OVERVIEW

This handbook deals with the use of content analysis for making inferences about the characteristics or experiences of persons or social groups. In this chapter the ancestry, conception, and gestation of this volume are briefly described. The particular approach to content analysis of the contributors is characterized; highlights are reviewed; integrative themes are identified; a trend away from single-variable research is documented; and some not-so-obvious implications of the contents for the debate about the cross-situational consistency of behavior are noted.

Conception

The initial impetus for the book was provided by requests to the contributors for copies of their scoring systems and practice materials. Soon the plan expanded to include information about current research, and a section on theoretical and methodological issues. Part I deals with the determinants of thematic apperception, reliability and validity, the relation of thematic analysis to other contemporary methods of conceptualizing and measuring person variables, and the use of thematic methods in survey research and for the analysis of archival and naturally occurring verbal materials. Part II presents fourteen different scoring systems for the assessment of motives, attributional and cognitive orientations, and psychosocial orientations. With one exception, these systems are applicable to verbal material from both sexes. Each system is introduced by a concise chapter describing the development of the system and key studies.