Moral judgments and ethical constructs in clinical psychology doctoral students

ABSTRACT

This cross-sectional study compared the moral reasoning of first-year and third-year doctoral students in clinical psychology. Nineteen first-year and 20 third-year students were recruited from 17 doctoral training programs in the UK. Most adopted a sophisticated approach to moral judgments, as assessed by the Defining Issues Test, although, surprisingly, more experienced students had significantly less sophisticated schemata. In their moral judgments, less experienced students relied more heavily on their personal, and more experienced students on their professional, constructs, as assessed by repertory grid technique. Integration between personal and professional constructs was higher in more experienced students.

KEYWORDS:

• acculturation
• defining issues test
• moral judgment
• personal constructs
• clinical psychology students

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Although they will be referred to as doctoral students throughout this paper, in the UK, where this study was conducted, they would normally be referred to as trainee clinical psychologists.