Ethics

 These are the codes of the conduct.

 These are rules or principles of behavior.
 It is the study of the science of the morality.
 These are the guidelines that specify the direction for the conduct (our actions and
behaviors).
 Ethics is the branch of philosophy which deals with morality, moral problems and moral
judgments.
 It differentiates the good and bad.
 It is concerned with distinguishing between good and bad or right or wrong or acceptable
or not acceptable.
 It educates the human actions.
 Ethics are considered very important in the professionalization or occupation.
 Ethics are important to achieve the balance or coordination in order to get the excellence.
 It is useful for the self-regulation (How to act in a specific situation).
 It helps us to identify our rights.
 It helps to insure the proper use of skills or techniques. It is also important to specify the
rights and the responsibility.

Profession.
 It is a unique body of knowledge (Specific knowledge or skills.).
 It is a unique body of knowledge with its members possessing specific skills, techniques,
on the basis of the profession.

Ethical principles.
1. Doing nor harm.
A psychologist or professional has to provide or strive/struggle to benefit
others with whom they work. And at the same time always taking care that
the potential for damage should be eliminated to greatest extent as
possible.
2. Respecting autonomy (Individual well).
The right of the individual to decide how to live their life should be
accepted by psychologist or professional.
3. Do not spoil the dignity of others.
A psychologist should respect the client and will not disrespect (Insult or
humiliate) the client.
4. Benefiting others.
All actions should have positive effects on clients from psychologist.
 5. Being justice.
All psychologists should be fair in their actions or should show fairness.
Self Interest must not involve but benefiting others.
6. Being faithful.
All Psychologists should be loyal, sincere, trustworthy and truthful with
their clients.
7. To be excellent.
A psychologist should be competent and to insure the high quality of
professional services.
8. Accepting accountability or responsibility.
The psychologist should be responsible for
their actions and to avoid making excuses
and blaming others.

Ethical issues in the psychological testing.

Test.

A measuring tool/instrument or process in which we assess/ test psychological traits like behavior etc.

Psychological testing.
A standardized (free from errors. Validity reliability accuracy of test) and objective (free from
subjectivity) measurement of the sample of behavior.

1. User qualification and professional competence.

The ethical code principles on competence states that psychologist can provide only those
services and can use only those technics for which they are qualified by education, training and
experience.
i. With regard to the test the requirement that they used only by appropriately qualified
examiners and it is one of the most important step toward protecting the test taker
against the improper use of the test.
ii. The APA has also developed a model act for state license of the psychologist.
 2. Responsibility of the test publisher.
i. The catalog of the major tests publishers specify the requirements that
must be fulfilled by the purchasers. Usually individual with a master
degree of psychology or equivalent qualification.
ii. Graduates students.
Who may need a particular test for the class assignment/ or research
must have the purchase order counter signed by their psychology
instructor or psychologist who assumes the responsibility of the proper
use of test.
iii. Efforts to take the security of the test materials and prevention of the
misuse of the test.
iv. Another responsibility of the authors or test publisher is that test should
not be released prematurely (Incomplete) for the general use/Purpose.
v. Publicity.
Any publicity given to the test items or tst can make individual
the test for further use.
3. Protection of privacy.
Privacy. It is an individual right.
Confidentiality. It is a professional right.
Privacy is the individual right to decide how much he/she will share the
information (thoughts, feelings, experience, etc) with caseworker.
i. Relevance.
The information that the individual is asked to reveal should be
relevant to the stated purpose of testing.
ii. Inform consent.
The concept of the informed consent also requires clarification
and its applications. The respondents certainly be informed
about the kinds of purpose of the testing the kinds of data and
the use of data.
4. Confidentiality. (To keep the information in secret.)

It is the professional right that the information of client or individual should not be share with other
people. Tests results should be kept in database. The problems of the confidentiality is the question
(who will have the access or approach to the test results/reports) arise at this stage.

Every type of the institute should formulate policies regarding the retention, destruction and
accessibility of personal records.

Psychologist should show appropriate to the fundamental rights of individual.

Privacy, ii. Confidentiality, iii. Autonomy, iv. Informed consent.

The psychologist should aware of cultural differences, individual roles differences, religious differences,
ethnicity, language, age, gender differences.

Psychologist try to eliminate the effect of their work biased based these factors and don’t show any
unfair treatment and discrimination.

5. Communicating test Result (Respect for people rights and dignity).

Psychologist should show appropriate respect to the fundamental rights, dignity and worth of
all people. They respect the rights of individuals to privacy, confidentiality, self-determination and
autonomy, informed consent. Psychologists be aware of cultural, individual roles differences
including those due to age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, nation, language, disability and socio-
economic status. Psychologists try to eliminate the effects of their work of biases based on those
factors and don’t show unfair and discrimination.

6. Social responsibility.

Psychologist should aware of their professional and scientific responsibilities to the community and
society in which they work in live. They apply their knowledge of psychology in order to contribute to
human welfare (benefit of others).

When under taking a research they should struggle to give benefits to others and make positive
contribution to the society and community.

History of the Development of ethical standards.

A code of ethics for the psychology.
1. APA. American psychological association. Was found by G Stanly Hall in 1892.
2. APA main Purpose.
Its main purpose is to creation (gain) , communication (Convey) and
Application (practical apply)of psychological knowledge to benefit the society and improve the life of
individuals and people.
3. The APA has had five decades of experience constructing and revising the ethics code that to
struggle both the aspiration and practical aspects of ethical decisions made by the members of
the profession.
4. The creation and each revision of APA ethics code has been followed by desire for standards
that would encourage the highest efforts of the psychologist and insure the public welfare and
promote the sound (Effective) relationships.
5. In 1947 the first APA comity on ethical standards/code of the psychologist was established. The
supervisor or head was Edward Tolman. Wanted to create a code of ethics for the psychologist
that would be more than a document within imposing (practical Application) title.
6. The members of the comity were committed to producing the ethical, professional standard
that would provide members of the profession with a set of values and practical technics for
identifying and resolving the moral problems.
 7. To achieve these goals the psychologist decided to draw on the knowledge of field to create a
process for the development of ethical standard that would be effective and modifying human
behavior.
8. The method that was chosen critical incident (Difficult task) the technique that involve asking
the psychologist/members of the comity to describe the different situations they experienced or
different cases they handled in which the psychologist made the decisions have the ethical
implications and situation that involved ethical issues.
9. 2nd committee. Nicholas Hobbs. 1947.

They 2nd comity was headed by Nicholas Hobbs (in 1947) reviewed more than one thousand such
incidents (cases) submitted by the Members of APA.

The major ethical themes emerging from these incidents that focused on the psychologist relationships
and professional responsibilities to others including; students, research participants, clients and other
professional psychologists.
As the different segments of the codes were created and the drafts were submitted to the membership
for the criticism and revision.
The first ethical code were adopted in 1952, and published in 1953.

Revision preceding to (2002) ethics codes.

1. At the time of adaptation of first ethics code continual, review and revision based on the
experience, perspectives of the members was seen as integral to maintaining the values of the
ethics code both for the professional and public.
2. The APA code has under gone 9 revisions since 1953.
3. The (1953 Codes) revision/version consisted of more than 170 pages long, and included case
examples illustrating each ethical principles.
4. From the beginning of its more than fifty years history each revision of APA ethical standard of
Psychologist and codes of conduct has been followed by the following objectives.

1. To express the best ethical standard practices in the field as judge by the large
representatives of the APA.
2. To replicate explicit values system as well as clear and fair decisional and behavioral rules.
3. To be applicable in the full range (to apply to every situation) of activities and role
relationship encourages in the work of the psychologist.
4. To have the broader possible participation among the psychologist in its development and
revision.(Every psychologist should participate).
The process of Developing the 2002 ethics code.
In 1996, the APA ethics comity appointed the ethics code task force (ECTF). A 14 member’s
comity whose membership replicated the scientific, educational, professional, gender,
ethnicity, geographic of the discipline (Field).
Some members of this comity were;
Brain Wilcox, Celia B. Fisher, Laura Brown, Macia Moody, Linda F.Cambell.

Importance of the ethical code.

The mission of the task force was to develop and implement a plane for the process of the
revision of the 1992 ethics code.
In its deliberation (Thinking) the ECTF considered both the importance of the process (How)
and purpose (Why) of the ethics codes develop recognizing that such consideration would
determine both the format and contents of the ethics code and ultimately whether the
psychologist will support it and accept it.

The many goals guided by the ECTF included educational, professional, public and
enforcement values.
The different goals of ECTF are;

1. Establish the integrity (Honesty) of the profession.

The one main goal is to establish and maintain the integrity with profession that is a
psychologist should be honest, trustworthy, faithful, sincere.

2. Education and professional socialization careful and interacting with others.

The second main purpose of the ethical code is its professional socialization function.
A document reflecting the profession values and standards provide a guide to a
psychologist that to what a psychologist reasonably would expect from themselves and
each other’s.

3. Public trust.
The third main purpose of ethical code is to gain the public trust by demonstrating that
the psychologists are the members of responsible profession with high standard.

4. Enforcement values.
A fourth main goal or purpose is to provide a clear statement of different types of
behaviors and mention ethical violation to guide a psychologist in avoiding such
behavior.
Revision process of 2002 ethical code.
The ECTF Comity was committed to an open and collaborative revision process that
would be guided by the objectives. The development of 2002 Ethics code involve the
following points.

1. Collecting from the psychologist engaged in a broad spectrum of scientific and

professional activities and the critical incidents and describing ethical challenges
they had faced. That is ideal or actual ethical codes to these challenges. And the
extent to which the existent ethics code would be applied to these challenges.
2. Establishing an open call for an interview of the comments and review from the
membership, psychological organization, license board and public on the adequacy
of the 1992 ethics code and the content and format of 7 drafts prepared by the ECTF
comity.
3. Ongoing review the legal system of the ethical code standard.
4. Ongoing feedback from the. I. student’s ii, consumers, iii APA ethics comity. Iv APA
division. V APA board of directors, vi APA council of the representative after
reviewing more than 13 hundreds feedbacks and comments on the revision 7 drafts.
In august 2002, APA council of representative voted to adopt the final revision as
the new ethical principle/standard of psychologist and codes of the conduct. And to
go into the effect in 2003 implemented in the field.

General Ethical Principles.

There are main five general ethical principles.
1. Beneficences.
i. Doing no harm.
ii. Benefiting others.
2. Fidelity and responsibility.
i. Trustworthy
ii. Accepting accountability/responsibility. Should be responsible for every
action.
3. Integrity. Honesty.
i. The psychologist should be truthful, honest and sincere.
4. Justices
i. Being Justice.
ii. Being faithful.
5. Respect for the rights of individual.
i. Privacy.
ii. Confidentiality.
iii. Informed consent.
iv. Discrimination.
The ten Main categories of specific ethical principles/ standard.

1. Resolving ethical issues

2. Competence.
3. Human relations.
4. Privacy and confidentiality.
5. Advertising and others public statements.
6. Education and training.
7. Record keeping and fee.
8. Research and publication.
9. Assessment.
10. Therapy.

1. Resolving ethical issues.

i. Misuse of the psychologist work.

When a psychologist learns the misuse or misinterpretation of their work they should
take reasonable steps to correct it or minimize the misuse/misinterpretation.
ii. Informal resolution of the ethics violation.
When the psychologist believes that there may have been the violation by another
psychologist they attempt to resolve the issue informally by bringing the attention of
that individual.
iii. Reporting the ethical violation.
If the ethical violation has harmed or likely to harm another person or organization and
has not appropriate for informed resolution. The psychologist should take further steps
appropriate to the situation including referral to the state or national organization APA
committee licensing board or to other institutional authorities.
iv. Cooperating with the ethics committees.
The psychologist should cooperate with the ethics comities on the professional ethics to
investigate something. And doing so the psychologist should address the confidentiality
issues. Failure to cooperate as itself ethical violation.
1. Improper complaints.
Psychologists do not file (Submit) encourage to file the ethics complaints that are made without
facts and evidences.
Unfair discrimination against respondents and complaints.
Psychologists do not deny (Reject) the person employment promotion, advancement based on
ethical complaints against them.
Conflict between ethics code and law.
If the responsibilities of psychologist conflict with the law or legal authority a psychologist
should make their commitment to ethical standards and should take reasonable steps to resolve
the issue or conflicts. If the conflict is unresolvable through such means then the psychologist
should follow the requirements of the law. Will inform the court or judicial setup.
Conflict between ethics code and organizational demand.
IF the demand of organization with which the psychologist are affiliated conflict with the ethical
code standards the psychologist should make commitment to their ethical standard and try to
describe the nature of conflict and should make decision according to the ethical standard.
(Termination, Fee increase, decrease,).

Competence.
Boundaries of the competence.
1. The psychologist provide services teach conduct research with the study population (from
whom we collect information) and an area’s only within the boundaries of their competence
such as their education training, supervise experience, professional experiences and study.
2. The scientific or professional knowledge in field of psychology establishes that
understanding of the factors associated with age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion,
nationality, culture, language, disability is the important for the effective implementation of
the services. Psychologists have to obtain the training to insecure the competency of their
services.
3. Psychologist should plan to provide the services that involve new technology techniques
should get relevant education or understanding and then should provide the services and
techniques.
4. In those emerging areas where the recognized ethical standard do not exist the psychologist
should take reasonable steps to ensure the competency of their services. And to prevent the
other subjects people from any type of harm. (Students, client, subject, etc.)
5. When assuming the forensic roles the psychologist should become familiar with the judicial
or administrative rules governing their roles.
2. Maintaining the competence.
The psychologist should struggle and strive more to develop and maintain their
competence.
3. Basis for the scientific and professional judgment.
Psychologist work should be based on the scientific and professional knowledge in the field.
4. Delegation (Assign) of work to the others.
When psychologist is delegating work to other professional employees or research or teaching
assistant. The psychologist should take steps to ensure that assign only those responsibilities
that such a person could be expected to provide the services competency based on their
education, training, experience either independently or with the level of supervision provided by
the another psychologist. And a psychologist should see that the person is providing the services
in a competent manner.

5. Personal problems and conflicts.

i. Psychologist should refrain from starting the activity that he she knows that his her
personal problems activities will prevent them performing their work related activities in
a competent manner. For example. If they are doing a research and having marriage
function in home so he she will not attend the activity well he she will make and the
work will be spoiled so in this case they should not work.
ii. When the psychologist become aware of the personal problems that may interfere with
performing their work related activities/duties they should take measures such as
obtaining professional consultation or assistance whether determine to limit, suspend
or terminate the activities.

3. Human relation.
i. Unfair Discrimination.

In their work related duties/activities, psychologist should not engage in unfair discrimination with
whom they work based on age, gender, ethnicity, race, language, culture, nation, religion etc.

ii. Avoiding Harm.

The psychologist should avoid harming other people such as. Clients, students, research
participants, internees, etc.

iii. Cooperating with other professionals.

When indicated and professionally appropriate the psychologist should cooperate with other
professional to serve their clients effectively, appropriate manner.

Informed consent.

When a psychologist is conducting a research providing assessment, therapy, counseling they should
obtain the consent or permission of the individuals using simple language which is understandable
to them. The psychologist should document the written or oral consent or permission of the
individuals. If individual is unable to say then the psychologist will take the permission from the
parents or guardian.

Sexual harassment

Whoever is working with psychologist they should not sexually harass them. Psychologist should not
be engage in sexual harassment with whom they work. It includes, Students, clients, , research
participants, supervising etc.

Psychologist should not show the behavior which is insulting or harassing to others based on race,
gender, age, ethnicity, language, relgion,etc. Will not mental torture others.

Exploitative Relationship. (Use others for self-benefits)

Psychologist should exploit over whom they supervisory or authority such clients, student, etc.

Interruption of Psychological services.

When the psychological services are interrupted due to the psychological illness or unavailability the
organization should take reasonable steps to facilitate the psychological services.

Privacy and confidentiality.

Privacy

It is individual right whether share the info in detail or briefly.

Confidentiality.

It is professional right that a psychologist should secure the information on the clients or protect the
information.

Limit of the confidentiality.

A psychologist should discuss with clients about where their information will be discussed and
published. This should be discussed in first meeting. If the psychologist want to share someone
information on media so a psychologist should inform the client about this. Now this is up to the
client whether he/she wants to show their exact identity or not.

Secondly if the case is needed to be discussed with other professional for assistance so the
psychologist should informed the consent.
Recording.

Before starting a session or therapy it should be discussed that this will be protected whether the
record is written or voice.

Discluser.

Here a psychologist will ask the client to give permission for discussing the case with others showing
the identity or not.

Consultation.

The information should be shared on the basis of solution and must not show the identity.

Use of the confidential information for didactic or other purpose.

When a psychologist is publishing a book or research so he/she should not show the identity of
anyone but can mention the case on ABC etc. Delivering a lecture if he/she needs to give an example
without showing the identity so he/she can use.