Role and Importance of Personal Ethics in Psychology

Introduction

When one thinks of ethics, what come in mind are the rules for distinguishing between right and wrongs. The most common definition of ethics would be the norms for conduct that distinguish between the right and wrong behaviors. Ethics plays a vital role in establishing a system or in any field of study or life. Everything we do in our lives, where ever we go there are some ethics and rules which we are bound to follow. Most of these are learnt from home, school or church. Major ethics are formed through these institutions.

Role and importance of personal ethics in psychology, principles and Code of Conduct

Another way of looking at the ethics is to study the disciplines that study the standards of conduct, one of which is psychology. Psychology has very broad implications. It covers almost every walk of life. The ethics in psychology would be the principles, methods, perspectives or procedures for deciding how to act in different situations and to analyze different complex problems and issues in daily life situations. The ethical code of psychology has been laid by the American Psychological Association(2010). The aim of these ethics and norms is to coordinate their actions, to provide guidance and standards for conducting different activities and research in the discipline.

In this context the psychologist’s personal ethical code of conduct also influence his working. A person brought up with certain moral and personal ethics related to a certain problem will certainly have some effect on the prediction of the issue or the problem. But being a professional it’s a responsibility of the psychologist to remain unbiased to his client. The professionals should continually apply the ethical judgments and moral decisions and should keep on evolving and developing his morality. It’s an ongoing process and to follow the ethics of the profession one must be ethical himself.

Effect of personal ethical application

The personal ethics encompasses the person’s social, spiritual and organizational behaviors. When behaving in front of others or assessing the situation an individual acts according to his one’s own innate values and beliefs which have been formed and evolved over the years. The behavior changes as the understanding of ethics increases with the time. The individual should try to strengthen the ability of others in understanding the nature of the wisdom and ethics of their doctrine rather than passing judgments about their ignorance. When applying its effect on the field of psychology and organizational application, I believe that if we apply the ethics and morality for the betterment of human beings, it shall help to create a society based on the feelings of empathy, benevolence and justice. When we interact personally with people with benevolence and goodness, it shall help us to find goodness

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