Ethical Dilenmas
Ethical Dilemmas Encountered by Members of the American Psychological Association:
A National Survey
Kenneth S. Pope
Valerie A. Vetter
ABSTRACT: A random sample of 1,319 members of the American Psychological Association (APA) were asked to describe incidents that they found ethically challenging or troubling. Responses from 679 psychologists described 703 incidents in 23 categories. This process of gathering critical incidents from the general membership, pioneered by those who developed APA's original code of ethics, may be useful in considering possible revisions of the code and preserving APA's unique approach to identifying ethical principles that address realistically the emerging dilemmas that the diverse membership confronts in the day-to-day work of psychology.
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Founded in 1892, the American Psychological Association (APA) faced ethical problems without a formal code of ethics for 60 years. As the chair of the Committee on Scientific and Professional Ethics and Conduct in the early 1950s observed,
In the early years of the American Psychological Association, the problems of ethics were relatively simple. We were essentially an organization of college teachers. The only ethical problems which seemed to present themselves were those of plagiarism and of academic freedom. (Rich, 1952, p. 440)
The Committee on Scientific and Professional Ethics was created in 1938 and began handling complaints on an informal basis ("A Little Recent History," 1952). By 1947, the committee recommended that APA develop a formal code. "The present unwritten code...is tenuous, elusive, and unsatisfactory" ("A Little Recent History," 1952, p. 427).
The method used to create the formal code was innovative and unique, an extraordinary break from the traditional methods used previously by more than 500 professional and business associations (Hobbs, 1948 ). Setting aside what Hobbs termed the "armchair approach" (p. 82) in which a committee of those
A National Survey
Kenneth S. Pope
Valerie A. Vetter
ABSTRACT: A random sample of 1,319 members of the American Psychological Association (APA) were asked to describe incidents that they found ethically challenging or troubling. Responses from 679 psychologists described 703 incidents in 23 categories. This process of gathering critical incidents from the general membership, pioneered by those who developed APA's original code of ethics, may be useful in considering possible revisions of the code and preserving APA's unique approach to identifying ethical principles that address realistically the emerging dilemmas that the diverse membership confronts in the day-to-day work of psychology.
View citation and copyright.
Founded in 1892, the American Psychological Association (APA) faced ethical problems without a formal code of ethics for 60 years. As the chair of the Committee on Scientific and Professional Ethics and Conduct in the early 1950s observed,
In the early years of the American Psychological Association, the problems of ethics were relatively simple. We were essentially an organization of college teachers. The only ethical problems which seemed to present themselves were those of plagiarism and of academic freedom. (Rich, 1952, p. 440)
The Committee on Scientific and Professional Ethics was created in 1938 and began handling complaints on an informal basis ("A Little Recent History," 1952). By 1947, the committee recommended that APA develop a formal code. "The present unwritten code...is tenuous, elusive, and unsatisfactory" ("A Little Recent History," 1952, p. 427).
The method used to create the formal code was innovative and unique, an extraordinary break from the traditional methods used previously by more than 500 professional and business associations (Hobbs, 1948 ). Setting aside what Hobbs termed the "armchair approach" (p. 82) in which a committee of those