PSYC-212 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Clinical Psychology, Primum Non Nocere, Social Rejection
15 Jun 2018
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Chapter 3: Ethics
•application of moral principles to help guide one’s decisions and behaviour
•utilitarian perspective: ethical decisions should be based on doing the greatest good for the
greatest number of people
•altruistic: ethical decisions should be based on helping without personal benefit
•egoism: based on acting in accordance with one’s own self-interest
•consequential - consequences based on your actions
•categorical moral reasoning - consequences do not matter, will locate morality in the act itself
•unalienable right - cannot be taken away from us which is why giving consent to somebody to
kill us is not right even though you are willing to die.
•criminal justice system is based on consequential
•utilitarianism is the 4th strategy for psychologists
Important Ethical Principles:
1. Beneficence:
•primary objective is to protect the individual, as a clinical psychologist
•Cost benefit analysis: researcher weighs all the potential and known benefits against all the
potential and known risks before conducting a study
•beneficence - actively promoting the welfare of others ; maximize benefits in research studies
(ethical obligation)
•Nonmaleficence: do no harm - eliminate risks to study participation
•loss of confidentiality - must protect the privacy individuals
•loss of anonymity - guarantee is studies that peoples’ responses cannot be linked back to
individual participants
•Types of harm:
•physical harm
•psychological harm
