Applying the Eight Steps of Ethical Decision Making to Three Cases
Afaf Alghamdi
Sacred Heart University
One of the goals of education is to apply skills learnt in classroom to real world through one's critical thinking. However, there must be ethical code and guidelines to help resolve ethical concerns. This requires a deep knowledge of ethical decision making steps. These steps come from the ethical commitment to reach an effective ethical decision making (Fisher, 2013). The following is a synopsis of three cases selected for applying ethical decision making steps.
Case No. 1
According to Fisher (2013), working on infants, the developmental psychologist should develop a professional commitment as a priority step followed by knowing the Ethic Codes of APA before updating parents of any step. Moreover, the lack to gather all related ethical policies and laws is a violation. Additionally, that psychologist should consider the perspective of other stakeholders e.g. psychiatric, physician,
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This case implies a clear violation of the ethical codes by the psychologist and the vice president of the corporation, if the psychologist agreed to what the vice president unethically suggested. From my viewpoint, the psychologist does not need to think over the 8 steps of ethical decision making. If she has a clear commitment to doing the right thing, she would prefer to resign to making an unethical decision. The psychologist needs to make an effective course of action against this corporation after revising the APA Ethics Code. Making decision, here, requires involving other stakeholders, e.g. a lawyer, her research supervisor or co-researcher etc. This case depends on the psychologist herself because if she follows the laws and policies, she would follow the eight steps and come up with an effective ethical plan, which does not violate the principles of her
Psychologists are committed to increasing scientific and professional knowledge of behaviour and people's understanding of themselves and others and to the use of such knowledge to improve the condition of individuals, organisations, and society (APA, 2010). The PSI preamble (2010) states “the authority of psychologists derives from the scientific methods of investigation on which their knowledge is based, and the ethics which govern all their professional activity. They accept that codes of ethics are necessary to protect the interest of clients and prevent misuse of psychological knowledge. The Ethics Code provides a common set of principles and standards upon which psychologists build their professional and scientific work. The following is a rough and general summary of the principles that are addressed by the APA, PSI and BPS;
Making sound ethical decisions require an intentional process that utilizes thoughtful reflection, supervision/consultation, and action. Many ethical decision making models exist and the seven-step model introduced by Forester-Miller and Davis (1996) is a succinct amalgamation of these earlier models. The model by Forester-Miller and Davis (1996) follows seven progressive steps: (a) identify the problem, (b) apply the ACA Code of Ethics (2014), (c) determine the nature and dimensions of the dilemma, (d) generate potential courses of action, (e) consider the potential consequences of all options and determine a course of action, (f) evaluate the selected course of action, and (g) implement the course of action.
We are going to explore the world of ethical issues in psychology. As in any medical or mental health fields there are rules we all must follow as professionals. In this essay today we will be exploring a case study where we have a young lady who has been stricken by a mental disability. We will be looking at the facts in which her disability was handled by a professional in the field of psychology. We also will be discussing the rights and wrongs that are presented in her case study. We will also be discussing the APA ethical codes and gain a clearer understanding of where some things went wrong and why shall we begin.
What are ethics and how do they affect decision-making? According to the Santa Clara University, "[ ] [E]thics refers to well based standards of right and wrong [ ]." Ethics are not the same as religion, but "Religion can set high ethical standards and can provide intense motivations for ethical behavior" (Santa Clara University). What about the law? There can be a law in place, but that does not necessarily mean that the law is ethical. An example could be that San Francisco makes it illegal for people to sleep in the parks at night. What about the homeless people that camped out at the parks and now has nowhere else to go? People sleep in the parks during the day, nighttime is not any different except that
2. Guides, customer records, and work force documents will keep on being requested into courts in light of the fact that the legitimate framework believes the documentation contains data expected to settle on choices about youngster care, automatic hospitalization, and a wide cluster of different circumstances, including assertions of deceptive conduct. Absence of trustworthiness and ineptitude and in addition lost, fragmented, and insufficient graphs can be hurtful to the client and the counselor.
In this scenario, as a psychologist I face several ethical issues. According to the American Psychological Association, Ethical Principles of Psychologist and Code of Conduct there are at least six standards I have to
The APA ethical guidelines help to ensure that all psychological research maintains the integrity that it does not do harm or conflicts with the majority of the human populations moral ethical codes. However, in some situations the APA ethical guidelines must be viewed as just that: guidelines. If a study has the potential to benefit humanity as a whole and does not result in the permanent or irreparable harm to a human being then some guidelines must be permitted to be stretched or even broken in the interest of human advancement and scientific progression. After all the goal and responsibility of a psychologist is to enhance our understanding of human behavior as well as to find ways to use this information to better society and humanity
What are at least two legal issues associated with clinical psychology? Provide an example of a situation that could be legal but unethical. Explain your response.
The APA code of ethics general principles intent is to guide and inspire psychologist toward the highest ethical standards of the profession. The five basic principles are beneficence and nonmaleficence, fidelity and responsibility, integrity, justice, and respect for people’s rights and dignity.
After assess the role of the APA in assisting psychology professionals in the identification of potential areas of misconduct, I believe the problem could be solved. The study on the misconduct was a great way of
The principle of the APA code of ethics is relevant to leadership and administrative activities in that decisions must be as agreed by those concerned, otherwise, trust can be broken with a client, employees, or stakeholders. If a psychologist or a leader needs to act or make a decision that is different than agreed, then it must be justified, otherwise, such a decision can be harmful to others (APA, 2010). This principle is relevant to administrative activities in the aspect of the science, truthfulness, honesty, and practice part (APA, 2010). If an administration is handling business in an honest, consistent and open manner then they too can be trusted. This method then becomes part of the practice and a science in itself. It is also important
Psychologists have to demonstrate boundaries of the ethical principles and abide by the code of conduct when dealing with clients and everyone involved with the client. The standards were created to set the platform for the code of ethics to be a constant progression with a variety of vignettes to learn from (Smith, 2003). With these vignettes there are some ethical situations that may occur and complicate the standards of the Code of Ethics.
Management constitute amongst major components of a company, organization or a business. As such, management oversees employees interactions with their supervisors and also control of people within a particular organization. Also, it includes critical and ethical decision-making process so as to address various ethical dilemmas experienced by employees while undertaking their respective assigned duties within the company. Ethical dilemmas are hereby to stay as issues usually arise now and then and place a variety of options that bear different repercussions. Therefore, it calls for ethical and critical decision-making skills so as to make the most appropriate option that bears more benefits in comparison to other options presented. While making ethical decisions, it 's substantially important to play heed to a certain ethical decision-making theory. This would enable an individual making the decision to ripe best possible consequences rather than living to regret. Moreover, ethical decision making is typically important in business as making a wrong decision may result not only in huge losses but also poor relationship amongst colleagues and miserable life for employee(s) working in a particular company or business in question.
Throughtout this written assignment there will be a discussion on ethical decision making about making a decision on possible ethical consequences that may be placed in your life, and what ethical consequences will be dealt with in the mental health professional field. Decisions could possibility pertain your conduct such as an ethical dilemma that will required a serious decision to be solved by your action as an leader. Even though a leader may not have caused the problem, they do not have a choice but to respond to the issues at the workplace. The key is how would a leader react to the issue and how their reputation and career standards will interfear afterwards. An early recognition could prevent many ethical issues from increasing in the mental health field and work environment. Ethical dilemmas could happen in many different ways, such professionals do have any act of acknowledge by knowing they have allowed themselves to be placed in a predictment without any knowing about it. This assignment will also discuss the scenario, what the reactions were from the team leader, what consequences should take place, the code of ethics and what were the results from decision making.
All employees (including the company executives) should be guided by moral principles and ethical values when making decisions (Balc & Simionescu, 2012). The ability of executives to make ethical decisions can be influenced by their cognitive bias (Zeni, Buckley, Mumford & Griffith, 2015). Utilitarianism is one of the frameworks that can be used to address ethical dilemmas. Utilitarianism holds that decision makers should take alternatives that maximize the happiness of the majority of the stakeholders (Choe & Min, 2011 and Marques, 2015). This presentation will discuss how the 8-step ethical decision making process can be applied when addressing a dilemma using the utilitarianism framework. The presentation will also guide the executives of Toyota on how to address the negative publicity associated with the production of cars with faulty acceleration system.