From the Repertory Grid:
The scarcity of significant correlations between construct ratings of elements and discrepancy, and the lack of association between construct ratings of elements and mothers’ ratings of child behaviour problems is puzzling. There are a number of possible explanations for this finding, or rather lack of findings, and these shall be dealt with in turn: 1. That repertory grids are not a vahd tool for inferring representations of self and others, 2. That repertory grids are a valid tool, but that representations are not associated with discrepancy in child behaviour ratings, or 3. That repertory grids maybe both valid, and associated with discrepancy, but that some aspect of the methodology used in this study clouded the association.
If one accepts the conceptualisation of representations given by Main et al (1985), that internal working models (representations) direct “attention, memory and cognition” (p. 67), as well as behaviour, at a theoretical level, the
representation an individual holds of themselves or others, wiU be evident in most tasks that require them to make distinctions, as is required in repertory grid techniques. Indeed there is a body of evidence that suggests that grid techniques are vahd tools, particularly in terms of making distinctions between constructs of
1979, Bers et a l 1993) who used a structured technique very similar to the one adopted here, found the method discriminated well between individuals’
representations of self, and parents.
Having said this, the decision in this research to adopt two distinct tools for inferring representations was taken for the specific reason that there is not yet any clear agreement as to how representations are best inferred. The question is one of whether methods where representations are qualified by the individual themselves, as in structured rating techniques like the repertory grid, are better or worse than measures that are qualified by an ‘independent’ observer, as in the fi-ee-response description method? The findings fi’om this study offer an
interesting by-product by offering some very tentative insight into this question. The fact that in this research the more significant results came from the free- response descriptions than from the repertory grid, may suggest some leaning in the direction of independently qualified methods as being a more vahd measure of representation. Of course such a suggestion should be treated with caution, as there was no intention to address such an issue in this project. However, it is important in as far as it offers some indication as to whether the scarcity of findings from the grid measures are due to methodological issues, or indicate a ‘real’ lack of association between representations and discrepancy in child behaviour problem ratings. Indeed the fact that the free-response description method offers some indication of an association between representations and discrepancy, may suggest that the lack of substantial findings from the repertory grid are related to the measure itself.
Thus we come to the more specific methodological aspect of the grid measures used in this study, by way of explaining the findings from the repertory grid analysis. There are a number of possible methodological reasons why the expected association was only suggested in a very limited way.
The first issue relates to the constructs supplied to participants m the study for rating the elements. There has been much debate within personal construct psychology with regard to whether constructs should be supplied by the investigator, or elicited from the participant. The argument for supplying constructs is based on the idea that if all participants have rated elements using the same constructs, this allows for across-participant comparisons. However, the assumption here is that all participants use the constructs in the same way i.e. that there is across-participant agreement as to the meaning of each construct. For example what is meant by ‘intelligent’? Are all participants referring to academic intelligence in rating this construct, or are some referring to emotional intelligence? Each meaning would lead to rather different ratings. As Fransella and Bannister (1977) pomt out, when one supplies constructs, all one is
supplying are: “the verbal labels to which the person will attach his personal
construct.” (p. 19). Variation in the attachment of personal constructs to the ‘labels’ provided may indeed affect the results of a study where constructs are supphed.
The second point relating to supplied constructs relates to whether the construct labels are useful for the participant in making distinctions between individuals. If constructs are useful it would be expected that a range of ratings across
constructs and elements would be found. However, in this study the range of ratings was very restricted and tended to be positively skewed for all elements. It has been suggested elsewhere, that this pattern of construing occurs when
supplied constructs are not meaningful to the participants in the research (e.g. Stringer 1972).
However, the positive skew of the ratings may also have been due, in part at least, to a social desirability effect to rate close family members and self positively. This is a particular problem in measures that are qualified by the participant rather than by an ‘independent’ observer. Minimisation of such an effect was not helped in this case by the layout of the grid rating sheets (see appendix 7.) where positive poles are presented together.
Such limitations of the repertory grid identified in this study, further support the decision not to include measures fi'om it in the multiple regression analyses.
From the Free-Response Descriptions:
From the results of the free-response descriptions there is a clear suggestion that such a method may be valuable in increasing understanding of child behaviour problems rating. The findings suggest that a mother’s representation of her child is an in ^ rta n t predictor of her rating of her child, but of less value in explaining
discrepancy between a mother’s and a criterion rating. This would be in line with some recent theorising by Stem. Stem (1995), suggests that a mother’s
representations of her child are enacted in such a way as to regulate the child’s behaviour to ‘fit’ the representation. Such enactment would tend to lead to changes in the child’s behaviour observable by others outside the mother-child relationship, and effectively reduce discrepancy in behaviour ratings.
The research findings also suggest that dimensions of representations of jeÿ ’are the most important in predicting discrepancy. Again this makes theoretical sense; a mother’s representation of herself wiU affect the way she attributes meaning to her child’s behaviours. For exan^le, a mother who holds a negative
representation of herself will tend to interpret her child’s attention-seeking behaviour as overly demanding and therefore problematic, not beheving that the child may actually value her attention. Whereas an observer with a more positive internal representations of themselves may interpret the same behaviour as fiiendly, and not problematic, beheving the child may particularly want their attention. Thus greater discrepancy between the two raters would be expected to occur.
However, one finding fi'om the fi-ee-response descriptions, ran counter to expectations. Although it was expected to find an association between the stmctural features of self descriptions and discrepancy, the correlation between predominant mode of representation and discrepancy scores was found to be in the opposite direction to the one predicted. It was assumed that those mothers
who demonstrated less sophisticated representations of self, reflected in lower ratings on the structural dimension of the descriptions, would be less well able to reflect on their internal states in relation to others, and would tend to attribute more negative meaning to others’ behaviour. However, as Bers et al. (1993), point out, the predominant mode of representation scale can be thought of as a reflection of the degree to which an individual is pre-occupied with internal states, and not a reflection of their understanding of them. It is possible that individuals who are puzzled by internal states reflect this by referring to them more often in the course of a description. Understanding of internal states is perhaps best measured by the reflective-self scale which was found to correlate with discrepancy in the predicted direction, although not significantly.
Finally, it has been hypothesised that representations of child, self and own mother are closely related. As a consequence it was expected that there would be an association between descriptions of own mother and ratings of child behaviour problems. The lack of such findings in this research may suggest that representations of own mother in relation to child behaviour are mediated by the mother’s current representation of self, resulting in an association too weak to be picked up in a sample of this size.