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As the majority of research is now released via infographic, The Data Museum is currently on long-term hiatus. These archives will be maintained on the Wilkening Consulting website for the foreseeable future.

For the latest research findings, please visit the Data Stories section of the Wilkening Consulting website.

Men and Museums: A Social Experience

5/20/2017

 
Museums are a great place to spend time with family and friends. We all know that.

Research confirms that many museum visits are driven by a desire for a good social experience with those we care about (why museums are chosen over other options is where motivations get really interesting, but I digress). And let's be honest, we choose museums for time with our families and friends as well. I know I do.

But when we think of who drives that social experience, many of us think of women. Moms making choices for their families. Wives bringing husbands. Groups of female friends at the art museum or botanical garden. Women also comprise a significant majority of museum email lists … and thus are typically more aware of what is going on at museums.

There are exceptions (visions of my father and WWII museums in Europe come to mind), but generally … women. Right?

What if we're wrong?

In broader population research I fielded last fall, I asked respondents, both museum-goers and non-visitors, if they were to visit a museum, what their primary reasons would be. When it comes to spending time with family or friends, here's what I found:
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Yep, men were 1.3x more likely to cite time with family and friends.

Museum-going men were 10 percentage points more likely to cite this reason than museum-going women, 42% vs. 32%.

And even among non-visitors, men were still more likely; 24% of men said if they were to visit museums, this would be a reason versus only 17% of women.

So maybe we need to rethink our assumptions a bit, and consider how we can attract and engage more men in ways that motivate them to say "hey, let's go to the museum today" with their family or friends.

And a final note. Spending time with family or friends wasn't the top reason why someone might visit a museum for either men or women. Learning experiences for themselves was number one for both, at 37%.


The questions for this survey have been inspired by ongoing conversations within the museum field (who does/does not go to museums, why they do/do not visit, and what that means for communities) and ongoing research in the fields of education and psychology around lifelong learning and intrinsic motivation.
George Buss
5/30/2017 03:33:39 pm

Susie, this is a really interesting observation. I wonder how decision making and motivations interact in the group dynamics.

For some, the motivation may occur post-decision from some one else in the group: the man who attends the art museum because his wife has made plans for them to attend. For others, the motivation may inform the decision: the man who chooses to attend the art museum because his wife enjoys it.

While the motivation of "spending time with friends/family" is the same, the role that motivation plays in the decision making is very different.

Attracting and engaging more men to choose a museum experience for their family may require helping to frame the motivation as valuable to the relationships they value, so they lead the decision process, instead of led by it. While some would put the action for museums in our marketing, I would suggest that the action for us is in creating experiences that are memorable and deliver on the promise of improved relations with friends and family. In this way, when the motivation aligns with the decision making, museums are top of mind.

Susie Wilkening
6/1/2017 04:00:23 pm

George - good points. I wonder too about the conversations that happen when families or other social units make that decision. Or the underlying goals, which may be pleasing someone, etc. If only I were a fly on the wall ...

But I think you are right in your last paragraph ... aligning those personal goals with the idea that museums enable those goals. And that museums do it better than (many) other options.

BTW - as I am deep in coding of another question in the survey, I am seeing a few people articulate that they value museums as improving social time, and giving them fodder for conversation with family members. Not enough of them to code specifically, but still there. I've flagged a few as "interesting."


Comments are closed.

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