About CE
"CE Corner" is a continuing education article offered by the APA Office of CE in Psychology.
To earn CE credit, after you read this article, purchase the online exam at www.apa.org/ed/ce/resources/ce-corner.
Upon successful completion of the test — a score of 75 percent or higher — you can immediately print your CE certificate.
The test fee is $25 for members and $35 for nonmembers. The APA Office of CE in Psychology retains responsibility for the program. For more information, call (800) 374-2721.
Overview
CE credits: 1
Learning objectives: After reading this article, CE candidates will be able to:
- Identify the Ethics Code Standards involved in conflict of interest.
- Consider the kinds of situations that might impair judgment related to conflict of interest.
- Discuss the importance of solid training and consultation with colleagues around these issues.
Several times a year, "CE Corner" presents an ethical quandary and asks ethics experts to offer insights on how to address it. Here is this month's vignette:
Dr. Smith is a tenure-track assistant professor who chairs her psychology department's ethics committee, which typically handles complaints about faculty and student misbehavior. The provost has asked Dr. Smith to chair an interdepartmental committee to evaluate complaints against the well-respected dean of the counseling education department, who students say has made racially and sexually inappropriate remarks in class. The provost is considering whether or not to suspend the dean, who vehemently denies these claims and asserts his rights to free speech and academic freedom. The provost would like Dr. Smith to chair the committee because she has a strong knowledge of ethics and is known for her feminist views. She is pleased to have been given this important task, and assures the provost that she can do a thorough, careful job, even though she knows the dean casually and likes him. The provost is concerned about potential bad publicity for the university and wants the case handled quickly and quietly.
Conflict of interest
Many psychologists think of the APA Ethics Code only as a tool that helps practitioners work with clients, says Linda Knauss, PhD, past chair of the APA Ethics Committee and a professor of clinical psychology at Widener University. But in fact, the Ethics Code can inform all professional activities as a psychologist, not just professional services. This month's vignette involving Dr. Smith is a great example of that, she says. It also provides an example of how the concepts in the Ethics Code can be used to think through situations and possible risks even if they might not rise to the level of an ethical violation.
The most relevant ethical issue facing Dr. Smith relates to Standard 3.06: Conflict of Interest, which implores psychologists not to take on any single role that could "impair their objectivity, competence or effectiveness in performing their functions as psychologists or risks exploitation or harm." The case of Dr. Smith involves a particularly nuanced possible conflict that may not be readily apparent to most psychologists, says APA Ethics Committee member Nan Presser, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Missouri–Columbia. "True conflict of interest is internal, and often hard to see."
In this case, while Dr. Smith likely felt she could do a fair and reasonable job as chair of an interdepartmental committee investigating the counseling education dean, several factors have the potential to affect her objectivity, says Knauss. First, making waves as a tenure-track assistant professor is not always the best way to advance your career, and chairing this committee has the potential to lead to just that, Presser says.
"What if she finds something that brings a lot of bad publicity to the university, which is what the provost specifically said he wanted to avoid?" she asks. "It could put her career in jeopardy, so she may need to think long and hard before she reveals any damaging evidence that may come to light because of the potential cost to her."
Dr. Smith's judgment could appear compromised in the other direction, too, given her feminist views and the fact that the dean purportedly made sexually and racially inappropriate comments, Presser says. "That may mean that she'd have a bias toward believing and supporting the students," she says. Or she could have been chosen because others might see her that way.
Another concern is that she may not be objective because she has said she knows and likes the dean. In addition, she may feel an extra affinity toward him because he is in counseling, a sister field. "On multiple levels, she has a dilemma here," Presser says.
Other applicable ethical issues
In this situation, it's also worth noting that while Dr. Smith is presumably an APA member and therefore bound by the APA Ethics Code, the dean and provost are likely not psychologists and not obliged to abide by it, per Standard 1.03: Conflicts Between Ethics and Organizational Demands, says University of Maine psychology professor Rebecca Schwartz-Mette, PhD. "Dr. Smith may be doing her due diligence to follow the Ethics Code, but the other people who are more powerful than her in this situation aren't beholden to that same code," says Schwartz-Mette, who also serves as co-chair of APA's Advisory Committee on Colleague Assistance.
In cases when the demands of an organization that a psychologist works with conflict with the APA Ethics Code, psychologists are encouraged to clarify the conflict, tell the organization about their commitment to the code and then take reasonable steps consistent with the code to resolve the conflict.
It's also vital to consider Dr. Smith's competence, as spelled out in Standard 2.01: Boundaries of Competence. It's unclear from the vignette how new Dr. Smith is to the university and what her skillset is. A greater knowledge of university policy and politics might make someone else more appropriate to lead the group, Schwartz-Mette says. And, as was mentioned earlier, because Dr. Smith has said she knows and likes the dean, Standard 3.05: Multiple Relationships may also come into play depending on the nature of Dr. Smith's relationship with him.
Another facet of the case to consider is whether the provost may be exploiting Dr. Smith, suggests Linda Campbell, PhD, a former chair of the APA Ethics Committee and a psychology professor at the University of Georgia. The vignette notes that Dr. Smith is honored that this high-level university administrator has chosen her for this role. However, given her junior status, it's possible she was selected because the provost thought she'd be biased against the dean given the content and nature of the student complaints.
"Perhaps the provost wants to get rid of the dean and he's chosen Dr. Smith to do his work for him, so that in case there's an appeal or it hits the news, then he can say it's this committee chair who made these decisions," Campbell suggests. "She should consider that the provost might be trying to stack the deck against the dean by exploiting her commitment and passion and her feeling honored that he asked her."
How to proceed?
So, what should Dr. Smith do, given that she has already accepted the role of committee chair? And how can she ensure she recognizes a potential conflict of interest in the future? Campbell and Schwartz-Mette say one approach might be to reach out to the provost and suggest that she serve as a subject matter expert on the committee, but not as the chair, or that she bring on a co-chair to help balance the decision making.
"This way, she's not taking the fall for finding or not finding results," Schwartz-Mette says. "It's just better for her welfare to not be the chair."
Others disagree, however, stressing that it would be best for Dr. Smith to decline any involvement with the committee.
"My recommendation is that she go to the provost and talk about the importance of this being a transparent process and having an objective chair and committee members handle it, and that given her position, she might not be the best choice to be involved in this," Presser says. "By taking the tack of how important the university is to her and that she wouldn't want her input to compromise the process, [it shows that] she's coming from the right motivation."
As for how she and others can become more aware of potential conflict of interest situations in the future, Knauss points to the importance of ethics training — including continuing education — and consultation with colleagues, particularly with someone who doesn't necessarily always share your perspective.
"It's also about listening to that queasy feeling in your gut that something isn't quite right," Presser says. "When that happens, listen to it and go talk to someone who is outside of it."
