{"id":88,"date":"2016-02-08T11:01:21","date_gmt":"2016-02-08T11:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/psychology.news\/news\/?p=88"},"modified":"2016-02-08T11:01:21","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T11:01:21","slug":"are-we-the-good-guys-apa-and-guild-ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychology.news\/news\/2016\/02\/08\/are-we-the-good-guys-apa-and-guild-ethics\/","title":{"rendered":"Are we the good guys? APA and Guild Ethics"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent NY Review of Books titled “The Psychologists Take Power”\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0offered the following conclusion:\u00a0No psychologist has yet developed a method that can be substituted for moral reflection and reasoning, for employing our own intuitions and principles, weighing them against one another and judging as best we can. This is necessary labor for all of us. We cannot delegate it to higher authorities or replace it with handbooks. Humanly created suffering will continue to demand of us not simply new \u201ctechnologies of behavior\u201d but genuine moral understanding. We will certainly not find it in the recent books claiming the superior wisdom of psychology. The publications reviewed were:<\/em><\/p>\n

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion<\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

by Jonathan Haidt
\nVintage, 500 pp., $16.95 (paper)<\/p>\n


\nThe Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined<\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

by Steven Pinker
\nPenguin, 802 pp., $20.00 (paper)<\/p>\n


\nJust Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil<\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

by Paul Bloom
\nBroadway, 273 pp., $15.00 (paper)<\/p>\n


\nThe Power of Ideals: The Real Story of Moral Choice<\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

by William Damon and Anne Colby
\nOxford University Press, 217 pp., $29.95<\/p>\n


\nMoral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them<\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

by Joshua Greene
\nPenguin, 422 pp., $18.00 (paper)<\/p>\n


\nReport to the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of the American Psychological Association: Independent Review Relating to APA Ethics Guidelines, National Security Interrogations, and Torture
\nby David H. Hoffman and others
\n542 pp., July 2015<\/em><\/p>\n


\nThe Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency\u2019s Detention and Interrogation Program
\nby the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
\nMelville House, 549 pp., $16.95 (paper)<\/em><\/p>\n


\nEstimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science
\nby Brian Nosek and others
\nScience, August 28, 2015<\/em><\/p>\n


\nHead Strong: How Psychology is Revolutionizing War<\/a>\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

by Michael D. Matthews
\nOxford University Press, 262 pp., $29.95<\/p>\n

I think this NY book review is interesting in the context of Dr. Ken Pope, a psychologist who resigned from APA due to APA’s position on torture, recently releasing his award address. <\/b>Dr. Pope is also the co-author of an ethics textbook:Ethics in Psychotherapy and Counseling: A Practical Guide<\/a>\"\"
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

You can read Ken Pope’s award address at http:\/\/kspope.com\/PsychologyEthics.php<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are some quotes I’ll pass on to try to convince you to read it as well as to offer education and commentary:<\/p>\n

[snip]<\/em><\/p>\n

“The interrogation and torture controversy holds hard lessons for the profession, for psychology organizations, and for each of us…” “Do we outsource ethical responsibility and decision-making to laws, regulations, and people in authority (e.g., our employer, administrator, or supervisor) so that we can do something we know is wrong but justify it? Do our ethics come with our own personal versions of, in Bersoff’s term, “weasel words” that seem to place self-interest over ethical responsibility and accountability?” [snip]<\/em><\/p>\n

“The history of psychology overflows with an almost endless catalog of our shared human tendencies\u2014confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, premature cognitive commitment, the WYSIATI [What You See Is All There Is] fallacy, false consensus, groupthink, and on and on\u2014to overlook, avoid, or ignore whatever fails to fit our beliefs and loyalties…” [snip]<\/em><\/p>\n

“Another author of APA’s ethics policy in this area described an active approach to countering criticism: “At a meeting of the American Psychological Association in 2006, I confronted one of my critics and threatened to shut his mouth for him if he didn’t do it himself. I’m told it was the most excitement at an APA meeting in about 20 years” (James, 2008, p. 251). Have any of us not been tempted to counter criticism in this way? Really?” [snip]<\/em><\/p>\n

“The torture controversy and the choices that led up to it provide a grim inventory of guild ethics, willful ignorance, denial, and discrediting critics. If we call up the courage to take an honest look, do we see those tactics in our own lives? Have we stopped listening to colleagues of certain disciplines, theoretical orientations, or political views because what, after all, do they know? Do we jump to discount, discredit, silence, or avoid certain kinds of criticism and words\u2014both spoken and written\u2014that call our beliefs, approaches, and actions into question? Do we have a safe stock of go-to consultants we count on to give us the answers we want to hear? Do we live our professional lives in the safety of “gated communities” of like-minded colleagues who read the same journals, see things as we do, and aim criticism at outsiders, never at those within the community?” [snip]<\/em><\/p>\n

“APA also faces a more basic choice: of whether to set aside key aspects of its ethics code, its leaving the protection of the public to licensing boards, its approach to ethics enforcement and accountability, and the rest of its guild ethics. Resetting a moral compass will do little good if the organization uses the compass of self-interest, characteristic of guild ethics, to guide its actions.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Dr. Pope’s mention of “guild ethics” was certainly interesting to me; particularly when considering my advocacy for #ALLpsychologists.<\/a>\u00a0APA has routinely failed to\u00a0support the employment prospects of licensed psychologists who didn’t have APA-accredited internships. APA leaders state that this is because we need to “uphold” standards, however there is no demonstrated danger to the public from currently licensed psychologists who didn’t have APA-accredited internships. Not hiring #ALLpsychologists, however, has hurt the public by leading to shortages in locations like the Department of Veterans Affairs. Not licensing psychologists who didn’t have APA-accredited internships have hurt the public in places like Mississippi, the state which has the lowest number of psychologists per capita of any state. I hope we move away from knee-jerk insinuations about protecting the public and students when discussing currently licensed psychologists who didn’t have APA-accredited internships and APA leaders move away from a blind focus on promoting APA’s guild interests.<\/p>\n

Sponsored Resources<\/strong><\/em> I get a small percentage of the sale to help support the cost of hosting the blog whenever you purchase something through an Amazon link on this page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent NY Review of Books titled “The Psychologists Take Power”\u00a0\u00a0offered the following conclusion:\u00a0No psychologist has yet developed a method that can be substituted for […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[58,54,55,56,57],"tags":[60,59,61],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychology.news\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychology.news\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychology.news\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychology.news\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychology.news\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/psychology.news\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92,"href":"https:\/\/psychology.news\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/92"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychology.news\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychology.news\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychology.news\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychology.news\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}