ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the hazards of observation through social filters. It discusses a short sample of inquiries that gives the flavor of social scientists' reliance on what others tell them as indicators of how they behave. Verbal surveys are a widely approved way of "observing" human action and condition, and they are political tools. Their importance merits therapeutic reminders of the hazards of asking others for information about themselves. The chapter argues that those who would measure action by attending to their subjects' words have an obligation to inform consumers of their studies of the reliability and validity of their instruments. Since asking people about their past activities is a major employment of questions put to them, memory is basic. A brief account of the vagaries of memory is followed by depiction of possible gaps between the stories respondents tell investigators and what other modes of observation reveal.
