the supporter groups the interviewee currently belongs to. During
this process, the researchers found that interviewees often had more memberships than they
initially recalled on the questionnaire. They had forgotten about them, thought they were
irrelevant, or in some cases were embarrassed about the number they held.
The16 RGs show 119 heritage supporter groups (elements), of which 97 groups are unique.
Each RG is different, as no individual is a member of exactly the same groups as another
person in the study. More than half of the interviewees (n ¼ 11) are members of the National
Trust. NADFAS and the Friends of the Royal Academy are cited three times, and another nine
organizations twice. The variety of supporter groups listed re?ects the geographical spread
of the interviewees and the diversity of individuals’ personal interests. For a complete list of
groups to which interviewees belonged see below.
List of organizations to which interviewees belonged
B Friends of Ripon Cathedral (two).
B Patrons of Ripon Cathedral.
B Friends of Beverley Minster.
B Friends of York Minster.
B Friends of Canterbury Cathedral.
B Local Church.
B Local Church Council.
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B St Clement Dane’s Church.
B English Heritage (two).
B National Trust (nine).
B National Trust for Scotland (two).
B National Trust (local association).
B Landmark Trust.
B English National Opera.
B Friends of the Royal Opera House.
B Friends of Wigmore Hall.
Figure 1 Example of a completed repertory grid (Interviewee 11)
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B Friends of Opera North.
B Ripon International Festival.
B Montreux Music Festival.
B NADFAS (three).
B Curtis Museum and Allen Art Gallery.
B National Art Collection Fund (two).
B Tate Members.
B Friends of the Royal Academy (three).
B Friends of Whitworth Art Gallery (two).
B Friends of Manchester City Art Gallery (two).
B National Galleries of Scotland.
B National Maritime Museum.
B Friends of Southampton Museum and Art Gallery.
B Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
B Altrincham Society of Arts.
B Manchester Graphic Club.
B Alderley Edge Art Group.
B Stockport Art Guild.
B Vision on Arts Group.
B Royal Air Force Museum.
B Imperial War Museum.
B Museum of Berkshire Aviation.
B New Forest Museum.
B Friends of Rotherham Archives.
B Southampton Civic Archives.
B Barnet Libraries.
B Friends of Southampton Old Cemetery (two).
Table I Pro?le of interviewees who constructed repertory grids
ID no. Gender Age (yrs) Work status Supporter group af?liated to . . .
3 Male 35-44 FT paid Museum of Berkshire Aviation
11 Male 65-74 Retired National Maritime Museum
13 Female 65-74 Retired RAF Museum Hendon
20 Female 65-74 Retired Ripon Cathedral
21 Male 65-74 Retired Ripon Cathedral
23 Female 55-64 Housewife Boston Castle and Park
26 Female 75þ Retired Whitworth Gallery
27 Male 75þ Retired Whitworth Gallery
29 Female 55-64 PT paid Lake District
31 Male 55-64 Retired Lake District
35 Male 55-64 Retired Dunorlan Park
36 Female 55-64 Retired Curtis Museum and Allen Gallery
43 Male 55-64 Retired Southampton Old Cemetery
46 Male 35-44 FT paid Shipley Windmill
47 Female 45-54 Retired Southampton Old Cemetery
50 Female 65-74 PT paid Canterbury Cathedral
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B Friends of the Lake District (two).
B Friends of Dunorlan Park.
B Boston Castle and Park.
B Friends of Tunbridge Wells Common.
B Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings.
B Coal House Fort, Tilbury.
B Friends of Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust.
B Ick?eld Way Association.
B Offa’s Dyke Association.
B Shipley Windmill.
B Suffolk Mills Group.
B Norfolk Mills Group.
B Hampshire Mills Group.
B Sussex Mills Group.
B Friends of Canterbury Archaeological Trust.
B Civic Society.
B York Civic Trust.
B Rotherham Civic Society.
B Burton Civic Society.
B Greater London Industrial Archaeological Society.
B HFC Archaeological Society.
B LTVAS.
B West End Local History Society.
B City of Southampton Society.
B Whitstable History Society.
B The Chiltern Society.
B Little Chalfont Society.
B Southampton Heritage Federation.
B Southampton Local History Forum.
B Plym Valley Heritage Group.
B Devon Family History Society.
B Huguenot Society of Britain and Ireland.
B Birmingham Genealogical Society.
B Hampshire Genealogy Society.
B Jane Austen Society.
B Bronte¨ Society.
B Nelson Society.
B John Muir Trust.
B Dever Society.
B Great Central Railway Society.
B Great Central Railway Enthusiasts Association.
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B Whitstable Choral Society.
B BBC Concert Orchestra.
B Women’s Institute.
B Royal Horticultural Society.
B Hampshire Naturalist Trust.
B People’s Trust for Endangered Species.
B RSPB (two).
B Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.
B Ramblers Association (two).
B NSPCC.
B Old Girls’ Grammar School.
B MENSA.
B Over 60s Club.
In this study, the researchers use a variation of the Full Context Form to elicit constructs,
asking the interviewees to identify two elements that are similar in some way (specifying the
attribute they have in common) and a third that is different (therefore identifying the implicit
pole). The purpose of this approach is to explore individuals’ perceptions of the supporter
groups to which they belong. Downward laddering assists in the elicitation of constructs
through a process of negotiation. Laddering involves: the repetition of interviewee’s words to
clarify meaning; reaf?rming the interviewer’s understanding; asking the interviewee to be
more speci?c; and encouraging interviewees to give precise examples. The left hand side of
the grid (the emergent pole of the construct) records the thing that the two supporter groups
(elements) have in common and the right hand side of the grid (the implicit pole of the
construct) records the opposite in meaning. The diversity of the elements (supporter groups)
makes this approach more desirable than the triadic method. The interviewee was then
asked to rate each element against each set of constructs on a scale of 1 to 5 as illustrated in
Figure 1. Interviewee 11 was recruited through the Friends of the National Maritime Museum,
and has ?ve other memberships. Prior to recruitment, he had been an actuary. He states in
his interview that he enjoyed the process of constructing the RG in particular the downward
laddering (see Figure 1).
Although Interviewee 11 was able to articulate constructs relatively easily, during the
process of rating the elements on the RG, he sometimes put more than two elements at the
emergent pole and more than one element at the implicit pole. For example, when he talked
about his involvement in the groups, he placed the National Trust at the implicit pole and all
of his other memberships at the emergent pole saying ‘‘I regret to say that all the rest would
get ?ve on that’’. One of his constructs focuses on ?nancial support beyond the subscription.
He initially placed the National Maritime Museum and National Trust for Scotland at the
emergent pole but at the implicit pole he could not differentiate between the Little Chalfont
and Chiltern Societies. When talking about his anonymity, he could identify an implicit pole
but then placed four rather than two elements at the emergent pole. He could therefore
identify differences between the organizations but often had quite polarised views – on
some constructs he saw them in one of two groups.
RGs can be anayzed individually and as a set using different approaches. If the researcher
supplies the constructs to the interviewees, the analysis can focus on the participant’s
ratings. Alternatively, if a limited number of grids are being used the researcher can make
comparisons between each grid. However, multiple grids lead to an exponential growth of
data with each additional grid. The author took the advice of Jankowicz (2004) and used
content analysis to anayze the set of 16 RGs discussed in this paper, each with a unique set
of elements and constructs. The disadvantage of this approach is that detail at the individual
grid level is lost but this does allow the researcher to provide a holistic analysis with a focus
on recurring themes.
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Theresearcher extrapolates theconstructs fromtheRGs andsystematically examines themin
aprocess knownas ‘‘bootstrapping’’ (Jankowicz (2004)). This involves takingeachconstruct,
item by item, comparing it and putting it into a category. As new themes emerge, the
researcher divides and re-names categories. When re-categorization occurs, the researcher
re-examines the constructs to ensurethey still ?t the category or if they would?t better in a new
category. As two researchers collected data in this study, the process of categorizing items
was iterative, with much discussion and negotiation. This study, like others, ?nds that
members of a homogeneous group often share constructs (Jankowicz, 2004). Five themes
evolved during the process of bootstrapping. The ?rst was Organization. The constructs in
this category are behavioral and relate to the heritage supporter groups. They focus on the
type, size, purpose and success of the group and the practical bene?ts of membership. The
second category, Engagement with the Organization, encompasses behavioral constructs.
Interviewees discuss their level of attendance at meetings and events, volunteering, use of
membership bene?ts, and affective constructs that illustrate how they feel about supporting
the Organization and the extent to which they feel needed. The third category, Involvement,
has fewer constructs. They are affective and evaluative and focus on how interviewees feel
about the Organization, belonging, being part of a (Christian) community in the context of the
religious Organizations and whether they feel they can in?uence decisions. Motivation
became an important theme. The constructs highlight the underlyingreasons why individuals
join supporter groups. These include: personal interest; spiritual reasons; self-interest; social
reasons; altruism; bene?ts; and something to do. The ?nal theme is Relationships with other
members. Interviewees talk about other members, who they are, their relationships and
con?icts with them. These constructs are mainly affective and attributional.
A second set of interviews, which a future publication will report, discuss a parallel set of
interviewees that took a biographical approach. One of the objectives of the study was to
compare and contrast the two approaches to interviewing. Both types of interviews elicit rich
data, but the RGs provide the researchers with a useful tool around which the interviews
were structured, a transcript, and a RG, which is a visual representation of an individual’s
memberships that the participant can discuss. For example, Interviewee 11 says of his
completed RG, ‘‘Yes. It’s an accurate picture of my involvement.’’ The author found that the
process of drawing out the similarities and differences between the interviewees’ portfolio of
memberships was very useful. For example, some interviewees’ anayzed and commented
on how the RGs had enabled them to map their personal involvement in the supporter
groups. For the researchers, the mixed methods approach combining data from the
individual survey and the RGs enables distinct themes to emerge across the sample.
Individual RGs reveal an in-depth understanding of an interviewee’s membership portfolio
and the similarities and differences between each membership they hold re?ecting their
individual circumstances and motivations. The data from the survey that asked detailed
questions about all of their memberships, volunteering, attitudes, religiosity and
geo-demographic information compliments and validates the ?ndings.
Interviews involving the construction of RGs can take longer than traditional interviews,
although this was not an issue in this study. Some individuals ?nd the process easier than
others; for example, one group saw their membership on a limited number of dimensions
whilst others identi?ed multiple constructs re?ecting more complicated structures and
relationships with the supporter groups to which they belong. Interviewee 50 found
identifying more than four constructs extremely dif?cult despite being an active member of
nine different groups. Her constructs focus on organizational issues and her personal
behavior. ‘‘Big national organization – think broadly and have aspirations led by CEOs –
very local organizations that have inspirational local members’’; ‘‘I am not involved at the
moment – I am currently involved in many ways’’; ‘‘I only know a few people – I know a lot of
people and like them’’; and ‘‘I have made a conscious decision to get involved – I have
made a conscious decision not to get involved (I want my membership to tick over)’’. During
one interview with a gentleman of 97 years the RG was abandoned. He could easily talk
about how he joined the supporter groups and how they relate to his current situation but he
found expressing his views as bi-polar constructs challenging. In these types of situations,
the transcript of the interview has to suf?ce.
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9. Conclusions
RGs are an interesting and useful tool for ?nding out more about a speci?c audience, friends
and members, their perceptions of the supporter groups to which they belong and their
involvement in them. This constructivist approach results in data that shows how individuals
see their world using their own words. Researchers would not normally elicit such data using
Likert or semantic differential scales or where opposites are normally occur semantically.
RG’s are bene?cial as they encourage the emergence of the implicit pole; allow re?exivity on
behalf of the interviewee; and provide a structured way of eliciting and presenting data in a
process that interviewees are happy to engage in (Cassell and Walsh, 2005) as was
illustrated by the success of the data collection in this project. A potential challenge
researchers may encounter is that interviewees can sometimes struggle to make
comparisons when building up contrast-pairs during the construction of a grid. In such
situations, the interviewer has to draw on their inter-personal skills and experience to elicit
the constructs during the interview process.
RGs could be applicable in a number of areas of arts marketing, for example, exploring
audience perceptions of arts venues, attendance and involvement of arts audiences, and
organizational studies applied to an arts context. Although the researcher uses RGs in the
?nal phase of a mixed methods project, RGs can be useful as part of an early qualitative
phase of a study followed by a later stage of quantitative research, for example developing
categories for use in a questionnaire or alone in a qualitative or quantitative study. This
?exibility, in design and analysis is just one of their strengths within an arts marketing context.
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to Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research, Sage, London.
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& Sons, Chichester.
Fransella, F., Bell, R. and Bannister, D. (2004), A Manual for Repertory Grid Technique, 2nd ed.,
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sexual abuse survivors elicited through repertory grid technique’’, Journal of Constructivist Psychology,
Vol. 17, pp. 27-43.
Hayes, D. and Slater, A. (2003), ‘‘From social club to integrated membership scheme: developing your
membership scheme strategically’’, International Journal of Nonpro?t and Voluntary Sector Marketing,
Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 59-75.
Heaton, D. (1992), Museums amongst Friends: The Wider Museum Community, HMSO and Museums
and Galleries Commission, London.
Jankowicz, D. (2004), The Easy Guide to Repertory Grids, Wiley, Chichester.
Jones, C. (2002), ‘‘Facilities management in medium-sized UK hotels’’, International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 72-80.
Kelly, G.A. (1955), The Psychology of Personal Constructs, Norton, New York, NY (reprinted in 1991 by
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Kelly, G.A. (1970), ‘‘Behaviour is an experiment’’, Perspectives in Personal Construct Theory, Academic
Press, London.
Land?eld, A. (1971), Personal Construct Systems in Psychotherapy, Rand McNally, Chicago, IL.
Lansley, J. (1996), ‘‘Membership participation and ideology in voluntary organizations: the case of the
National Trust’’, Voluntas, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 221-40.
Naoi, T., Airey, D., Iijima, S. and Niininen, O. (2007), ‘‘Towards a theory of visitors’ evaluation of historical
districts as tourism destinations: frameworks and methods’’, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 60,
pp. 396-400.
National Trust (2007), National Trust Timeline, available at: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-trust/w-
thecharity/w-history_trust-timeline.htm (accessed 3 December 2007).
Rayment, T. (2000), ‘‘Art teachers’ views of national curriculum art: a repertory grid analysis’’,
Educational Studies, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 165-76.
Slater, A. (2003), ‘‘Users or supporters? Understanding the motivations and behaviors of members’’,
Curator, Vol. 46 No. 2, pp. 182-207.
Slater, A. (2004), ‘‘Revisiting membership schemes in museums and galleries’’, International Journal of
Nonpro?t and Voluntary Sector Marketing, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 238-60.
Slater, A. (2005), ‘‘Developing a typology of membership schemes in the UK’’, International Review on
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Further reading
Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (2005), Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, available at: www.rbgkew.org.uk/
aboutus.index.html (accessed 31 May 2005).
Corresponding author
Alix Slater can be contacted at: [email protected]
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This article has been cited by:
1. Alix Slater, Kate Armstrong. 2014. Drivers and motives for membership at the Southbank Centre, a mixed arts venue in London,
UK. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing 19:10.1002/nvsm.v19.1, 1-13. [CrossRef]
2. Brooke Reavey, Michael J. Howley, Daniel Korschun. 2013. An exploratory study of stalled relationships among art museum
members. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing 18, 90-100. [CrossRef]
3. Heath McDonald. 2011. Understanding the antecedents to public interest and engagement with heritage. European Journal of
Marketing 45:5, 780-804. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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doc_343453895.pdf
The purpose of this paper is to present George Kelly’s The Psychology of Personal
Constructs and to discuss how Repertory Grid Technique can aid a better understanding of friends and
members in an arts marketing context
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
Understanding individual membership at heritage sites
Alix Slater
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To cite this document:
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Understanding individual membership at
heritage sites
Alix Slater
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present George Kelly’s The Psychology of Personal
Constructs and to discuss how Repertory Grid Technique can aid a better understanding of friends and
members in an arts marketing context.
Design/methodology/approach – The project is a phenomenological study drawing on Kelly’s The
Psychologyof Personal Constructs. Theauthor conducted16unstructuredface-to-faceinterviewsacross
the UK during 2007 with individuals who were friends or members of at least ?ve heritage supporter
groups as part of a larger mixed methods study. The interviews included the building of Repertory Grids.
Findings – Analysis of the Repertory Grids gives a detailed understanding of participants’ perceptions
of, and involvement in, heritage supporter groups. Five themes emerged from the analysis:
Organization; Engagement with the Organization; Involvement; Motivation; and Relationships with
other members.
Practical implications – The paper provides a rich understanding of the portfolio of memberships that
individuals have and of how they perceive and interact with them.
Originality/value – The paper contributes to the arts marketing literature methodologically by
illustrating how to use Repertory Grid Technique in an arts marketing context and by focusing on friends
and members, whose perspectives the academic literature does not cover extensively.
Keywords Heritage, Arts, Individual psychology
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to apply Kelly’s theory of personal constructs and discuss how
researchers can use Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) to increase understanding of friends
and members of heritage supporter groups. The ?rst part of the paper presents Kelly’s
(1955) The Psychology of Personal Constructs and RGT, a method to collect data from both
individuals and groups. The second part of the paper discusses a speci?c example of the
use of repertory grids (RGs) during unstructured interviews. The interviews form part of a
yearlong mixed methods inquiry into supporter groups of heritage sites across the UK and
their friends and members. The article then goes on to discuss the usefulness of this method
in an arts marketing context, thus contributing to the existing bodies of work on personal
construct theory, friends and members, local associations and the heritage sector.
In his book, The Psychology of Personal Constructs, Kelly (1955) presents his philosophy of
‘‘Constructive Alternativism’’(Fransella, 1995; Cassell and Walsh, 2005). Scholars describe
Kelly’s ideas as ‘‘fundamentally a theory of human action’’ (Hinkle, 1970, p. 91 in Fransella,
1995, p. 14) that can help to explore individuals’ perceptions of reality. Kelly argues that
individuals form hypotheses (expectations) from their experiences and develop theories (a
?nite set of dichotomous constructs) through which they view their world (Fransella, 1995).
As individuals test their theories (Kelly, 1970) they may be reaf?rmed or result in an
individuals re-construing their views and changing their behavior.
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VOL. 4 NO. 1 2010, pp. 44-56, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1750-6182 DOI 10.1108/17506181011024751
Alix Slater is a Senior
Lecturer based at the
London College of
Communication, University
of the Arts London, London,
UK.
Received January 2008
Revised June 2008
Accepted July 2008
The data the author reports on
in this paper are part of a mixed
methods study undertaken
jointly with Dr Kirsten Holmes
and funded by the University of
Surrey and University of
Greenwich.
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Heritage supporter groups, also known as friends groups, membership schemes, societies
and associations are diverse in their nature, ranging from a handful of members to
sophisticated schemes such as the membership scheme of the National Trust in the UK,
which has more than 3.5 million members (National Trust, 2007). Groups are formed to
support sites by: generating income; pools of advocates; lobbyists and volunteers; or as a
bridge to the community (Heaton, 1992). Members often lead tours, and organize lectures
and social activities for visitors and their own members. These organizations are growing
incrementally due to the increasing number of heritage sites open to the public and
individual interest from within local communities and areas such as parks and open
spaces.
Despite this growth in heritage supporter groups understanding of groups and members
continues to receive scant attention from academics. The focus of extant literature is
individual supporter groups, motivations of members, participation, commitment and
lapsing behavior almost universally using quantitative methods (e.g. Bhattacharya, 1998;
Cress et al., 1997; Glynn et al., 1996; Lansley, 1996; Slater, 2003). The exceptions are
Heaton’s report on the state of Friends schemes published for the Museum and Galleries
Commission (1992) and focus groups commissioned by the Arts Council of England
exploring the motivations of friends and members of different types of arts organizations
(Burns Sadek Research Limited, 1992). Hayes and Slater’s (2003) paper looks at
membership organizations and develops a typology of membership schemes that Slater
tests and develops in later publications (Slater, 2004, 2005).
2. Personal construct theory
Kelly (1955) attempts to bring all the dimensions of human experiencing, learning,
motivation, emotions and perceptions under the umbrella of his Psychology of Personal
Constructs. His theory is really about how humans experience things, process them and the
(possible) changes in their behavior (Fransella, 1995). This results in a better understanding
of how individuals construe the world around themselves and their behavior. As Kelly (1991,
p. 139) states, ‘‘Thus, for any of us, the sharing of personal experience is a matter of
construing the other person’s experience and not merely a matter of having him hand it to us
intact across the desk. The psychology of personal constructs therefore lends itself quite
conveniently to the handling of the theoretical problem of gaining access to private worlds.’’
Kelly names this personal process of perceiving things as construing. Construing is
inter-related with experiencing, as you cannot do one without the other. He presents his
personal construct theory as a fundamental postulate with a number of corollaries: choice;
construction; experience; individuality; organization; dichotomy; range; fragmentation;
commonality; and sociality (Bannister and Fransella, 1980). These corollaries provide a
skeleton for Kelly’s (1955) theory in which he elaborates on each of them in detail.
Kelly’s philosophy of ‘‘constructive alternativism,’’ which underpins his Psychology of
Personal Constructs, is in?uenced by other authors and his own multi-disciplinary
background in mathematics, physics and engineering (Fransella, 2005). Kelly draws on the
philosophies of Dewey, phenomenology and on Korzybski, who believes individuals create
reality by selecting material for the life around them and giving labels to these abstractions
(Fransella, 1995; 2005). Kelly’s focus of convenience is psychotherapy but his ideas ?t with
physicists who have similar ontological ideas regarding reality and truth. Fransella (1995,
2005) argues that at the time, Kelly’s holistic approach to looking at individual’s thoughts and
feelings was revolutionary and describes his breadth of vision as ‘‘quite unlike anything in
psychology in those years up to the 1950s’’ (Fransella, 1995, p. 13).
Kelly (1955) was taking an ontological stance (Creswell, 2007) as individuals’ mental
abstractions are not identical to how reality is they only access the reality that they create
(Fransella, 1995). The presentation of his theory is also unique. His approach is holistic,
re?exive, and put forward in abstract terms, as general processes that do not limit them to a
particular culture or era (Bannister and Fransella, 1980, 2005). The range of studies this
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article references and the speci?c example of its use in exploring friends and members’
perceptions provide evidence to support this view.
3. Repertory grids
The repertory grid (RG), originally known as the ‘‘role construct repertory test’’, is one
method that Kelly applies to operationalize his theory of personal constructs (Fransella,
2005). Kelly (1991, p. 152) explains the RG as ‘‘a new diagnostic instrument which illustrates
how our theoretical thinking can be applied to the practical needs of the psychotherapist’’.
Fransella et al. (2004, p. 1) describe the grid as ‘‘personal construct theory in action’’. By the
1980s, RGT was dominating research in personal construct theory although their usage
subsequently declined (Fransella, 2005). Taking a phenomenological approach, the
purpose of a RG is to function as a ‘‘conversational technology’’ (Stephens, 1994, p. 76 in
Cassell and Walsh, 2005), a framework built around elements and constructs on a speci?c
topic that facilitates a structured interview and illustrates ‘‘how a person thinks’’ (Jankowicz,
2004, p. 19). Fransella (1995, p. 89) describes them as an ‘‘idiographic signature’’. Until the
1960s RGs were largely con?ned to clinical studies. For example, Bannister used them to
diagnose schizophrenics during the 1960s (Fransella et al., 2004). They then began to
feature in organizational and work psychology studies, for example: job analysis;
employment selection; induction training; and gender differences in performance
evaluation (Cassell and Walsh, 2005). Researchers also use RG’s to examine individual’s
relationships with others, for example, with sexual abuse survivors (e.g. Harter et al., 2004).
The cultural, hospitality, and tourism ?elds use the technique with individuals and products.
For example, Naoi et al. (2007) examine Japanese students’ perceptions of a historical
district in Japan using photographs and laddering analysis. Waitt et al. (2003, p. 530)
explore the ‘‘collective affective meanings of tourists responding to promotional imagery’’ in
Australia. Jones (2002) uses RGT to examine facilities management in hotels and Caldwell
and Coshall (2002) to explore visitors’ brand associations of eleven museums. Canning and
Holmes’ (2006) exploratory study illustrates how RGT was successfully used to understand
the perceptions, expectations and experiences of community projects from the perspective
of a socially excluded and ethnically diverse local community.
4. Constructing repertory grids
Constructing RGs occurs in three stages. Firstly, the researcher selects elements, then
constructs. Elements are the entities under investigation, for example different types of
membership scheme. Constructs are the ways in which individuals see and differentiate
between the elements. Constructs are bi-polar dimensions such as warm-v-cold or
loyal-v-disloyal. The ?nal stage is the construction of a matrix using the grid of constructs
and elements. The interviewee rates (or ranks) the elements on the constructs and these
ratings (or rankings) tell the researcher how a person construes the elements (Jankowicz,
2004).
The elements in a grid are therefore crucial to its success. They can be people, places,
events, objects or organizations an individual belongs to depending on whether the grid has
been designed to ?nd ‘‘out how an individual construes people or events in their life’’
(Fransella, 2005, p. 45). In some studies (e.g. Caldwell and Coshall, 2002), the researcher
pre-determines the elements s/he wishes to explore; in other studies, the researcher elicits
the elements from the interviewee. Usually, the element labels head the columns and are
positioned across the top of the grid, whilst the construct labels are positioned horizontally,
labelling the rows of the grid. The key issue is that the elements are in the range of
convenience of the constructs. Elements should also be homogeneous and representative
of the area under exploration (Fransella et al., 2004).
Fransella et al. (2004, p. 7) describe Kelly’s constructs as ‘‘a way in which two or more things
are alike and thereby different froma third or more things’’. Fransella (1995) argues that they
re?ect Kelly as a man of vision, a philosopher and somebody who was obsessed with detail.
The bi-polar constructs, which the interviewee identi?es, are a ‘‘breadth of vision versus
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attention to detail’’ (Fransella, 1995, p. 16). They are the dimensions through which a person
sees their environment, in contrast, for example, to concepts that merely deal with
similarities. They re?ect Kelly’s theory that a person is a process. They are also predictive, as
they tell us what people expect from other people and events (Fransella et al., 2004).
Constructs are not static and may change over time as people use their experiences to
perceive things in new ways although underpinning values tend to remain constant. During
the interview, the researcher and interviewer build a picture of the topic under consideration
and map the constructs onto a RG as the interviewee makes comparisons between the
elements (e.g. Organizations). The ?rst elicited pole is the emergent pole. The opposite is
the implicit pole (Fransella et al., 2004). The implicit pole is important as ‘‘the opposite pole of
the construct often provides considerable insight into the idiosyncratic meaning of that
construct’’ (Fransella, 1995, p. 89). The constructs (i.e. the two poles) are the core of
personal construct psychology as they are the interviewee’s interpretation of the topic they
are discussing.
The researcher elicits constructs in different ways. Kelly (1955) describes six triadic
methods including the: full context form; minimum context card form; self identi?cation form;
personal role form; and sequential form. All of these approaches use the difference method
that involves the researcher asking the interviewee to compare three of the elements (e.g.
organizations, events or roles) and to say how two are similar and one is different from the
third. For example, the interviewee may say they volunteer in two of the organizations but not
in the third. Importantly, the opposite pole must be the subjective opposite of the emergent
pole. Triadic elicitation of constructs can be too complex for some groups and many other
ways of eliciting constructs exist to cater for such groups. For instance, researchers elicit
constructs from written materials and drawings and pictures, asking individuals about their
core values, characteristics and earliest memories. Debates rage about the elicitation of
constructs in the literature, including their sequence. However, one key advantage of RGT is
that the interviewee determines the construct overcoming interviewer bias. Fransella et al.
(2004) discuss these in more detail.
In the cultural, heritage and tourism studies described previously, Jones (2002) offers the
elements on different cards, randomly chooses three and then asks each hotelier to make
comparisons by identifying a characteristic that was the same for two of the elements and
different for a third. She repeats this process using different sets of triads, then maps the
elements and constructs onto the grid, scores and anayzes them. Caldwell and Coshall’s
study of museum brands (2002) takes a similar approach.
RG studies often use laddering to elicit constructs. Hinkle (1965, in Fransella et al., 2004,
p. 39) describes the process as ‘‘eliciting increasingly super ordinate constructs – that is,
constructs of a higher order of abstraction than those elicited from the original triads or
dyads of elements’’. Fransella et al. (2004) support this view. They argue that laddering
results in super ordinate constructs that contain fuller descriptions, more implications and
greater meaning than the constructs from which they originated. Jankowicz (2004) also
examines the super ordinate-subordinate relationship by exploring and expanding on each
pole separately. Land?eld (1971) calls this pyramiding, but this method is also referred to as
‘‘downward laddering’’ (Jankowicz, 2004).
Researchers may also supply constructs to interviewees. These can emerge from the
literature or individual or group interviews. Kelly’s personal construct theory includes a
commonality corollary, however, some scholars criticise this aggregation of data. Both
approaches have advantages and disadvantages. For example, elicitation of constructs
from individuals can result in more extreme and cognitively complex constructs due to their
emotional involvement compared to those which researchers provide (Fransella et al., 2004:
47). Rayment (2000) combines both approaches. He identi?es constructs and then asks art
teachers to add new constructs if the ones he provides do not represent what they think.
Individual’s super ordinate constructs (values) tend to remain relatively stable over time but
at a lower level, the way individuals see things can alter due to new experiences. Thus, if a
researcher builds RGs with the same interviewee at different times, constructs can change
and they may attach more or less importance to speci?c constructs.
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5. Analysis of repertory grids
Researchers analyze RGs during and after the interviewee process to make meaning out of
what the interviewee has said. The focus is on relationships and patterns between the
‘‘entities in the grid’’ (Beail, 1985, p. 19). The interviewer may test hypotheses they form
about these relationships during the interviewee for validation by the interviewee (or not, as
the case may be) or during further interpretation of the data after the interview.
The ?rst step of analysis after the interview is to describe the basic data in the RG using
techniques such as process analysis, eyeball analysis and construct characterisation. The
elicitation of elements, constructs and ratings and the RG is important. Eyeball analysis of
the RG is the observation of how the interviewee construes the various elements using the
constructs in the grid. Construct characterisation is the analysis of constructs to determine
whether they are core or peripheral, their degree of super?ciality or complexity and their
relationships with other constructs through their frequency and signi?cance. These
processes apply to all constructs, whether they express emotions, opinions or are attributes
that explain particular behaviors. The second step of analysis is to describe the structure of
the RG by exploring the relationships between elements and between constructs. Several
techniques are available, that enable the researcher to identify relationships between
elements and between constructs including cluster and principal component anayzes.
In their study of brand associations, Caldwell and Coshall (2002) analyze the data using
principal component analysis. This use of factorial analysis is quite common; although in
their study of teachers Castejon and Martinez (2001, p. 115) argue for other methods that
enable a ‘‘mathematical treatment of constructs and elements’’. Kelly offers a personal
approach to factor analysis that provides a statistical method of analysing RGs. He
describes this reduction of large amounts of information to a minimum of terms as
interweaving, ‘‘. . . to give substance to the fabric of society’’ (Kelly, 1991, p. 189). Jones’
(2002) uses INGRID in his study of the hospitality sector. This package identi?es
co-ordinates that indicate relationships between constructs and elements. The researcher
plots this data onto a two-dimensional map and shows both poles of the constructs.
Elements appear on the ‘‘map’’ as points in the space de?ned by the constructs. The
researcher then measures the strength of the relationships by looking at the relative positions
of constructs to constructs, elements to elements, and constructs to elements. This process
is complex due to the different ways grids are used, the number of elements and methods of
generating constructs. Janowicz (2004) and Fransella et al.(2004) consider these points in
some detail in their respective publications.
6. Friends and members of heritage supporter groups
This part of the paper discusses the application of RGT in an arts marketing context to
explore individual friends and members’ perceptions of their membership of heritage
supporter groups. The researchers administered RGs to participants during face-to-face
interviews in the ?nal phase of a mixed methods study of heritage supporter groups in 2007.
The study takes a sequential approach due to the limited literature in the ?eld of cultural
membership. Phase one involved compiling a database of friends and membership
schemes within the UK heritage sector whose purpose is to support a heritage site or
collection. The study did not include special interest groups formed solely for member
bene?t. The ?nal sample of over 1,000 friends, membership and supporter associations
includes groups af?liated to heritage visitor attractions, historic houses, listed buildings and
monuments, museums, historic ships and other heritage transport attractions, historic parks
and gardens, churches, cathedrals, cemeteries and industrial heritage sites.
The second phase of the study takes a quantitative approach using a survey to collect data
about supporter groups members belongto. This phase has a dual focus. To scope thesector
(andmakecomparisonswithasimilar questionnaireconductedpreviously) andtogainaccess
to individual members for the third and fourth phases that focus on individual members. The
researchers sent a questionnaire by email or post to the 1,000 groups identi?ed during phase
one (depending on the contact details the researchers had). This mailing yielded 222 usable
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questionnairesand76supporter groupsindicatedtheir interest inassistingwithafurther phase
of theproject. ThestudyincludesThestepsinthestudyincludesselecting32supporter groups
to assist in the distribution of approximately 1,800 questionnaires to their members. This
yielded 665 usable individual questionnaires during phase three.
The questionnaire asked friends and members whether the researcher could contact them
to conduct face-to-face interviews during a fourth phase of data collection; 358 of the 665
respondents provided contact details. The researchers approached them systematically by
selecting participants from across the membership groups to represent the different types,
sizes and geographical location of the groups. This qualitative phase of research was
important in order to compare the ?ndings with the quantitative data collected in phase three
and to test two methods of interviewing, one of which is RGT. The willingness of respondents
to take part resulted in 52 interviews, more than was originally planned. Of those 52
interviewees, 16 had ?ve or more memberships of heritage related organizations. The
researchers invited these interviewees to built personal RGs during their interview. The
remaining interviews involved a biographical approach. The next section of the paper
discusses the construction and analysis of these RGs during phase four.
7. Pro?le of interviewees
The 16 interviewees who completed RGs came from 13 supporter groups (see Figure 1).
Females completed half of the RGs although they only comprise 40 percent of the total
sample (n ¼ 665). Their age pro?le was very similar to the main sample. A total of 81 percent
were 55 years and over compared to 84 percent of the total sample. A total of 73 percent of
the group was retired, 13 percent in full time paid work and 13 percent in part time work.
Amongst the whole sample, work status was more complex – the comparative ?gures are 66
percent, 17 percent and 8 percent. This indicates that a slightly higher share of the
interviewees who built RGs were retired or undertaking part time work. Nobody was a carer,
studying or full-time volunteer as other members of the larger sample had described
themselves (see Table I).
8. Construction of RGs
Thepurposeof theinterviewwasto?ndout moreabout themembershipsindividualshadlisted
andprovidedinformationabout intheindividual questionnaireduringphasethreeof thestudy.
The elements in the RGare the supporter groups the interviewee currently belongs to. During
this process, the researchers found that interviewees often had more memberships than they
initially recalled on the questionnaire. They had forgotten about them, thought they were
irrelevant, or in some cases were embarrassed about the number they held.
The16 RGs show 119 heritage supporter groups (elements), of which 97 groups are unique.
Each RG is different, as no individual is a member of exactly the same groups as another
person in the study. More than half of the interviewees (n ¼ 11) are members of the National
Trust. NADFAS and the Friends of the Royal Academy are cited three times, and another nine
organizations twice. The variety of supporter groups listed re?ects the geographical spread
of the interviewees and the diversity of individuals’ personal interests. For a complete list of
groups to which interviewees belonged see below.
List of organizations to which interviewees belonged
B Friends of Ripon Cathedral (two).
B Patrons of Ripon Cathedral.
B Friends of Beverley Minster.
B Friends of York Minster.
B Friends of Canterbury Cathedral.
B Local Church.
B Local Church Council.
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B St Clement Dane’s Church.
B English Heritage (two).
B National Trust (nine).
B National Trust for Scotland (two).
B National Trust (local association).
B Landmark Trust.
B English National Opera.
B Friends of the Royal Opera House.
B Friends of Wigmore Hall.
Figure 1 Example of a completed repertory grid (Interviewee 11)
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B Friends of Opera North.
B Ripon International Festival.
B Montreux Music Festival.
B NADFAS (three).
B Curtis Museum and Allen Art Gallery.
B National Art Collection Fund (two).
B Tate Members.
B Friends of the Royal Academy (three).
B Friends of Whitworth Art Gallery (two).
B Friends of Manchester City Art Gallery (two).
B National Galleries of Scotland.
B National Maritime Museum.
B Friends of Southampton Museum and Art Gallery.
B Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
B Altrincham Society of Arts.
B Manchester Graphic Club.
B Alderley Edge Art Group.
B Stockport Art Guild.
B Vision on Arts Group.
B Royal Air Force Museum.
B Imperial War Museum.
B Museum of Berkshire Aviation.
B New Forest Museum.
B Friends of Rotherham Archives.
B Southampton Civic Archives.
B Barnet Libraries.
B Friends of Southampton Old Cemetery (two).
Table I Pro?le of interviewees who constructed repertory grids
ID no. Gender Age (yrs) Work status Supporter group af?liated to . . .
3 Male 35-44 FT paid Museum of Berkshire Aviation
11 Male 65-74 Retired National Maritime Museum
13 Female 65-74 Retired RAF Museum Hendon
20 Female 65-74 Retired Ripon Cathedral
21 Male 65-74 Retired Ripon Cathedral
23 Female 55-64 Housewife Boston Castle and Park
26 Female 75þ Retired Whitworth Gallery
27 Male 75þ Retired Whitworth Gallery
29 Female 55-64 PT paid Lake District
31 Male 55-64 Retired Lake District
35 Male 55-64 Retired Dunorlan Park
36 Female 55-64 Retired Curtis Museum and Allen Gallery
43 Male 55-64 Retired Southampton Old Cemetery
46 Male 35-44 FT paid Shipley Windmill
47 Female 45-54 Retired Southampton Old Cemetery
50 Female 65-74 PT paid Canterbury Cathedral
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B Friends of the Lake District (two).
B Friends of Dunorlan Park.
B Boston Castle and Park.
B Friends of Tunbridge Wells Common.
B Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings.
B Coal House Fort, Tilbury.
B Friends of Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust.
B Ick?eld Way Association.
B Offa’s Dyke Association.
B Shipley Windmill.
B Suffolk Mills Group.
B Norfolk Mills Group.
B Hampshire Mills Group.
B Sussex Mills Group.
B Friends of Canterbury Archaeological Trust.
B Civic Society.
B York Civic Trust.
B Rotherham Civic Society.
B Burton Civic Society.
B Greater London Industrial Archaeological Society.
B HFC Archaeological Society.
B LTVAS.
B West End Local History Society.
B City of Southampton Society.
B Whitstable History Society.
B The Chiltern Society.
B Little Chalfont Society.
B Southampton Heritage Federation.
B Southampton Local History Forum.
B Plym Valley Heritage Group.
B Devon Family History Society.
B Huguenot Society of Britain and Ireland.
B Birmingham Genealogical Society.
B Hampshire Genealogy Society.
B Jane Austen Society.
B Bronte¨ Society.
B Nelson Society.
B John Muir Trust.
B Dever Society.
B Great Central Railway Society.
B Great Central Railway Enthusiasts Association.
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B Whitstable Choral Society.
B BBC Concert Orchestra.
B Women’s Institute.
B Royal Horticultural Society.
B Hampshire Naturalist Trust.
B People’s Trust for Endangered Species.
B RSPB (two).
B Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.
B Ramblers Association (two).
B NSPCC.
B Old Girls’ Grammar School.
B MENSA.
B Over 60s Club.
In this study, the researchers use a variation of the Full Context Form to elicit constructs,
asking the interviewees to identify two elements that are similar in some way (specifying the
attribute they have in common) and a third that is different (therefore identifying the implicit
pole). The purpose of this approach is to explore individuals’ perceptions of the supporter
groups to which they belong. Downward laddering assists in the elicitation of constructs
through a process of negotiation. Laddering involves: the repetition of interviewee’s words to
clarify meaning; reaf?rming the interviewer’s understanding; asking the interviewee to be
more speci?c; and encouraging interviewees to give precise examples. The left hand side of
the grid (the emergent pole of the construct) records the thing that the two supporter groups
(elements) have in common and the right hand side of the grid (the implicit pole of the
construct) records the opposite in meaning. The diversity of the elements (supporter groups)
makes this approach more desirable than the triadic method. The interviewee was then
asked to rate each element against each set of constructs on a scale of 1 to 5 as illustrated in
Figure 1. Interviewee 11 was recruited through the Friends of the National Maritime Museum,
and has ?ve other memberships. Prior to recruitment, he had been an actuary. He states in
his interview that he enjoyed the process of constructing the RG in particular the downward
laddering (see Figure 1).
Although Interviewee 11 was able to articulate constructs relatively easily, during the
process of rating the elements on the RG, he sometimes put more than two elements at the
emergent pole and more than one element at the implicit pole. For example, when he talked
about his involvement in the groups, he placed the National Trust at the implicit pole and all
of his other memberships at the emergent pole saying ‘‘I regret to say that all the rest would
get ?ve on that’’. One of his constructs focuses on ?nancial support beyond the subscription.
He initially placed the National Maritime Museum and National Trust for Scotland at the
emergent pole but at the implicit pole he could not differentiate between the Little Chalfont
and Chiltern Societies. When talking about his anonymity, he could identify an implicit pole
but then placed four rather than two elements at the emergent pole. He could therefore
identify differences between the organizations but often had quite polarised views – on
some constructs he saw them in one of two groups.
RGs can be anayzed individually and as a set using different approaches. If the researcher
supplies the constructs to the interviewees, the analysis can focus on the participant’s
ratings. Alternatively, if a limited number of grids are being used the researcher can make
comparisons between each grid. However, multiple grids lead to an exponential growth of
data with each additional grid. The author took the advice of Jankowicz (2004) and used
content analysis to anayze the set of 16 RGs discussed in this paper, each with a unique set
of elements and constructs. The disadvantage of this approach is that detail at the individual
grid level is lost but this does allow the researcher to provide a holistic analysis with a focus
on recurring themes.
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Theresearcher extrapolates theconstructs fromtheRGs andsystematically examines themin
aprocess knownas ‘‘bootstrapping’’ (Jankowicz (2004)). This involves takingeachconstruct,
item by item, comparing it and putting it into a category. As new themes emerge, the
researcher divides and re-names categories. When re-categorization occurs, the researcher
re-examines the constructs to ensurethey still ?t the category or if they would?t better in a new
category. As two researchers collected data in this study, the process of categorizing items
was iterative, with much discussion and negotiation. This study, like others, ?nds that
members of a homogeneous group often share constructs (Jankowicz, 2004). Five themes
evolved during the process of bootstrapping. The ?rst was Organization. The constructs in
this category are behavioral and relate to the heritage supporter groups. They focus on the
type, size, purpose and success of the group and the practical bene?ts of membership. The
second category, Engagement with the Organization, encompasses behavioral constructs.
Interviewees discuss their level of attendance at meetings and events, volunteering, use of
membership bene?ts, and affective constructs that illustrate how they feel about supporting
the Organization and the extent to which they feel needed. The third category, Involvement,
has fewer constructs. They are affective and evaluative and focus on how interviewees feel
about the Organization, belonging, being part of a (Christian) community in the context of the
religious Organizations and whether they feel they can in?uence decisions. Motivation
became an important theme. The constructs highlight the underlyingreasons why individuals
join supporter groups. These include: personal interest; spiritual reasons; self-interest; social
reasons; altruism; bene?ts; and something to do. The ?nal theme is Relationships with other
members. Interviewees talk about other members, who they are, their relationships and
con?icts with them. These constructs are mainly affective and attributional.
A second set of interviews, which a future publication will report, discuss a parallel set of
interviewees that took a biographical approach. One of the objectives of the study was to
compare and contrast the two approaches to interviewing. Both types of interviews elicit rich
data, but the RGs provide the researchers with a useful tool around which the interviews
were structured, a transcript, and a RG, which is a visual representation of an individual’s
memberships that the participant can discuss. For example, Interviewee 11 says of his
completed RG, ‘‘Yes. It’s an accurate picture of my involvement.’’ The author found that the
process of drawing out the similarities and differences between the interviewees’ portfolio of
memberships was very useful. For example, some interviewees’ anayzed and commented
on how the RGs had enabled them to map their personal involvement in the supporter
groups. For the researchers, the mixed methods approach combining data from the
individual survey and the RGs enables distinct themes to emerge across the sample.
Individual RGs reveal an in-depth understanding of an interviewee’s membership portfolio
and the similarities and differences between each membership they hold re?ecting their
individual circumstances and motivations. The data from the survey that asked detailed
questions about all of their memberships, volunteering, attitudes, religiosity and
geo-demographic information compliments and validates the ?ndings.
Interviews involving the construction of RGs can take longer than traditional interviews,
although this was not an issue in this study. Some individuals ?nd the process easier than
others; for example, one group saw their membership on a limited number of dimensions
whilst others identi?ed multiple constructs re?ecting more complicated structures and
relationships with the supporter groups to which they belong. Interviewee 50 found
identifying more than four constructs extremely dif?cult despite being an active member of
nine different groups. Her constructs focus on organizational issues and her personal
behavior. ‘‘Big national organization – think broadly and have aspirations led by CEOs –
very local organizations that have inspirational local members’’; ‘‘I am not involved at the
moment – I am currently involved in many ways’’; ‘‘I only know a few people – I know a lot of
people and like them’’; and ‘‘I have made a conscious decision to get involved – I have
made a conscious decision not to get involved (I want my membership to tick over)’’. During
one interview with a gentleman of 97 years the RG was abandoned. He could easily talk
about how he joined the supporter groups and how they relate to his current situation but he
found expressing his views as bi-polar constructs challenging. In these types of situations,
the transcript of the interview has to suf?ce.
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9. Conclusions
RGs are an interesting and useful tool for ?nding out more about a speci?c audience, friends
and members, their perceptions of the supporter groups to which they belong and their
involvement in them. This constructivist approach results in data that shows how individuals
see their world using their own words. Researchers would not normally elicit such data using
Likert or semantic differential scales or where opposites are normally occur semantically.
RG’s are bene?cial as they encourage the emergence of the implicit pole; allow re?exivity on
behalf of the interviewee; and provide a structured way of eliciting and presenting data in a
process that interviewees are happy to engage in (Cassell and Walsh, 2005) as was
illustrated by the success of the data collection in this project. A potential challenge
researchers may encounter is that interviewees can sometimes struggle to make
comparisons when building up contrast-pairs during the construction of a grid. In such
situations, the interviewer has to draw on their inter-personal skills and experience to elicit
the constructs during the interview process.
RGs could be applicable in a number of areas of arts marketing, for example, exploring
audience perceptions of arts venues, attendance and involvement of arts audiences, and
organizational studies applied to an arts context. Although the researcher uses RGs in the
?nal phase of a mixed methods project, RGs can be useful as part of an early qualitative
phase of a study followed by a later stage of quantitative research, for example developing
categories for use in a questionnaire or alone in a qualitative or quantitative study. This
?exibility, in design and analysis is just one of their strengths within an arts marketing context.
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Corresponding author
Alix Slater can be contacted at: [email protected]
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This article has been cited by:
1. Alix Slater, Kate Armstrong. 2014. Drivers and motives for membership at the Southbank Centre, a mixed arts venue in London,
UK. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing 19:10.1002/nvsm.v19.1, 1-13. [CrossRef]
2. Brooke Reavey, Michael J. Howley, Daniel Korschun. 2013. An exploratory study of stalled relationships among art museum
members. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing 18, 90-100. [CrossRef]
3. Heath McDonald. 2011. Understanding the antecedents to public interest and engagement with heritage. European Journal of
Marketing 45:5, 780-804. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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doc_343453895.pdf