Ethical Considerations for Psychologists Taking a Public Stance on Controversial Issues: The Balance Between Personal and Professional Life

Abstract

Previous literature has documented the general issues psychologists often face while balancing their personal and professional lives. The struggle stems from attempting to satisfy the need to maintain a life outside of work while having the professional obligation to follow the American Psychological Association’s (APA’s) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (Ethics Code) to prevent their personal lives from interfering with their professional roles and relationships. The present article analyzes the subject of psychologists taking a public position on controversial public issues. Although the APA Ethics Code does not restrict how psychologists conduct themselves during their personal time, taking a public stance on a controversial issue could potentially strain professional relationships and inadvertently reflect negatively on the profession. The present article examines ethical issues that (a) should be taken into account before psychologists take a public position on a controversial issue and (b) are in conflict with APA’s Ethics Code or current research.

Keywords:

• avoiding harm
• boundaries
• codes of conduct
• ethical code
• ethical conflicts

Notes

1. ¹For the purposes of this article, the American Psychological Association is denoted as APA and the American Psychiatric Association is spelled out when referenced.

2. ²Notably, “product” could be broadened to include public endorsement of a value or belief.

3. ³Of interest, one psychologist, who purported that his research provided evidence that homosexuality could be cured and whose work was used by many people and organizations to support their beliefs that homosexuality was a choice, recently published a letter to the editor of Archives of Behavior reassessing his research (Spitzer, 2003) and apologizing to the gay community for his unverified claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy (Spitzer, 2012).