Methodology

      In seeking to better understand the reasons for Surrealism's philosophical decline in today's society, I formulated a survey that aimed to reveal people's knowledge and understanding not only of Surrealism in general, but of the kind of creativity proposed by the Surrealists. The survey was completed by a sample of the world's population and distributed personally and via e-mail. I also conducted an interview by telephone with two individuals employed in the field of psychology and knowledgeable about art. These questions delved deeper into the same issues in the hope of enlightening the findings of the survey (See Appendix for details).
      The results of the survey were interesting, yet not altogether surprising bearing in mind the literature and my own understanding. Although the majority of the questions were yes/no type I found that almost all those who responded did so with a certain degree of elaboration. This could be attributed to the content of the questions themselves, in that the were provocative and of a subject that most people do not very often contemplate. The more open questions were designed to provide a range of answers, primarily adjectives that could be examined for their descriptive connections to the philosophy of Surrealism. They were also designed to illustrate people's general knowledge of Surrealism and its influences. The answers to these questions were the most revealing and provided a rich layer of information that would have been missing from a simple yes or no.
      The interviews were conducted using questions loosely based on some of the survey questions. In this way I hoped to gain further insight into the ideas that I considered the keys to understanding the function of Surrealism in a contemporary sense. Once again, they were provocative questions and caused the subjects to jump around to answer the easier questions while they continued to ponder the more difficult ones. It was a challenge for me not to begin a discussion with the subjects as ideas were expressed that were of great interest to me and to the research.
      I found that the creation of the survey was a much more difficult exercise to perfect. I struggled numerous times with the wording of the questions, wondering if I should add a word here or there to clarify my intentions. Upon reflection I was convinced that a certain degree of vagueness would be beneficial in collecting results that echoed the sentiments of the research. During the questioning however, I found that a certain degree of clarification was needed, clarification that in fact, I believe, may have projected too many of my own ideas onto the participant. In this respect, I found myself in the strangely unique situation of wanting the subject to be able to understand and answer effectively, but at the same time needing to explain the intentions of the question. It was almost like telling them how to answer correctly without actually providing a definitive answer.
      With such a subjective topic for research I am not sure what approaches would have been more successful. I am content with the results achieved through both the survey and interviews and have been able to use them effectively in conjunction with the literature to arrive at a satisfactory end.