Consider the Cost

 

Today we are discussing ethics because it has important implications for getting into a program or job and staying there.  As students, you may think ethics is unrelated to being accepted into a program; however, now-a-days, more programs are running background checks on students.  Background checks can be formal or informal.  Formal background check ensures that a student does not have a criminal history (drugs, violent offenses, theft, sexual offenses, etc.) and/or legal issues (malpractice suits), while also verifying your work experience and licensure history.  On the other hand, an informal background check may involve checking your social media presence or reviews from supervisors and professors.   While many students may not ever end up in an official report like the Hoffman, there are no guarantees that certain decisions will not come to light.  So, it is important to uphold integrity in your role as a student and professional. 

 

Several areas where students and professionals may violate ethical issues:

practice that results in psychological or physical harm to clients, embellishing work history/duties, falsifying grades, falsifying credentials, manipulating clients (internship or in general practice), plagiarism, reporting false data in research, dishonesty about graduating, poaching clients, disclosing client information without consent, misusing client information, and so forth.

 

The diagram above gives students and professions at any stage a good reminder of the complexity of ethics.  Ethics is not just about doing the right vs. wrong thing.  In life, there are gray areas.  Not every situation has an easy solution; yet, certain circumstances are obviously against the APA ethics code and harmful against others.  I recommend all readers to contemplate each section of this pie chart to consider if and how they are exemplifying these characteristics in their studies, research, and practice of psychology. 

Here are copies of several ethics codes.  Take the time to read these documents:

http://www.aera.net/Portals/38/docs/About_AERA/CodeOfEthics(1).pdf  (AERA Research Ethics)

https://ethics.od.nih.gov/policies.htm  (NIH Research Ethics)

http://www.bioethics.nih.gov/slides/10-29-03-Emmanuel.pdf  (NIH Slides on Ethics)

http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx (General Ethics)

http://www.apa.org/monitor/jan03/principles.aspx  (APA on Research)

http://www.counseling.org/Resources/aca-code-of-ethics.pdf  (Counseling Ethics)

http://www.apa.org/science/programs/testing/index.aspx (APA on Psy Assessment Ethics)