Ethical Decision-Making: Codes, Values & Principles

Students are required to select one of the four ethical questions below and develop a critical narrated response using relevant module theory, ethical principles, professional considerations and contextual reasoning.

Option 1: Ethical Codes and Professional Judgement

Question: To what extent should a psychologist rely on professional ethical codes when making a difficult ethical decision?

In your presentation, you must:

• Explain the purpose of professional ethical codes in psychological practice.
• Discuss at least one limitation of relying on ethical codes alone.
• Compare at least two ethical perspectives that could inform the reasoning, for example: deontological, consequentialist, virtue, or African/Ubuntu ethics.
• Explain how two or more ethical principles may come into tension in a difficult professional situation.
• Consider how culture, context or worldview may shape how a code is interpreted or applied.
• Conclude by explaining what role ethical codes should play in professional judgement, and what other reasoning may be needed.

Option 2: Ethical Codes and Conduct regarding Decisions

Question: When a client’s individual choice conflicts with family or communal expectations, how should a psychologist approach the ethical decision?

In your presentation, you must:

• Identify and explain the most applicable ethical principle.
• Explain how an individual understanding of this principle differs from relational, communal or Ubuntu-informed understandings of responsibility.
• Identify at least one other relevant principle.
• Analyse the tension between respecting the client’s wishes and considering family, relational or communal context.
• Explain why a psychologist should avoid automatically privileging this principle, and avoid automatically assuming family or communal expectations should override the client’s wishes.
• Conclude with a reasoned explanation of how a psychologist should approach this kind of decision.

Option 3: Personal Values and Professional Ethical Practice

Question: How should psychologists manage the influence of their own personal, cultural or spiritual values when making professional ethical decisions?

In your presentation, you must:

• Explain how personal values, cultural beliefs, spirituality or worldview may influence professional judgement.
• Distinguish between a psychologist’s personal values and their professional ethical responsibilities.
• Discuss how unexamined assumptions or bias may affect interpretation of a client, professional relationships, and/or ethical decision-making.
• Explain the role of reflexivity, cultural humility and awareness of practitioner positioning.
• Discuss why ethical practice does not require psychologists to become “value-free”.
• Conclude by proposing a defensible approach for managing personal values while maintaining professional responsibility.

Option 4: Conflicting Ethical Principles

Question: When two ethical principles point towards different courses of action, how should a psychologist decide what to do?

In your presentation, you must:

• Select and explain at least two principles that may conflict in practice, for example autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, fidelity, veracity.
• Explain how the selected principles could lead to different possible actions.
• Use at least one ethical decision-making approach from the module to show how the psychologist might work through the tension.
• Consider relevant contextual factors, possible consequences, professional responsibilities, and cultural or relational considerations.
• Explain why ethical decision-making may require principles to be weighed rather than mechanically applied.
• Conclude by presenting a defensible approach for deciding between competing responsibilities.

Experts Answer on Above Questions Ethical Decision Making

Ethical codes and professional judgement

Purpose of ethical codes

Ethical codes are highly essential in providing psychologists with standards for professional conduct, protect clients from harm, ensure accountability and establish duties such as confidentiality, competence and respect for clients.
Limitation – the major limitation is mainly the effectiveness of these codes, as they are not effective every time or to answer for every situation. There are possibilities that they do not have competing principles or lack sufficient detail for culturally complex cases.

Ethical perspectives

From the point of view of Deontology, the emphasis is on duties and rules and a psychologist is required to follow professional obligations even when the benefits from other alternatives are higher. The consequentialism theory of ethics focuses on outcome, and it requires the psychologists to emphasize on actions that produce the greatest overall benefit and reduce harm. Ubuntu ethics gives priority to interconnectedness, dignity, relationships and communal wellbeing.

Ethical tension

In case of autonomy, it is important to respect the decision of the client whereas for beneficence/nonmaleficence support interventions in order to prevent serious harm. Culture and context
Personal autonomy is highly preferred in individualistic interpretations and in the case of Ubuntu- informed context, there is higher emphasis placed on family relationships and communal responsibility. It is important that this psychologist should avoid imposing either worldview automatically.

Conclusion

Ethical codes are important and they should provide the starting framework and not the entire decision. Psychologists should combine the code with ethical principles, consequences, professional judgement, cultural context, consultation and the client’s circumstances.

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An analysis of ethical decision making in psychology including the professional codes, personal values, ubuntu ethics, autonomy, beneficence and conflicting principles above revealed important findings about the ethical codes and practices that psychologists need to consider in their action. Get a professional ethical expert from our team of writers by visiting our South African assignment help home page or access the solved assignment answers from STADIO before proceeding to order any assignment.