Purchase Solution

Ethics Awareness Inventory in Psychology

Not what you're looking for?

Ask Custom Question

Write a 700- to 1,050-word summary of your findings. As a part of your summary, be sure to address the following items:
- Explain the importance of understanding your own personal ethical perspective.
- Analyze the relationship between personal and professional ethics in the field of psychology.

Purchase this Solution

Solution Summary

The expert explains the importance of understanding personal ethical perspectives. The expert analyzes the relationship between personal and professional ethics in the field of psychology.

Solution Preview

Explain the importance of understanding your own personal ethical perspective.
Analyze the relationship between personal and professional ethics in the field of psychology.

I can certainly understand how this can be confusing, but I think I get it. There are many organizations called "The Williams Institute," but the one we're worried about is the Williams Institute of Ethics and Management.

Obligation is your main point of view. According to the online TWI personality test, this is your most likely reason for doing the right thing. Equity is the least likely reason.

It appears that the Williams Institute is making the following argument: flexibility is the best ethical approach. Therefore, the more extreme your preferences are on the basic chart that compares you with 1000 other people, the worse off you are. I'm pretty sure the -6 is a fairly low score (relative to the Institute), suggesting that equity is almost never a motivation, but at least most of the time, obligation is.

Obligation in this case is the obligation to adhere to the rules and best practices of psychology as a discipline. Equity, of course, is the ethical belief that fairness is the main concern in our interpersonal behaviors. Equity is not identical to equality, we do not treat everyone the same, but we apply proportions to those we deal with depending on the severity of the problem.

The four options are: caring, obligation, results and equity, which, conveniently, spell out CORE. Here is one person who took the test: http://collak.net/index.php?view=article&id=50&tmpl=component&print=1&page=&Itemid=60.. And here is the basic theory: http://www.ethics-twi.com/Assessments/EAI%20Docs/EAI%20Ethical%20Decision%20Making.pdf

Besides the concept of flexibility (which, of course, needs to be argued for in its own right), there are the personality traits (virtues) of awareness, application, articulation and action. These deal with the extent to which ethics as a science is part of our conscious ethical decision making process.

Therefore there are two levels: first, the ethical foundation from which you make ethical decisions, consciously or not. Second, the virtues (though they are not called virtues, they seem to be) that permit you to grasp the fact that, in your decisions, there is quite a bit of ethical baggage that will affect others in possibly profound ways.

While Williams as an organization does not think there is a correct ethical approach, they certainly make many ethical assumptions. In the document above, they, without argument, make the following ethical assumptions part of "ethics" as such:

1. Fairness.
2. Equality in terms of voicing opinions.
3. Equality in terms of input
4. The illegitimacy of self-interest.
5. That there are only four foundations for ethical decisions and,
6. Autonomy.

The problem is that none of these are obviously true, or, alternatively, they are so vague as to be useless. The four foundations from which all ethical decisions are made (according to TWI) are:

Obligation: this is a form of loyalty. You are a part of a practice with its own set of traditions and norms that you are professionally bound to consider and live by.

Character: this is a sort of "virtue" approach that says your personality and the forces that shape it contain traits that push your free will into making one sort of decision over others.

Results: this is also called "utilitarianism" or consequentialism. Ethical decisions are measured solely in how they affect others.

Equity: ethical decisions are evaluated on the basis of how many people a) have assisted you with your decision and b) have been positively or ...

Purchase this Solution


Free BrainMass Quizzes
Sigmund Freud

How much do you know about Sigmund Freud's theories? Find out with this quiz!

Piaget's Theories on Development

Do you know all about Piaget's theories on development? Find out with this quiz!

Role of Memory in Learning

This quiz addresses the role of memory in the learning process. The quiz differentiates between the different types of memory that facilitate learning.

Can you name these types of cognitive distortions?

In each mini-scenario, can you identify the type of cognitive distortion being displayed? All of us are subject to cognitive errors, biases, and distortions throughout our daily lives.

Abnormal Psychology

This quiz will explore the faucets of abnormal psychology, from the question of what is abnormal, to the intricacies of DSM diagnosable disorders.