2.A set of Elements, which are examples or instances of the Topic. Working as a clinical psychologist, Kellywas interested in how his clients construed people in the roles they adopted towards the client, and so,originally, such terms as 'my father', 'my mother', 'an admired friend' and so forth were used. Since then, theGrid has been used in much wider settings (educational, occupational, organisational) and so any well-defined set of words, phrases, or even brief behavioral vignettes can be used as elements. For example, tosee how I construe the purchase of a car, a list of vehicles within my price range could make an excellentset of elements3.A set of Constructs. These are the basic terms that the client uses to make sense of the elements, and arealways expressed as a contrast. Thus the meaning of 'Good' depends on whether you intend to say 'Goodversus Poor', as if you were construing a theatrical performance, or 'Good versus Evil', as if you wereconstruing the moral or ontological status of some more fundamental experience.4.A set of ratings of Elements on Constructs. Each element is positioned between the two extremes of theconstruct using a 5- or 7-point rating scale system; this is done repeatedly for all the constructs that apply;and thus its meaning to the client is captured, and statistical analysis varying from simple counting, to morecomplex mulitivariate analysis of meaning, is made possible.Constructs are regarded as personal to the client, who is psychologically similar to other people depending on theextent to which s/he would tend to use similar constructs, and similar ratings, in relating to a particular set of elements. And it is the way that the constructs are identified that makes a Repertory Grid unique.The client is asked to consider the elements three at a time, and to identify a way in which two of the elementsmight be seen as alike, but distinct from, contrasted to, the third. For example, in considering a set of people as partof a topic dealing with personal relationships, a client might say that the element 'my father' and the element 'myboss' are similar because they are both fairly tense individuals, whereas the element 'my wife' is different becauseshe is 'relaxed'. And so we identify one construct that the individual uses when thinking about people: whether theyare 'Tense as distinct from Relaxed'. (in practice, good grid interview technique would delve a little deeper andidentify some more behaviorally explicit description of 'Tense versus Relaxed'. All the elements are rated on theconstruct, further triads of elements compared and further constructs elicited, and the interview would continue untilno further constructs are obtained.
Using the Repertory Grid
Behavioural specificity is important. Careful interviewing to identify what the individual means by the words initiallyproposed, and careful consideration of the ratings the client wishes to use to position elements on constructs inorder to express that meaning precisely, are required.For example, when using a 5-point rating system to characterise the way in which a group of fellow-employees areviewed on the construct 'Keen and committed versus Energies elsewhere', a 1 indicating that the left pole of theconstruct applies ('Keen and committed') and a 5 indicating that the right pole of the construct applies ('Energieselsewhere') might be used. On being asked to rate all of the elements, our interviewee might reply that Tom merits a2 (fairly keen and committed), Mary a 1 (very keen and committed), and Peter a 5 (his energies are very muchoutside the place of employment). The remaining elements (another five people in our example) are then rated onthis construct.Typically, (and of course depending on the topic) people have a limited number of genuinely different constructs for any one topic: 6 to 16 are common when they talk about their job or their occupation, for example. The richness of our meaning structures comes from the many different ways in which a limited number of constructs can be appliedto individual elements. We might discover that Tom is fairly keen, very experienced, lacks social skills, is a goodtechnical supervisor, can be trusted to follow complex instructions accurately, has no sense of humour, will alwaysreturn a favour, and only sometimes help his co-workers; while Mary is very keen, fairly experienced, has goodsocial and technical supervisory skills, needs complex instructions explained to her, appreciates a joke, alwaysreturns favours, and is very helpful to her co-workers. Two very different and complex pictures, using just 8constructs about one's co-workers.
Analysis of results
Interesting and important information can be obtained by including self-elements such as 'Myself as I am now';'Myself as I would like to be' among other elements, where the topic permits.
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