Topic: Ethical Influences and Influencers

This assignment needs to be resubmitted. Please find attached the Professor’s comments

Topic: Ethical Influences and Influencers

The legal landscape is perpetually changing. Psychologists must remain abreast of these changes to avoid potentially damaging issues to individuals and careers. In this assignment, you will consider the current federal and state legal issues discussed in the last two modules and their influence on psychology ethics.

General Requirements:

Use the following information to ensure successful completion of the assignment:

· Doctoral learners are required to use APA style for their writing assignments. 

· This assignment requires that at least two additional scholarly research sources related to this topic, and at least one in-text citation from each source be included.

· You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. Refer to the directions in the Student Success Center.

Directions:

Choose either a current federal or a current state issue which is influenced by and/or is influencing psychology ethics.

Write a paper (1,250-1,500 words) in which you discuss the influence of the selected issue. Include the following in your paper:

1. A detailed explanation of the issue.

2. A discussion of how the issue influences psychology ethics from an objective (scholarly) perspective.

3. A discussion of how the issue influences psychology ethics from a subjective (personal) perspective.

4. A discussion of how, if at all, the issue is influenced by current psychology ethics.

Study Materials

1. Decoding the Ethics Code: A Practical Guide for Psychologists: Chapters 1 and 4.

a. URL: http://gcumedia.com/digital-resources/sage/2016/decoding-the-ethics-code_a-practical-guide-for-psychologists_ebook_4e.php

2. Advocacy & Government Affairs:

a. Arizona Psychological Association. (2016). Advocacy & government affairs.

ETHICAL INFLUENCES AND INFLUENCERS 8

The Running Head is an abbreviated Title.

Hi,

I had a very difficult time reading and comprehending this paper. You need to use simple language, in short sentences, being clear and concise.

I didn’t read any ethical issues until the last paragraph.

Rather than grade this paper, I like to see you take another shot at it.

Dr. Kramer

Ethical Influences and Influencers

PSY 815-0500 Ethical Issues in Psychology

Grand Canyon University

August 10, 2019

Introduction

There have been various documentations of general issues often faced by psychologists when they are balancing between personal and professional life. The cause of this challenge is strongly rooted on the issue that these psychologists struggle to maintain their livelihoods and desired social as well as personal interactions but at the same time avoiding going against American Psychological Association’s ethics. These ethics are the psychologist’s code of ethics. These ethics codes are designed to prevent the personal lives of these professional from having a detrimental effect on their professional relationships while maintaining desirable social and personal relations. Through this article we will discuss the subjects concerning psychologists who take up public positions in matters relating to public issues which contain bits of controversy (Doaty, Bitencourt, Harvey, Kolasinski, & Solow, 2018).

Ethical Influences and Influencers

The APA Ethics code has no restrictions upon the psychologists regarding the manner in which they conduct themselves during their personal time. Despite this, the professionals are exposed to the possibility of having a strain upon their professional relationship through the stances they take regarding matters of public interest. These strains would bring about negative perceptions about the professionalism of these individuals. The American Psychological Association’s Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct thus contains general principles as well as ethical standards (Young, 2017). These regulations direct the considerations of the psychologists concerning professional relationships. These regulations guide the behavior of the professional and at the same time guide the clients on the expectations they should have when interacting with these professionals.

The psychologists are thus expected to put aside believes, morals and values when practicing their profession to have standard outputs from different professionals. Professionals though are at times found to uphold views which differ from the standards promoted by American Psychological Association and these professionals do actively practice at personal level; these values they hold may sometimes be contrary to the APA. The instance of politics can be considered since it usually brings about tense emotions due to the rigidity of the politicians regarding the morals and values that they hold and how these morals and values relate to those held by professionals. It is thus easy to get professionals involved in political matters and debates because usually these matters relate to the professionals personally (Thibaut, 2017). Similarly, these professionals may tend to practice these political views and stances on debates during their personal times but the clients who know them may tend to believe that the stances these professionals take represent their professions. These beliefs by the clients thus tend to have a detrimental and lasting impact of the perception held by the clients. It is thus of significant importance for a professional who may consider taking up a public position to make in-depth considerations of his or her stances and the impact that they would cause upon the individuals.

Areas included in the APA to avoid such dilemmas include counseling, school of practice psychology, clinical teaching research and supervision of trainees, social intervention, policy development, public service, development of assessment instruments, conducting assessments, organizational counseling, educational counseling, program design, evaluation and administration as well as forensic activities. Thus, the above listed activities are purely distinguished from the psychologists’ private conducts. It is thus stated by these guidelines that they are not restricting the professionals when going about their personal lives. It is however very evident that the behavior of professionals when going about their personal lives has a significant impact on the perception of clients as well as potential clients regarding their professional practice.

There have been various researches trying to establish the boundary that separates the professionals and personal lives of these professionals. From these researches, it has been established that some situations may not be avoidable by the professionals. A good example of such unavoidable situations are instances of psychologists who live in rural areas, they are forced to have multiple interactions with potential clients when these professionals go about their daily businesses. These unavoidable situations result into conflict between the code of ethics and the professionals’ intended actions regarding various dilemmas that they may be faced with in their day to day interactions. There are situations as well which these professionals may avoid but the material or convenience cost which has to be incurred by these professionals to avoid these situations is not appealing. These interactions, if minimized may thus help to avoid principle dilemmas; though they may as well bring about detrimental effects on the general well-being of these professionals and thus result in subsequent detriments to these professionals’ careers as well.

Furthermore, we will look at a case of a professional who gets very much involved in politics and hence analyze the influence that it has on their profession. Such an individual thus has strong opinions regarding the issue of universal healthcare. The professional is called Dr. Shenanigan who gets really involved in politics through his political party. The individual thus spends leisure time moving door to door campaigning for his intended political ambitions as well as desirable reforms. Dr Shenanigan thus at times meets with clients and is forced to involve other members of his team to do the campaigning to the clients.

Remarkably, the ethics code doesn’t seclude the psychologists from taking public stances on matters that hold levels of controversy. The professionals are however vulnerable to potential effects of these stances they take and could influence their role as practicing professionals. The ethical conditions are thus aimed at not harming the professionals, instead they are geared towards helping the professionals’ practice without problems, thus they should be embraced by these professionals (Piaget, 2015). Professional time is also realized to have effects on personal lives of these professionals. It is thus recommended that psychologists who are considering taking a public position must thoroughly consider the possible outcomes as well as worst case scenarios so that they may take appropriate steps to reduce the amount of harm that they may pose to their professional relationships and the profession at large.

The professionals are thus required to use professional judgment and seek consultation from other professionals who are likely to have familiarity in the ethics codes as well as how they relate to the specific situation that they are faced with. After these, the professionals are then required to take steps to protect themselves and their careers from detrimental effects which can bring such dilemmas. Through these actions, the psychologists may be able to draw the line between their personal lives and the profession they are practicing. Irrespective of achieving this feat, it can prove to be quite challenging, thus, it is fair to say that a psychologist’s life is perceived different from that of a private citizen. This is because the professional life of psychologists cannot be possibly detached from their personal lives as it may be intended. Due to these facts, various suggestions have or may arise to the extent that the ability of the professionals’ code of ethics to grasp onto their personal lives and their social practices is taken away from the profession for as long as they are actively practicing the profession (Lefkowitz, 2017).

In current practices, over recent years, the American Psychological Association has been critical of the actions of involving psychologists in torture as well as military interrogations. More information has been made available regarding the involvement of psychologists in the interrogation of 9-11 suspects in the United States. There have been controversial statements permitting the psychologists to offer consultative services and this allowance has been constantly utilized to incorporate psychologist contributions to the interrogation schemes. Notably, the effects of these can considerably be detrimental with respect to the public’s view of the professionalism of these individuals.

References

Doaty, S., Bitencourt, N., Harvey, W., Kolasinski, S., & Solow, E. B. (2018). Advocacy 101: Engaging Rheumatology Fellows in Health Policy and Advocacy. Arthritis care & research.

Young, G. (2017). Three Commentaries on Ethics and on the APA Ethics Code. In Revising the APA Ethics Code (pp. 153-183). Springer, Cham.Lefkowitz, J. (2017). Ethics and values in industrial-organizational psychology. Routledge.

Lefkowitz, J. (2017). Ethics and values in industrial-organizational psychology. Routledge.

Piaget, J. (2015). Structuralism (Psychology Revivals). Psychology Press.

Thibaut, J. W. (2017). The social psychology of groups. Routledge.

b. URL: http://www.azpa.org/?page=A3

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