ABSTRACT
Introduction The present chapter describes two methods that, on the surface, may not appear the same but in fact entail similar problems and similar solutions. Observation tends to be thought of in the context of noting the behaviour of people, while content analysis is usually associated with analysing text. However, given that one can observe behaviour that has been videoed and that content analysis has been applied to television adverts, the distinctions between the two methods can become blurred. In fact, as was pointed out in Chapter 2, all psychological research can be seen as being based on the observation and measurement of behaviour-whether it involves overt movement, language or physiological states-for we cannot directly observe thought. Nonetheless, I will restrict the meaning of observation, in this chapter, to the observation of some form of movement or speech.
