Is Teaching International Ethics Codes Important for Psychology Graduate Students?

Abstract

Ethical training is a critical element of graduate education in Psychology. The importance of acculturation to the ethical guidelines of the profession cannot be minimized. Simultaneously, in North America at least, sensitivity to diversity is an important directive in our education of future clinicians. Consequently, it makes sense that understanding international Psychology ethics codes would be advantageous, to at least highlight the cultural context and relativity of ethics codes in general. Professors in Canada and the United States who teach ethics in their respective graduate schools were surveyed about their teaching of such codes and their opinions on the matter. Differences were found between Canada and the United States, although low response rates were noteworthy. The response data is examined qualitatively. Possible explanations for these findings include the possibility that teaching international ethics codes is seen as of limited importance or the use of online questionnaires is not optimal for such endeavors.