1. Dream Analysis
Freud (1900) considered dreams to be the royal road to the unconscious as it is in dreams that the ego's defences are lowered so that some of the repressed material comes through to awareness, albeit in distorted form.
Dreams perform important functions for the unconscious mind and serve as valuable clues to how the unconscious mind operates.
On 24 July 1895, Freud had his own dream that was to form the basis of his theory. He had been worried about a patient, Irma, who was not doing as well in treatment as he had hoped. Freud in fact blamed himself for this, and was feeling guilty.
Freud dreamed that he met Irma at a party and examined her. He then saw a chemical formula for a drug that another doctor had given Irma flash before his eyes and realized that her condition was caused by a dirty syringe used by the other doctor. Freud's guilt was thus relieved.

2. Freud interpreted this dream as wish-fulfillment
Freud interpreted this dream as wish-fulfillment. He had wished that Irma's poor condition was not his fault and the dream had fulfilled this wish by informing him that another doctor was at fault. Based on this dream, Freud (1900) went on to propose that a major function of dreams was the fulfillment of wishes.

3. Content Analysis

4. What is content analysis?
Content analysis is a research method used to measure the number of times a behaviour or event occurs within one or several forms of media (or other artefacts). e.g. songs, TV, books, magazines, computer games, newspapers etc.
The process is similar to that of an observation although is indirect as you are not observing people directly.

5. Content analysis Quantitative
Is often linked with analysis of documents.
Most documentary evidence is qualitative but it is possible to turn qualitative evidence in to quantitative.
Quantitative content analysis involves categorising the information in some way in order to make comparisons between documents. So you may count the column inches devoted to women's sport for example.
Speeches, books, television programmes or reports can be analysed using content analysis

6. Quantitative content analysis
Strengths 
You can make comparisons see patterns and trends
Makes complex text easier to analyse. You can find meanings or biases at a glance
You can repeat the analysis to test reliability
Weaknesses 
It can distort the truth. You will only find info on the categories you originally look for. This means you can easily create a bias
Does not give context i.e. through analysis you can lose the original depth and detail
See also Brain text book

7. What happens in a content analysis? See hand out on the blog
Sample: a content analysis is different from other research methods in that the sample is not a group of people.
The sample will be the artefacts that are to be analysed. This needs to be representative. For example, if looking at objects noted in a dream diary, you would need a range of diaries from men and women. If you only used one gender then your sample would be biased, and you may not be able to generalise your results. Alternatively, you would need diaries over a period rather than just one night as this would again limit generalisability.

8. Everyday objects (pen, chair etc) Familiar faces in the dream
Coding System: Similarly to an observation, the researcher has to create a coding system, which breaks down the information into categories. So for each dream, you may first identify the location of the dream and then tally other elements
Alone in the dream
Everyday objects (pen, chair etc)
Familiar faces in the dream
Celebrity in the dream
Heights involved
Beach / sea location
Etc.....

9. Tallies Alone in dream beach forest No dream
The researcher would then tally each time a particular behaviour is included. This is called a quantitative analysis.
Dream analysis
Tallies
Alone in dream
beach
forest
No dream

10. An alternative to having a coding system like above is to do a qualitative analysis.
This is where the researcher has discovered certain themes and chooses a particular example to illustrate this theme.
Instead of counting the data, the relevant information is described (hence qualitative rather than quantitative).

11. Results: the researcher then looks at the data he has collected, and draws conclusions.
For example, you may find that there are more dreams where the location was on a beach
You can then link this to the idea of dreams represent places the individual feels calm and relaxed
Your conclusion would be linked to the individual themselves as this is a dream analysis
If it was linked to something such as gender stereotypes in adverts, you could conclude linking to theory… majority of adverts DO have gender stereotypes (man & cars, women & household products)..meaning more adverts should represent both genders with a variety of tasks

12. Strengths and weaknesses of content analysis
High ecological validity
No chance of demand characteristics.
Replicable
Reliability can also be assessed using inter-observer reliability
Observer bias
Culture bias (Ethnocentric)
We cannot draw cause and effect relationships

13. Conducting a content analysis
Steps you need to do:
Develop a list of categories that could be measured / observed within the dream diaries
Decide on the sample you need to study (e.g. a representative sample which will allow you to discuss the issue dreams). What sampling decisions do you have to consider?
You may wish to just use yours – is it over more than one night? Or you could pair up with a friend

14. Conducting a content analysis
4. Briefly describe your sources and how you sourced them. Remember to make this a fair representation.
5. Tally (count) the number of set behaviours that were used (based on your catergories)
6. Draw a visual representation of quantitative data.
7. Were there any qualitative comments that could be made?
8. Write up your findings and draw a conclusion.
This is due in Friday 6th Oct – template on blog

15. Real life example …
To understand what a content analysis is there are lots out there for you to look at:
A content analysis was conducted by Dr Guy Cumberbatch and Sally Gauntlett on behalf of Ofcom into ‘Smoking, alcohol and drugs on television’ – this can be found on the Blog
– a short video outlining a content analysis
PHG pg 164 has the study that we are basing ours on
PHG pg has a lot of info ono content analysis… PLEASE READ AND MAKE NOTES

16. Possible Exam question
Researchers were interested in children’s use of social networking sites, such as ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’. They asked children to write an essay about their use of social networking. In their essays, the children were asked to consider how often they used social networking sites, who they communicated with and the main topics discussed. There were 80 participants in the study: twenty children aged 13 –14 years from each of four different schools in the Birmingham area. There were equal numbers of boys and girls. Before the study began, the researchers devised a set of categories to be used to analyse the children’s essays. These included the following categories: number of social networking friends; daily use of sites; topics discussed.
a.Briefly explain why this study is an example of content analysis. (2 marks)
b.Explain how the psychologists might have carried out content analysis to analyse the essay about their use of social networking. (4 marks)
3. Briefly explain one strength of content analysis. (2 marks)

17. Case Study type of question
Case studies are different to content analysis. Ensure you are familiar with this method as well
4. A psychologist had investigated whether people with depression felt that time passed more slowly than people without depression. She decided to conduct a case study into a small group of people with depression.
i.Explain why it would be appropriate to use a case study to investigate this. (2 marks)
ii.Suggest how the psychologist could conduct a case study to find out this information. (4 marks)