ABSTRACT
Public concern with the methods that scientists use in studying other people is of course warranted on grounds quite apart from the basis of funding. Each of these issues has its counterpart for research on the behavior of children, though issues concerned with studies of children in foreign countries have not yet received much attention. The issues are: Personality questionnaires and the right to privacy; Deception; Consent; and Uses of information. As we explore these issues, it is easy to become preoccupied with the dangers of using children as subjects of behavioral research and the safeguards necessary to protect them, at the expense of appreciating the actual and potential contributions of behavioral research to child welfare. The inherent limitation in ethical codes is the leeway they leave for human judgment and for balancing competing values. At present, universities throughout the country are having their initial experience with one type of such a due-process mechanism.
