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American Association for Public Opinion Research
The Focussed Interview and Focus Groups: Continuities and DiscontinuitiesAuthor(s): Robert K. MertonSource: The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Winter, 1987), pp. 550-566Published by: Oxford University Presson behalf of the American Association for Public Opinion Research
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THE
FOCUSSED INTERVIEW AND
FOCUS GROUPS
CONTINUITIES
AND
DISCONTINUITIES
ROBERTK.MERTON
No one can be more
urprised
t
mybeing
ere han . Four
years go,
I
wrotemyself
"self-emancipationroclamation," one-page tate-
ment
sserting
hat
wouldnot
gain ccept ny
nvitationrom
ny
sourceto write book,edit a book,write paper,write review
article-or give
a
public ecture
unless
t
so happened
hat had
al-
readywrittenr edited hat ook,writtenhat aper r reviewrticle,
or
assembled
otes
or
he
publicecture). et here am. Butwhatwas
one to do
when n
admired
tudent
f
ongago turns
ut
to
be the
president f the New York
chapter f the professionalrganization
that
ne's ifelongollaboratort
Columbia
ad
helped o
found?
You
will
nstantlyecognize oth
allusions: he one to Alan Meyer, he
other o Paul
Lazarsfeld.) hatdid not
providemany egrees
f
free-
dom.However,naccordwith he piritf hat elf-emancipatingroc-
lamation, did prevail pon the
organizers
f
this ession o
bill me
unmistakably
s
indulgingnly
n
mpromptu
emarks.
However,
hatdoesn'tmean hat 've done no
homework
t
all. I
hadtodo some, r remain
holly ilent. he truthf hematters that
there an't
be many eople n
thefield f social science nd certainly
none
n
the related
ield
f
marketingesearchwho know ess about
focus
groups
han . If
there
re,
that
pells
trouble.
o it
was
that
whenAlan
broached he
ubject ffocus roups o me,he enlistedmy
curiosityt once. It had beenonly littlewhile gothat at Kendall
and had earned f
the
widespread
se of
focus
groups
n
marketing
research.
erhapswe
had
beenreadinghe"wrong"booksand the
"wrong" ournals. At any
rate,
when
this development as lately
ROBERT
K. MERTON
iS
University
rofessor
meritus
t Columbia
niversity.
his s
the
text fa
talk
given o a
New
YorkAAPOR
meeting,
une 986, n
the
ubject:
How
Did
We
Getfrom
Focussed
nterviews'
o Focus Groups'?"
The otherpeakers
ere
Patricia endall, udithanger,ndJ.RonaldMilavsky. opiesof heir apersmay e
obtained
rom orinne irchner,
resident
Y-AAPOR,
/o
American
nstitute
or he
Blind,
5
West16
Street,
ew York,
NY
10011.
nce gain,
he
uthorladly
cknowl-
edges id
from
heJohn .
and Catherine
. MacArthur
oundation.
Public
Opinion Quarterly
Volume 51:550-566
? 1987 by
the Amencan
Association
forPublic
Opinion
Research
Published
byThe
University f
Chicago
Press / 0033-362X/87/0051-04(1)/$2.50
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The
Focussed Interview and Focus
Groups 551
called to our attentionnd when he techniques
mployednfocus-
group esearchwere aid to derive romur work ome40years go
on the focussed nterview f groups Merton
nd
Kendall, 1946;
Merton, iske,
nd
Kendall, 956),.my wn
uriositybout hat evel-
opment egan o mount. till, did ittle ogratifyhat uriosityt the
time.Other esearch uestions nd problems
ereoccupyingmy t-
tention. nd s the iteraryhilosopher enneth
urke nceobserved
(in a memorableashion hat like o describes theBurke heorem):
"A wayof seeing s also a way of not eeing-a
focusuponobjectA
involves neglect f objectB." (Thatmaxim, y theway, s clearly
one to be rememberedn the use of focussednterviewsnd focus
groups.)
So it
was thatwhenAlanMeyer nvited
meto speak o this ssembly
about hat ubject, couldn't esist hemultiple
emptationse hadput
beforeme. Butnow want o translate lan's nvitationnto he ogni-
tive
terms,whichhe maynot recognize,hathelpedbringme here.
This, hen, s my nterpretationfwhathe
was saying; is subtextnd
my econstructionfwhatwas containednthat nvitation:Here is a
grand pportunityo meetwith group f ccomplishednd nformed
socialresearchers, any f them our ldfriends, rawn artly rom
the
universities
nd
partly rom hatworld
f marketingesearch o
which aul Lazarsfeld ntroduced ou half centurygo. Here s an
opportunitylso to combine newly merging
nterestn theorigins
and rapidgrowth f focus-groupesearch
withyour ifelongnterest
in
identifyingariouspatternsn the emergencend transmissionf
knowledge,articularly
n the
diffusion
fknowledgerom ne socio-
cultural orld o another. ow are deasconveyed nd how are they
modified
n
the
ourse
f
diffusion? hat an be earned
bout
atterns
ofchange nthe diffusionf nnovationsrom cience ntopractice?
And so on.
Havingdevoted great art
f your ife o studies n the
sociology
f
science-though,
nlike aul
Lazarsfeld, atheress
to
the
sociology
f
social
science-you
now have an
opportunity
o
reflect
loud,to speculate, bout his ort
f thingn connection ith
the
emergence
nd
growth
f
focus-group
esearch."
The
impromp-
titude
f
thisoccasion
holds
for
he
specific
ubject; heunderlying
questions
want
o address reenduring
nd
notvery
well
understood
ones; surely
otwellunderstood
y
me nd,privatelysuspect, otby
many thers.
I
am therefore
ndebted
o Judith
anger
or
having rought
e
up-
to-date
n the
state
f the
rt
of
focus-group
esearch
n the
pace
of
the
past
fewminutes.
My partly repared
mpromptu
emarks ill
be
based
argely
n
what
've
just
heard
nd
on some
documents found
lurking
n ancient iles. hose
files
re
essential
ince
don't
ake
much
stock
n
vagrant
memories-that
s,
memories
ithoutisiblemeans
f
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552 Robert K. Merton
documentaryupport. he files rovide actual hecks n memoriesf
how the
focussed nterviews
concept-and-procedure
tarted
orme.
Prelude to the Focussed nterview
It all
started
n
myfirstnadvertent ork ession-a thoroughly
n-
plannedwork ession-withPaul Lazarsfeld ack
n
November 941.
That
tory as beentold
n
printeveral imesHunt, 961; azarsfeld,
1975:35-37; e Lellio, 1985:21-24), utnever ntracinghe eedbed f
thefocussed nterview. retell t here
n
that
new
context.
To beginwith, aul and I had neverheardof one another efore
coming
o Columbia.We had
notonlynotread one another;
we
had
literally
ever eard fone another.
Actually,hat eciprocalgnorance
is not
s
stranges
it
may eem.Afterll,Paulhadcome
from ne
way
of
life; , from uite another. ubstantivelypeaking,we had quite
differentnterestsndeven
posteriori,heres little priori eason o
suppose
hat ur
nterests ould verconverge nd overlap.)
But back to November 941,whenPaul, as the lder f us, invited
theMertonsodinner.nwhat was to discoverwas typical auline
fashion, pon our
arrival
aul metus at thedoor nd said something
like
his: Bob,
I
have wonderfulewsforyou. 've just gotten call
from he
O.F.F.
in
Washingtonthatwas theOffice f Facts
and
Fig-
ureswhich
was
thepredecessorf heOffice fWar nformation
hich
in
turnwas, believe,
he
predecessor ftheVoice ofAmerica]. hey
wantme to do
some testsof responses o several adiomorale ro-
grams. o here's
a
great pportunityoryou. Come withme to the
studio
o see how we
test udience
esponse."
Thus twas thatPaul draggedmeintothe strangeworld f radio
research-back
n
those arlydays,unknowno ust about veryone
and
surelyo to
me.
knew hat aulheadedup somethingalledthe
Office
f Radio Research
ut
knew
nothing
bout
tswork. o
offwe
went
nd
then t
was
that
saw
a
strange pectacle.Do try o
see it
through y
hennaive
yes
and
rememberhat
your resent ophisti-
cation s the
egacy
f
lmost alf centuryfevolvingnquiry.
enter
a
radiostudio or hefirst
ime,
nd
there see
a smallish
roup-a
dozen,
r were
here
wenty?-seated
n
twoor
three
ows.
Paul and
take urplaces s observerst the ideof he oom sunobtrusivelys
we
can;
there s no
one-way
mirror r
anythingf that ort.These
people
are
being
sked
to
press
a red
button n
their hairswhen
anythinghey
hear
on
the
recorded adio
program
vokes
negative
response-irritation,nger, isbelief,
oredom-andto
press green
button hen
hey
ave
a
positive esponse.
or the
est,
o
buttons
t
all.
soon earn hat heir
umulative
esponses
re
being egistered
n
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The Focussed
Interviewand
Focus
Groups
553
a primitive
olygraph
onsisting
f the
requisite
umber
f
fountain
pens
connectedysealing
wax and string,s itwere,
o
produce
umu-
lative urves f ikesand dislikes. hatprimitivenstrumentecame
known s the
Lazarsfeld-Stanton
rogram
nalyzer.
Thereafter,
e
observe
one of Paul's assistants
uestioning
he
test-group-the
audience-about
their
reasons"for
heir ecorded
ikes
nd
dislikes.
I begin assing
otes
o Paulabout
what
take o
be
great
eficiencies
in theinterviewer's
actics
nd
procedures.
He was not
focussing
sufficiently
n
specifically
ndicated eactions,oth ndividual
nd
ag-
gregated.
e was inadvertentlyuiding
esponses;
e was not
liciting
spontaneous
xpressions
f earlier
esponses
when egmentsf
the
radioprogram erebeing layed ackto thegroup.And so onand so
on.
For
although
his s a newkind f nterviewituation
or
me,
am
not
unfamiliar
ith he rt
ndcraft f
nterviewing.
or
one
thing,
had
spent
more ime
han care to
remember
uring
he summer
f
1932
when
was
a
graduate
tudent
t
Harvard,
elping
o
keepmyself
alive
by
working
n
a
WPA
project
evoted o
nterviewingust
about
all thehoboes
nd homeless
men nd women
hat
ould
be located
n
the
Boston
area.
Having
had
the
experience
f interviewing
nder
those ometimestrenuousonditions,his ituationtrikesmeas pro-
viding
lmost rivileged
ccess
to people'sstates
f mind
nd
affect.
At
any
rate,
fter he nterviews
over,
Paulasks me:"Well,
what
did
you
think
f
t?"
I
proceed
o expressmy
nterest
n thegeneral
formatnd to reiterate,
t
some
ength,
my ritiquefthe
nterviewing
procedure.
hat,of course,
s
all Paulhad to hear.
As I
was tolearn
over he
years
was altogetherypicalf
him, e
promptlyo-opts
me.'
"Well, Bob,
it
happens
hatwe have
another
roup omingn
for
test.
Will
youshowus
how the
nterviewhould
e done?"
Thatwas
not defensive-aggressiveuestion,s you mightmistakenlyuppose
it was. Rather,
hatwas our Paul,
founding
irector f
the Office
f
Radio Research
as of other niversity-linked
rganizations
edicated
to
socialresearch),
ngaged n
preliminary
o-optation.
allow s
how
I will
trymy
hand at it-and
thusbeganmy
ifewith
whatwould
eventuate s
thefocussed roup-interview.
Judith
anger poke
f he
promptitude
hese
ayswith
which ocus-
group
data are acquired nd the
promptitude
ithwhich
ualitative
reports
asedon those
data areprepared.
hat's
not ntirelynfamil-
iar. recallPaul nducingmetowork na distinctlyreliminarynaly-
sis of hose
nterview
aterials
uringhenext ays,
he
weekend. he
1. In
his
passion
o
getall problems
e
thought
mportant
olved,
Paulmade
t
an
enduring
ractice
o
co-opt
ssociates
f
every
kind
o work n
them-students,
f
course,
ut
lsocolleagues
fvariedtripe:
oung
ndold;
near
nd
far;
ocial
cientists,
logicians,
mathematicians,
tatisticians,
nd philosophers.
his
pattern
f
disinterested
co-optation
as
been
beautifully
ecaptured
nprint
y twoofour
tudents
rom
hose
ancient
ays
ofthe
1940s
nd50s:
James
. Coleman
1980) nd
David
L.
Sills
1987).
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554 Robert
K. Merton
reportwas in the Office f Facts and Figureswithin week. That,
remember, as in November 941.Then ameDecember th, nd the
warwhich eld ittle ationalistic eaning utmuchmoral ignificance
for
many
f us back then.Not
very
much
ater nd for
ome
time
duringhewar, foundmyself ervings the iaison esearch erson
between he Columbia
group
nd whathad been established
y
the
United tates
Army
n
October fthat
ear
s theResearch ranch f
whatwas successivelynowns theMoraleDivision, hen heSpecial
ServicesDivision,
nd
finallys the nformationnd Education
ivi-
sion.
The
movementoward
uphemisms
ad
plainly egun.)
he
Re-
search ranchwas
directed n ts
research
not dministrative)
ide
by
the ngeniousndpracticed ocialresearcheram Stoufferwhowould
eventuallyee to
it
that distillationf the field tudies onducted
duringWorldWar
I
would ppear ntheform f thefour olumes f
TheAmerican oldier.)2 ooking newatvolume ,
I
notethat aul
and
I
are both isted s "consultants," lthough
n
theevent,
Paul
contributed
nfinitely
ore
han
in
that
apacity, specially hrough
his earlyformulationf latent tructurenalysis which ppears
n
volume , devoted
o
methodologicalnnovationsy
or for he Re-
searchBranch).
A
bit
more
boutthe
earlyphase
n
the
genesis
nd
growth
f the
focussed
group-interview.
or
a
time,
found
myself nterviewing
groups
f soldiers
n
Army amps
about
their
esponses
o
specific
training
ilms
nd
so-calledmorale ilms-some f them
esigned y
Frank
Capra
and other irectors f
that alibre.
n
the
ourseof that
experience
nd ater
n
work t theBureau f
Applied
ocial
Research
(which
had
evolved from he ColumbiaOffice f Radio
Research),
there
eveloped
he et
of
procedures
hich ameto be known
s the
focussed nterview. s Sam Stoufferotednhisprefaceovolume ,
thoseprocedures
ere
not
reported
here
ecause,by agreement
ith
him nd his
associate
Carl
Hovland, hey
ad been
published
everal
years
before
n
the
paper by
Pat
Kendall and
myselfMerton
nd
Kendall,1946).
As
early
s
1943, lso,
we were
putting
ocussed
nterviewso
use
with ndividualss
well
s
groups.
A
prime
ase
in
point
s the
tudy f
a "radio
marathon,"
hen
wholly
ewhistorical
henomenon,
hich
promised
o
provide "strategic
esearch ite" for
nvestigating
he
collective ehavior nd socialcontexts fmasspersuasionMerton,
Fiske,
nd
Curtis, 1946]1971).During period
f
18
hours,
he
pops
2. SamuelA. Stouffer
t al.,
The American oldier:
Adjustmenturing
Army ife;
Samuel
A. Stouffer
t
al.,
The American oldier:Combat nd
ts
Aftermath;
arl .
Hovland,
rthur . Lumsdaine,
ndFredD. Sheffield,xperiments
n Mass
Communi-
cation;
amuelA. Stouffert
al., Measurement
ndPrediction.
rinceton: rinceton
University
ress,1949.
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The Focussed
Interview and Focus
Groups 555
singerKate Smith,widely erceived s a charismatic
atriot-figure,
spoke a seriesof prepared exts n 65 occasions,eliciting
he
then
unprecedentedotal f$39 millionnwar-bondledges.We conducted
focussednterviews
ith
00
New
Yorkers
whohad istened
o
part r,
in some cases, to all [ ] of theSmith roadcasts, oth hose isteners
who had responded y pledging war bond and
thosewho had not.
These interviews ere conductedwith isteners
ndividuallyn their
homes,
ot
ollectively
n
a radio tudio.
n the
bsence f
he
program
analyzer
o
provide oints fdeparture,he
nterviews erefocussed
upon
the
broadcast extswhichwe had subjected
o an intensiveon-
tent
nalysis.
The
resulting ualitativematerials
id muchto help
shapethe nterpretationf thequantitativeata, based upon polling
interviews itha representativeampleof about a thousand
New
Yorkers. t was thefocussed-interviewatathat
ed to dentificationf
a
public
distrust elated o a
sense
of anomie-in which
common
values
were
being ubmerged
n
a welter
f private
nterestseeking
satisfactionyvirtuallynymeanswhich re
effective"
p. 10).Analy-
sis
of thesedata led us also to a
social
phenomenon:
in
place
of
a
sense
of
Gemeinschaft-genuineommunity
f
values-there
ntrudes
pseudo-Gemeinschaft-theeigningfpersonaloncern ith he ther
fellow
n
order o
manipulate
im
the better"
p. 142);
n
still
ther
words,
the mere
pretense
f common alues
n
order o
further
ri-
vate
nterests"p. 144) Merton, 975:83; ohen,
1975;Beniger, 987).
The
focussed nterviewf ndividuals id not
exhibit ertain ssets
and
liabilities
f the
focussed
nterview
f small
groupings.I say
"groupings"
ince
hesewerenot,
f
ourse, roups
nthe ociological
sense of
having
common
dentity
r
a continuing
nity, hared
norms, nd goals.) Still, nteractionmong he
members f suchpro
tem ontrivedroups videntlyerved o elicit heelaborationf re-
sponsesust
as
it
may
have
contaminatedndividual
esponses y
mak-
ing
for bservable
onvergencef them. orrelatively,
he ndividual
interviewsased
on
prior ontent-analysisfthematters nder xami-
nation learly llowedformore ntensive lucidationy each person
while
not providing or he ntroductionf new
leads stimulatedy
others.
Years ater,Harriet uckermandapted nddeveloped his actic f
interviews ith ndividuals
ocussed
n the
priornalysis
f "texts"
n
herstudy f an ultra-elite,obel laureatesn science Zuckerman,
1972,
1977:
App. A). There, he content eing
nalyzed
n
detail o
provide
oci forthe
nterview as of coursefarmore omplex
nd
wide-ranginghan
n
the studies f mass-communication
ehavior. t
involved,
or
xample, dentifyingypothetically
ey events nd se-
quences
n
the
biographies
f
he aureates, rovisional
dentification
f
their ociometric
etworkst
various hases
of
heir areers,
he
pot-
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8/18
556 Robert K. Merton
ting
of their
uccesses
and failures n
research,
nd
patternede-
quences
dentified
n
their
ibliographies. s
Zuckerman
oted, his
was a kind f "focussed nterview,"ne that rovides or nalysis nd
interpretationather hanonlyfor hronicleas is typicallyhe case
with oral
histories").
But back to thefocussed nterview ith roups. his s plainly ot
the occasion
for
a systematicccountof its essential eaturess a
research ool. However, houldyou be able to find copy of The
Focused nterview-tomydismay, hepublishernsisted n dropping
one
of
the 's
in
focussed-you
will
find full ccount f
component
proceduresnd therationale or ach ofthem.But you are not pt tolocate a copy. Thatbook, published y The Free Press n 1956 fter
two editions
ad been
published y
theBureauof
Applied
ocialRe-
search
n
mimeographedorm,s thoroughlyut ofprint.
n
fact, his
copy,
which
located
or his
vening,
ontains
cardfrom
my
ecre-
tary
f
the
mid-1970s
hich eads:
"This
is the
only opy
we
have
n
the
office."3
You
might
urn nstead o the more ccessible
paperby
Pat
Kendall
nd
myself, ublished
n
theAmerican ournal
f
Sociol-
ogy
en
years
before hebook
Merton
nd
Kendall,1946).
In light f all this,youwillnotbe surprisedo learn hatwhat 've
heard bout
ocus-group
esearch
hus
ar
onight,nd
the ittle
eading
I've done on the subject, esonates.At east, n ts bold outlines, he
disciplined
se
of
focus-group
ata has an
amiable
ongruence
ith
whatwe were
trying
o
do
with he focussed nterview ack
then.
However,
was struck
y
certain
eatures
f
Judithanger's ummary
of heuses of
focus-group
aterials
owadays.
hese seem
o
contrast
strongly
ith
heways
n
which
we had
beenmakingse offocussed-
interview
aterials.
ou
will
recallmyhaving
eferred
o
work
with
Sam StoufferndtheResearchBranchwhichhad involved ocussed
group-interviews.
hat
workwas
in
conjunction
ith
Carl
Hovland,
who headed
up
the
Experimental
ectionof
the Research
Branch.
Carl,
who
was
on leave from
ale
during
he
war,
was
possibly
he
most
ccomplishedxperimentalsychologist
ver o work
n
the
f-
fects f ocial
ommunication;any
f
youmaynot
know im
ince
he
died
n
1961 t the
age
of
49,
but
he
is
remembereddmiringly
nd
affectionatelyy
thoseof us who knewhimwell.
Now,
Carl was the
one
designing
nd
directing
ontrolled
xperiments
n the
esponses
f
soldiers o those rainingnd "morale"films. newould hinkhat he
3. I've ustfound
vidence,
n theform f
a letter
rom he xecutive
ice
president
f
Benson
& Benson
nc.
writtendozen
years go,
that hebook
was
outof
printt
east
by
then.
However,
'll
postpone
eporting
hat ntil
ater ince tprovides
mewith
bridge etween
hefocussed
nterview
ndfocusgroups
which had forgotten
ntil
cameupon
he
etter.
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The Focussed Interview
and Focus
Groups
557
experimentalse oftest nd
control roups
wouldbe taken o provide
a
sufficientesignfor
dentifyinghe
effects f the films. ut Carl
wisely ecognizedhat hiswas not o. Itcouldnotprovidehe pecific
qualitativenformatione
were ble to
provide hroughurfocussed
interviews.
hat nformationovedbeyond
he net effects
f "the
films"a
most omplex etof evocative
timuli-todentify,t least
provisionally,he lements
nd configurations
fthat omplex xperi-
ence
whichmight ave led to
thoseeffects.
hequantitativexperi-
mental
esign
nabled
ne to
determinehe ggregateffects
utpro-
vided no clues to
what t was about the ilm's
content hatmight ave
produced heobserved
ffects. he focussed
nterview as designed
toprovide uchmaterials-it dentified,rovisionallyndsubject o
checks hroughurther
uantitative
xperimentalesearch,he spects
of
situational
xperienceeading o the
observed utcomes.
hiswas
so either
n
investigating
particularoncrete xperience,
s
in
the
case
of
responses o
a
particular
ilm
r radio
program,r a recurrent
experience, hich,
take
t, s
often he
research ocus ffocus-group
research hese
days.
Our
qualitativedjuncts
o the
xperimentalesign
oon convinced
that rilliantesignerfexperimentsarlHovland hat othkinds f
data were
required
or ound onclusions: he
rigor
f thecontrolled
experiment
ad ts
costs ince tmeant
ivingp
access tothe
phenom-
enological spects
of
the
real-life
xperience
nd nvitedmistaken
n-
ferences bout
the
sources
f
that
xperienced
esponse;
he
qualita-
tive detail
provided
y
the
focussed
group-interview
n turn
ad its
costs ince
t
could ead
only
o new
hypotheses
bout
he ources nd
character
f
the
response
which
n
turn
equired
urther
uantitative
or,
n
this
ase,
further
xperimental
esearch
o test he
hypotheses.
Fromwhat haveread ndheard, gatherhatmuch ffocus-group
research
oday
s a
growing
ype
f
market esearch oes
not nvolve
this
omposite
f
both
ualitative
nd
quantitative
nquiry.
ne
gains
the
mpressionhat
ocus-group
esearchs
beingmercilessly
isused
as
quick-and-easy
laims or
he
validity
f
the
research
re notsub-
jected
to
further,uantitative
est.
Perhaps
he
pressures
f themar-
ketplace
for
quick-and-easy-possibly,
or
quick
and
relatively
n-
expensive-research
make for
this misuse
of
focus
groups.
That
misuse-the
term
eems
smidgen
ess harsh han abuse"-consists
in takingmerely lausible nterpretationserivingrom ualitative
group
nterviews
nd
treating
hem s
thoughhey
ad been shown o
be
reliably
alidfor
gauging
hedistributionsf
response.
Shannon's
undamental
heory
f communication
eminds s that
calculated
edundancy
as ts
uses
by
enlarging
he
probability
hat he
message
will
get
through.
o
I
sayredundantly
nd
emphaticallyhat,
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10/18
558 Robert K. Merton
for s, qualitative ocussed roup-interviews
ere aken s
sources f
new ideas and new hypotheses, ot as demonstratedindings
ith
regard o the extent nd distributionf the provisionallydentified
qualitative atternsfresponse. hose deas andhypotheses adto be
checked
ut
by
further
urvey
esearch
or
nthe
ase
oftheResearch
Branch tudies, y furtherxperimentalesearch).
he
point
s
that
limited ualitative esearch annot n principle eal with hedistribu-
tion and
extent
f tentativelydentifiedatterns.Medicine
had to
discover
hat linical
bservations
ereno substituteor
pidemiolog-
ical investigation.)can report o you
that
ome
of the
hypotheses
derived rom ocussed nterviews
uring
ur
collaborative
ork
with
Carl Hovlanddid notcheckoutuponfurthernquiry.hepoint s,of
course,
hat
here s no
way
of
knowing
n
advance
ffurther
uantita-
tive esearchwhich lausible nterpretationshypotheses)
ill
pan
out
and
which
will
not.
Focussed nterview nd Focus Groups:
Continuities nd
Discontinuities
I've been asked to speak to the subject f continuitiesetween he
focussed nterviewnd thecurrent
se offocusgroups.
believe hat
there re
both ontinuities
nd
discontinuities.have
the
mpression
that here s rathermore ntellectualontinuityhan xplicitlyecog-
nizedhistoricalontinuity.fterll, TheFocused nterviewoldonly
few
housand opies, or hemost art nthe1950s, believe, ndthen
went ut of
print.
We have
no evidence n
the
distribution
f those
copies-say,
as between
cademics
nd market
esearchers.
ooking
into iles,which vertheyearshaveproved o be a continuingource
of
serendipitous4
nd
therefore
urprisinginds,
discover
long-
forgotten
eferenceo
a
letter n the
mid-1970s.
t
testifies
hat here
was somedirect nd dentifiableontinuityhichwas then ecognized
by
research
eople
n
theworld fcommerce. ather han araphrase
that
etter,
'll
transmithis rchival racer ntact, hanks o myhome
Canon
photocopier
hich
llows
me
to canonize
his
ocument
with-
out
possible rror):
4. Inthis rinted
ersion
fmy alk
refero an unpublished
onographyRobert
.
Merton
ndElinor
arber1958).
ttreats
he ocial ndcultural
ontexts
f he oinage
of theword
erendipity
n the 18th entury;
he limate
frelevant pinion
n which
t
firstaw print
n the 19th;
hediverse ocial
circles f itterateurs,
hysical
ndsocial
scientists,
ngineers,
exicographers,
ndhistorians
ntowhich
t
diffused;
he
hanges
f
meaning
ndergone
n the
ourse
f diffusion,
nd the deological
ses to
whicht has
been
variouslyut.
rather
oubt hathe iffusion
f he ocussed
nterviews ready
or
a comparable
nalysis.
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11/18
The Focussed Interview and
Focus Groups
559
Benson& Benson,nc.
P.O. Box 269
Princeton,.J.08540June 7,1976
Professor
obertK. Merton
Fayerweatherall
Columbia niversity
New
York,
N.Y.
10027
Dear Professor
erton:
Over
the
years
we
have derived
onsiderablese from ur
copyof
the
second dition f TheFocussed
nterview-A
Manual. As youundoubt-
edly reaware,focussed roupnterviewingas becomewidespreadn
commercialircles nd
s
eliciting
nterest
nthe cademic ndnon-profit
research
ectors.Oddly nough,ittle as been
writtenn
the ubject n
systematic
ashion, nd, n nearly very ase,
thatwhich as
apparently
shouldnot
have been. We have urged ther
esearcherso
refer o the
Manual,
but
nvariably
ave been told hat opies simply re
notto be
found.
n
otherwords,we apparentlyossess
one of the
astknown
copies
ofthe
Manual, nd,
understandably,
re reluctanto end t out.
Now, we
are startingo receive ueries or
Xerox opies.
Our
opy
arries o copyrightndthe ntroduction
uggestshe eports
inthepublic omain.
We would
ike
to
reprint
he manual nd
offert for ale to interested
researchers
t about$10-$12percopy,plus
postage.We think
t s only
fair
hat
we consultwith ouon this irst.We
would ropose
o offerhe
authors
15%royalty
n eachcopy old. Payment ould e
made emi-
annually..
.
Sincerely,
Robert ezilla
Executive
ice
President
Now,
like
a
longtime qualitative
researcher,
want
to
take
you
briefly
hrough part
of this
document
which
testifies o
continuity
between
academe and
the
marketplace.
Note
that t
begins
by referring
to
"our
copy
of
. . .
The Focussed
Interview-A
Manual."
That must
refer
o the
second
mimeographed
dition
put
out
by
the
Columbia
Bureau
of
Applied
Social Research
rather
han
the
far
more
widely
circulated
etterpress
dition
publishedby
The Free Press
in
1956.
This
I infer rom
he
spelling
f the word
Focussed in the
title, spelling
have always preferrednd thereforedopted in the two Bureau edi-
tions
but
one,
as
I've
said,
which
The
Free
Press
(as
before
t,
the
editor
of the American Journal
of
Sociology)
had
unwarrantably
ut
forcibly
iminished o Focused.
Thus,
the two-essed
Focussed serves
as
a
marker f
the earlier
ditions.
Note too
that
by 1976,
he
executive
vice
president
f
Benson &
Benson
is
reporting
hat "focussed
[n.b.]
group
nterviewing as become widespread
n
commercial
ircles
and
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12/18
560 Robert
K.
Mertoi
is eliciting nterest n the academic and non-profit
ectors." If his im
pressionwas sound, this suggests-somewhat to
my startlenow an(
perhapsback in 1976-that thepattern f focussedgroup-interviewing
had
expanded to
the
pointof eliciting nlarged nterest
n the
academic
worldwhere thad originated.Not to continuewith
line-by-lineloss
I
remark nlynow on
the
ntrinsic ecency ofRobertBezilla of Bensor
&
Benson
in
suggesting royalty o
the
authors hould
he be allowed
ta
reprint
he
manual; this, mind you,
even
though
he
(mistakenly)
s.
sumed thatthe
work
was in
the public domain.
You may
be
curious about what happened
n
response to that
gener.
ous offer
o
reprint, s indeed
I
am.
But
nothing
n
my
archival files
allows me to say, fromwhich conclude thatnothing fconsequencc
happened.
That is one indicationof direct continuity etween academia
anc
the
marketplace. gather
that
during
he
passage
from
Morningsidc
Heights
to
Madison
Avenue the
focussed interviewhas
undergone
some
sea
changes of
the kind 've
been
in a
positiononlyto
hint t:
the
quick would-be conversionof
new
plausible nsightsntodemonstrable
gospel
truths.As I
say,
I'm not
really qualified
o
speak
to
this
poini
since 've seen nexttonothing f current ocus-groupesearch t close
range.
But
I
note
the
following
bservation
by
Leo
Bogart 1984:82):
In
the
1970s,
nother
ype
f
qualitative
esearch
apidlymoved
o
the
forefront:
he o-called ocus
group
nterviewn which
half-dozeno a
dozen
people
re
assembled
nd
engaged
n
discussion.
The
term
ocus
group
s a barbarismhat onfused
ociologist obert
K.
Merton's ech-
niqueof
an
unstructured
ut
"focused" nterview-inwhich skillful
interrogatoreeps he espondent'sttentionrom
andering
ff he ub-
ject
at hand-and
the
traditional
ociological echnique
f
talking
o a
homogeneous
r related
roup
f
people
who stimulateach other nder
the nterviewer'sracticed uidance.)*A groupnterviewan be con-
ducted
with
ittlemore
expense
than
n
intensiventerview ith ne
individual,
ut
since
everyone
n
the
group ets
counted, respectable
number
f
respondents
an be
toted
p
in
the
ample.
The
most
eguilingspect
ffocus
roups
s
that
hey
an be observed
in
action
y
clients nd creative
eople
hidden ehind
one-way
mirror.
Thus,
he
planners
nd executors f
advertising
an be made
o feel
hat
they
re
themselves
rivy
o the
nnermostevelations
fthe
onsuming
public. hey
know
what onsumershink f he
product,
he
ompetition,
and
the
advertising,aving
heard t at first and. The trouble s that
people
who an be enticednto
researchaboratory
o not
lways epre-sent true ross-sectionfpotentialustomers. cadreofprofessional
respondentsre alwaysready o volunteer,nd oud-mouthsan domi-
*
Paul
F.
Lazarsfeldnd Frank
tanton irst
ombined hese
echniques
n
the
radio rogram
nalyzer.
roups fpeople
ressed
uttonsorecordheirmoment-
by-momentesponses
o what
heyheard.The
interviewer,
xamininghetape,
questioned
hem s to
why hey eacted s
they id.CBS
still sesthis echnique
o
evaluate elevision
rograms.
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The Focussed
Interview and Focus Groups 561
nate nd
sway hediscussion.While seful ndprovocativedeas
emerge
from roupsust as they o from
ndividualualitativenterviews,
t s
dangerousoaccept hemwithoutorroborationromarger-scaleurveyresearch.
So much for
criticalobservationson
some present-day ractices n
focus-group esearch. Now back for a few
moments o
the
archives.
Roaming
throughmy filesof thatfullgeneration go-and you
recall
what Ortega
y Gasset, Karl Mannheim, nd
Juli'an
Marias had
to say
about the
social
reality
and
dynamics
of generations-I
have
come
upon
a
long-forgottenetter o Jeremiah
aplan, thefounding resident
of
The
Free
Press, telling
how the
mimeographed
ditions
of The
Fo-
cussed Interview ame to be transformednto he printed dition.Hav-
ing shared this etterwith
my
coauthors,Marorie Fiske and
Pat Ken-
dall,
I
now
include t n
what s
fast
becoming
n
archive-based hough
still
fragmentary
ccount of the
evolution
of the
focussed
group-
interview
s
prelude to
the
evolving
focus-groupmode of research.
[Mr.Jeremiahaplan
The Free Press]
8August 955
Dear Jerry,
...
The
news
ofthemomentn this:
have setmyself quota,during
these omfortable
acation-days,f
o
many ages dayfor
ewriting
he
Focused nterview.
ow that weekhas
goneby nd am still nsched-
ule,
am
quite
confidenthat t willbe
completed y
the ime return.
Since
my
ecretary
s
awaynextweek, herewill e a little
elay
n
typing
thisnew
version
ut hems. willdefinitelye ready or heprinter
ythe
end
of themonth....
Item
1: This
s
a complete e-writing;carcely ive entences
n
a
chap-
ter emainntact.Nevertheless,t s not, nany ignificantense, new
edition;here
s
next
o nothingywayofnewmaterial
except
or little
based on
focused nterviewsn
the
diaries
fmedical
tudents)
nd ittle
by way of
new
deas.
I've
tried
nly
o eliminatehe worsthorrors f
exposition
n the
arlier
rintingsnd,
for
he
rest,
o make t
clear,
f
not
fascinating.
t
seems
o
me, herefore,
hat
t
hould ot e
designated
s a
new
dition, ut s theThird
e-printing
rewritten),
o
that
o excessive
claims
eem o be
implied. hopeyou gree.
I'll explain
henature f he
rewritingn the
preface.)
Item
: As
youknow,
his
s a
short
ook-it
will
un o about 30
ms.
pages includingbout25 single-spacedagesofan analyticalableof
contents hichwas found sefulnthe
Bureau
editions').
wouldn't
ike
to
have
the
book
be too
expensive:
t is
all
straightext,
no
tablesor
charts,
nd hould e
easy
to set n
type.
At
he ame
ime, hope
hat
id
can
design
t
so that t isn't too
crowded.Can
you
et
me
have
your
thinkingn price nd
design?
.
Yours,
[Robert
.
Merton]
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14/18
562 Robert K. Merton
As can
be
seen, by the mid-1950she essential oncept f the fo-
cussed
nterview
nd ts basic
procedures
ith
heir
tated
ationales
had become stabilized. ndeed, these did not evolve furthert the
Columbia
Bureau. So it
was
that
this nterlinearewritingf the
Manual,which ookplace on
the
sandsof Ocean City and thusper-
haps ntroduced
new
diom, y-the-sea-change),ecame heversion
that oulddiffusend evidently id diffusentovarious esearch ec-
tors,notablyt seems nto hesector f market esearch.
Intellectual iffusion nd Obliteration y Incorporation
That
particularathway f diffusionnto hemarketplace as neither
intended
or,
s
I
recall, nticipated.peaking ormyself,thought
f
thefocussed nterview
s
a
generic esearchechnique,ne
that
ould
be
and
would
e
applied
n
every phere
f
human ehavior
nd
experi-
ence,
rather han
argely
onfinedo matters f nterestn market e-
search.
As forthe actual
paths
of diffusionaken
by
the
focussed
interview,
cannot
ay.
No
case study f
hat
iffusionas
been
made.
Perhaps study tilizinghenow vailable esourcesfcitationnaly-
sis
coupled
with nterview
r
questionnairenquiriesmong epresen-
tative
amples
f
different
opulations
f ocial
researchers ould
ro-
vide some
understanding
fthe xtent nd
directionsf
that
iffusion
of
a
modest, elimited,
nd
readily
dentifiable
nnovations well as
thekinds nddeterminantsfdiverse inds f
hanges
n
t
s it
spread
to
one
or another esearch ector.
Not,
mind
ou,
hat
hediffusionf
this
echnique
warrants
uch
a
study
ecause of ts research
mpor-
tance
but
only
because it seems to have some of the
elements f
a
strategicesearch ite5 ornvestigationfthediffusionf ntellectual
innovations-and
hat,
s
many
f
you know,
was a
subject
f
deep
interest
nthe
Columbia ureau f
Applied ocial
Research ack
n
the
1960s,
s
you'llrecall
from he
path-breakingtudy y
Jim
oleman,
Elihu
Katz,
and
Herb
Menzel
1966).
And s
you
couldnot
know,
hat
interest
as
been
brilliantly
enewed
on
Morningside eightsby
RonaldS. Burt
1987)
n
his
reanalysis
f the
Coleman-Katz-Menzel
data.
So
much
or n
excursionnto heserious, ystematictudy f the
diffusionfinnovations. ere, in theconcludingmoments f these
remarks,
can
only
urn
o the
rchiveswhich nce againyield bit
f
pertinentvidence-evidencewhich ears
witness hat he
focussed
interview as not
onfinedo academe
r
the
marketplaceut,
t east
once,
found
ts
way
nto he
sphere
f
religion,
iz.:
5. The
concept
f strategic
esearch
ite s elucidated
omewhat
n
Merton,
987.
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The Focussed Interview
and Focus
Groups
563
Board
of Education
The
UnitedMethodist
hurch
Division ftheLocal Church
September 8,
1969
Dr. RobertK. Merton
Departmentf Sociology
Columbia
niversity
New York,NewYork 10027
Dear Dr. Merton:
We
are
conductingmajor tudy f
the tate fthe hurchchool
f
The
UnitedMethodist hurch nd would ike to make use ofthe focusedinterviewechnique hich ou have describedn thebookbythat itle.
I
am having ifficulty
ocating dditional
opiesofthebook ndam won-
dering
f
youcoulddirectmeto a supplier
rom hom
we
might
urchase
copiesfor se
n
our rainingessions.
Up to this ime he nly
opieswe
havebeen ableto discover re those
which re n several ibraries.
Your help
n thismatter illbe greatly
ppreciated.
Cordially ours,
Warren . Hartman
Back now
to a
few
more bits of documentary
vidence on
the con-
tinuity rom
he
focussed
nterview s a mode
of
social
and
psychologi-
cal
inquiry
o the focus
group.
I turn
o
the
fairly
ecent
past
and the
virtual
present
for
a
few
qualitative
ndicatorsof
that
continuity.
n
1976,precisely
30
years
after at Kendall's and
my
first
ublication
n
the focussed
interview,
n
introduction
n
a book entitled
Qualitative
Research in
Marketingby Danny
Bellenger,
Kenneth
Bernhardt,
nd
Jack Goldstucker published by the Chicago MarketingAssociation)
virtually egins
by reporting
hat"Merton, Fiske,
and Kendall
distin-
guishthefocus groupas following hese
criteria"
nd thenproceeds
to
quote
the
paragraph
on "The Nature of
the
Focused
Interview"
that
opens
our
book. Here
you
will note a
diagnostic
conflating
f
the
focussed interview nd
the
focus
group,
at least a
terminological
on-
flation.We never used the term"focus group"-at least,
not as
I
recall-but
apparently
hese authors on marketing
esearch saw
the
focus
group
s
so fully erivative s
to have us setting owncriteria or
focusgroups.To be sure, we repeatedly xaminethe values and limita-
tions of
using
focussed
interviews
n
groupsrather
han
ndependently
with
ater
ggregated
ndividuals nd thatmight e a basic
theme n the
continuity-cum-change.
Recognitionof
the accent on thattheme s found n a
fairly ecent
article
ust
drawn to
my attention
hat was published n
Information
Technology and
Libraries (December
1983). Introducing research
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16/18
564
Robert K. Merton
programor ibrarysers ndon-line ublic ccess catalogsOPACS), t
has occasion o refer o "focused-groupnterviews"ndgoeson to say
(p. 381) that completedescriptionsf the focused-groupnterview
method nd
analysis
re
given
n
Merton,
iskeand Kendall'smanual
on themethod."
Early
on
in
these
remarks-so long ago
that
you
are not apt to
remember-Ihazarded he mpressionhat herewas more intellec-
tual
ontinuity"
etween he
focussed
nterviewndfocus roups han
"explicitlyecognized istoricalontinuity."
he
distinctionetween
the
wo
kinds f
continuitys one that as ong
eemed asic to me n
tryingounderstandatternsn thehistoricalransmissionf knowl-
edge.For nthe ourse f ime,deaswhichretaken pandutilized r
developed
ecome o
much
part
fcurrent
nowledge,
oth
xplicit
andtacit,
hat heir
ources ndconsequently
he inesof ntellectual
continuityet ncreasingly
ost o view. have
dentifiedhis
henome-
non
n
the ransmissionfknowledges "obliterationy ncorporation
(OBI)":
"the
obliterationfthe
ources
f
deas,
methods,
r
findings
by
their
ncorporation
n
currentlycceptedknowledge.'
6
At the
out-
set,
he
ource
f
particular
dea ormethod
s known nd dentified
y
thosewhomakeuse of t. In due course,however, sers nd conse-
quently ransmitters
f that
knowledge ho
are
thoroughly
amiliar
with ts origins ome to assume hat his s also
true f their eaders.
Preferring
ot o be
obvious r to nsult heir
eader's ssumed nowl-
edgeability,hey
o
onger
efer
o
the
riginal
ource.And
ince,
n
ll
innocence,many f us tend o attribute significantdea,method, r
formulation
o
the
uthorwho
ntroduced
s to
t,
he
qually
nnocent
transmitterometimes ecomes dentified
s
the
originator.
hus
t
s
that n
the successive ransmissionfknowledge, epeated
se of t
may raseall butthe mmediatelyntecedentsource,"thus roduc-
ing
what described
n
On
the
houldersof
Giants
Merton,
965:218-
219ff.)
s
a
historical
alimpsestor palimpsesticyndrome)
n
which
the
original
ource s
notonlyobliterated
ut
replaced y
the
nter-
mediary
etween ource nd
recipient
f that
knowledge.
Without
oing
he
requisite esearch,
cannot
resume
o
say
how
much f he eeming iscontinuityetweenhe ocussednterviewnd
its modified
and,
take
t, sometimesbused)version
n
the
form f
focus
groups
s
actuallynothernstance f
obliteration
y ncorpora-
tion.But that ome OBI has occurred an be inferredrom recent
article
y
two
professors
f
sociology
t the
University
fCalifornia-
Riverside,
avid L.
Morgan
nd
Margaret
.
Spanish 1984),
which
describes
focus
groups"
s
"a
relatively
ewresearch ool"
p. 253).
6.
The phenomenon
f
OBI is
noted n Merton,
1968,
and in
other
writings
ince.
This
summary
s drawn fromMerton,
1979;
see also Garfield,
977.
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The Focussed Interview and Focus Groups
565
Ifthefocussed nterview as experiencedvenoccasional bliteration
by ncorporationn theoriginatingield f sociology, ne s inclined o
supposethat t is all the more a fortiori)ikely o have occurredn
other ields
nto
which t had
diffused.
And nowa finalword, temmingnce againfrom hemarketplace,
but one which,muchto my pleasure, ecognizes hat he focussed
interviews not t all confinedo marketesearch.ndeed, n ight f ts
use by religious nd other leemosynarynstitutions,t might venbe
described s ecumenical.
ut
perhapsmore ellings a
review
f
The
Focused Interview ppearing n the October 1956 ssue of The Journal
of Marketing. nderstandably,he
review
s oriented o
its
probable
readersnremarkinghat hebook "shouldbe ofparticularalue othe
studentnd
practitioner
f
marketingesearch."
Good
enough;
more
qualitativevidence fdiffusionrom cademe o themarketplace.
ut
muchmore
n
point or heoriginal oncept f
the
focussed
nterview
as a generic ather han ubstantivelyestrictedesearch ool s the
concluding
eclarationn
the
review
hat This
manual
hould
e read
by thosewho are attemptingo understandheproblemsnvolved
n
subjective r motivationesearch n whatever ield
t
may
ie." Pre-
cisely o. Useful ormarketingesearch, o be sure,butnotonly or
marketingesearch. ather, set ofprocedures or he ollection nd
analysis
f
qualitative
atathat
mayhelpus gain
n
enlargedociologi-
cal and
psychological nderstanding
n
whatsoever phere f
human
experience.
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