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Assessment Resource - Internal
Level 2 Psychology
27692, Analyse ethical standards in psychological practice
Credits: 4
Teacher guidelines:
The following guidelines are supplied to enable teachers to carry out valid and consistent
assessment using this internal assessment resource.
Context/setting:
In this activity students will analyse ethical standards in psychological practice.
A range of activities needs to be offered in class, which will help students to understand
why ethics are an essential part of psychological research and practice.
You will also give students opportunities to study several Codes of Ethics for
psychologists (See resource requirements for a list). Codes of Ethics may be in a
summary or précis form.
As part of the teaching programme you will work through standards in a code of ethics
and analyse them in relation to two or more areas within psychological practice. This
could be, but is not limited to, the scientific, educational, or professional work of
psychologists.
Conditions:
The assessment task as outlined in this support material will be a written assessment
done at school under teacher supervision. It should not be taken home in either written
or electronic form.
Teachers should not ‘teach to the assessment’ as they discuss ethical standards in
psychological practice in class. It is essential that, as part of the assessment, students
make their own explanations and understandings independently.
Resources may be oral, visual and/ or written and may be selected from one or several
text types. Texts should be appropriate to Level 7/8 of the New Zealand Curriculum
(NZC), or have characteristics that enable students to meet the expected level of
understanding. Assessment of this standard also provides opportunities for students to
develop aspects of the key competencies of the NZC.
Resource requirements:
1.) Code of Ethics For Psychologists Working in Aotearoa/New Zealand, is available
from the New Zealand Psychological Society, http://www.psychology.org.nz.
2.) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct of the American
Psychological Association (APA) is available from, http://www.apa.org/.
3.) The Code of Ethics and Conduct of the British Psychological Society (BPS) is
available from http://www.bps.org.uk/.
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4.) The Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists of the Canadian Psychological
Association (CPA) is available from http://www.cpa.ca/.
5.) The Code of Ethics of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) is available from
http://www.psychology.org.au/.
6.) Scientific psychological practice examples, which may derive from published
research, historical or contemporary; topical social issues. Possible studies could
include:
a. Milgram, S. (1963) Behavioural study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and
Social Psychology. 67. pp. 371–378
b. Haney, C., Banks, C. and Zimbardo, P. (1973) A study of prisoners and guards
in a simulated prison. Naval Research Reviews. 26. 9. pp. 1–17
c. Rosenhan, D. (1973) On being sane in insane places. Science. 179. pp. 250–
258
d. Bandura, A., Ross, D. and Ross, S. (1961) Transmission of aggression through
imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 63.
pp. 375–382
e. Piliavin, I., Rodin, J. and Piliavin, J. (1969) Good Samaritanism; an underground
phenomenon? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 13(4). pp. 289–
299
8.) Examples of professional psychological practice may be hypothetical, drawn from
historical or contemporary published case studies or taken from movies/TV shows.
Possible examples could include:
a. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales. Oliver
Sacks. 1985. Touchstone.
b. Anna ‘O’. Studies on Hysteria (1895), Josef Breuer & Sigmund Freud.
c. House. TV show. FOX.
d. Lie to me. TV show. FOX.
e. The Sopranos. TV show. HBO.
f. In Treatment. TV show. HBO.
g. Analyze This. Movie.1999.
h. Good Will Hunting. Movie.1997.
9.) Examples of educational psychology in practice may be hypothetical, drawn from
published research, personal interviews with teachers/educational psychologists etc.
References could include:
a. Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice, Robert E. Slavin. 2009.
b. Educational Psychology Journal. Routledge.
Additional information:
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Teaching and learning guidelines that inform psychology as it is taught in New Zealand
can be found at http://www.tki.org.nz/ncea/.
Information on psychology as it is practiced in New Zealand is available from the New
Zealand Psychological Society, http://www.psychology.org.nz.
Information on Maori-focussed psychological research available through Maori and
Psychology Research Unit
http://www.waikato.ac.nz/wfass/subjects/psychology/mpru/
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27692, Analyse ethical standards in psychological practice
Credit: 4
Oops, I did it again! Analysis of ethical standards in psychological practice
Student Instructions Sheet
During your Psychology programme in class, you will do a range of activities in class,
which will help you understand why ethics is an essential part of psychological research
and practice. Your teacher will work with you through a number of different Codes of
Ethics for psychological practice. Some of these codes of ethics might include:
 Code of Ethics for Psychologists Working in Aotearoa/New Zealand,
http://www.psychology.org.nz.
 Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct of the American
Psychological Association (APA) http://www.apa.org/.
 The Code of Ethics and Conduct of the British Psychological Society (BPS)
http://www.bps.org.uk/.
Your teacher will also provide you with the opportunity to analyse how these standards
have been met (or not) in different areas of psychological practice such as scientific
research, education and professional practice. This might mean examining published
research, reading case studies, analysing TV shows/movies or carrying out interviews.
Assessment guide
For achieved
For merit
For excellence
Identify ethical standards in
psychological practice and
explain their effectiveness
in ensuring compliance with
a named code of ethics
The analysis includes a
discussion and explanation
of the key issues of
compliance relevant to
ethical standards within
psychological practice. The
discussion shows clear
understanding of the ethical
standards and considers
more than one view of the
issues of compliance.
The analysis includes a
comprehensive discussion
and explanation of the
issues of compliance
relevant to ethical standards
within psychological
practice. The discussion
includes, with reasons, one
or more suggested
improvements to
psychological practice to
enable compliance with a
code of ethics, and
considers the implications
of these improvements.
Sample Assessment
Your assessment task will be an in class written assessment.
For achievement your responses should:
 involve you identifying and explaining the effectiveness of ethical standards within
psychological practice in ensuring compliance with a named code of ethics.
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For merit or excellence your responses may also include:
 discussions and explanations of key issues of compliance
 suggestions of improvements to enable ethical compliance
 implications for psychological practice.
Task One
From an identified Code of Ethics, explain four ethical standards for psychological
practice. (Note that between the different codes of ethics the language for standards
may differ).
Name of Code:
Organisation:
Guideline
Explanation
Task Two
An ethics board has received complaints about three different psychologists who may
have breached a number of ethical standards related to the Code of Ethics for
Psychologists working in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
For each of the case studies identify which ethical standards have been breached and
explain what each psychologist should have done to comply with the code of ethics,
what improvements they could make to their practice to comply with the code of ethics
and what the implications these improvements may have.
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Psychologist 1
Client A had been seeing Psychologist 1 for treatment regarding her severe, debilitating
fear of birds. Client A contacted the board with a complaint after her regular G.P.
alerted her to an article in the magazine ‘Psychology Today’ written by Psychologist 1
that gave intimate details about Client A’s case. She had not given permission for the
details to be used, nor had any knowledge of the article prior to her G.P. pointing it out.
Ethical standard(s) breached:
Explanation:
Implications
Psychologist 2
Psychologist 2 is interested in carrying out research on how people deal with grief in
Māori communities. Psychologist 2 intends to attend a number of tangi with the aim of
observing behaviour and interviewing members of the community present. Psychologist
2 has not gained the permission of any whanau, nor learnt about appropriate tikanga in
regards to tangi. (Note: tangi = funeral, whanau = family, tikanga = customs/traditions)
Ethical standard(s) breached:
Explanation:
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Implications:
Psychologist 3
Client C is a 7 year old boy who was referred to Psychologist 3 after experiencing
difficulties during his parent’s separation. Client C’s parents contacted the board after
they discovered that Psychologist 3 had used the boy as a participant in an experiment,
without their knowledge.
Ethical standard(s) breached:
Explanation:
Implications:
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Task Three
Use either the description of Milgram’s experiments on obedience to authority or the
description of the Stanford Prison Simulation to answer the questions that follow.
Milgram’s Obedience studies (1974)
Milgram was interested in how events such as the holocaust in Nazi Germany could take place –
why would people follow orders to perform such atrocities. The Milgram experiment was a series
of scientific experiments of Social Psychology which began in 1961 as described by Yale
University psychologist Stanley Milgram in his 1974 book Obedience to Authority: An
Experimental View. It was intended to measure the willingness of a subject to obey an authority
who instructs the subject to do something that may conflict with the subject's personal
conscience.
The method of the experiment was as follows:
The subject and an actor claiming to be another subject were told by the experimenter that they
were going to participate in an experiment to test the effectiveness of punishment on learning
behaviour. Two slips of paper marked "teacher" were handed to the subject and actor, and the
actor claims that his says "learner", so the subject believed that his role has been chosen
randomly. Both were then given a sample 45-volt electric shock from an apparatus attached to a
chair into which the actor is strapped. The "teacher" was taken to another room and given
simple memory tasks to give to the "learner" and instructed to administer a shock by pressing a
button on a shock machine each time the learner makes a mistake.
The "teacher" is then told that the voltage is to be raised by 15 volts after each mistake. The
shock machine is labelled with waords ranging from “mild shock” to “danger severe shock” and
“XXX”. He is not told that there are no actual shocks being given to the actor, who fakes
discomfort. At "150 volts", the actor requests that the experiment end, and is told by the
experimenter, "The experiment requires that you continue. Please go on." or similar words. He
continues, and the actor fakes greater discomfort, considerable pain, and concerns for his own
safety as the shocks continue. If the teacher subject becomes reluctant, he is instructed that the
experimenter takes all responsibility for the results of the experiment and the safety of the
learner, and that the experiment requires that he continue.
Before the experiment was conducted, Milgram polled fellow psychiatrists as to what the results
would be. They unanimously believed that all but a few sadists would refuse to give the
maximum voltage.
In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65% of experimental subjects administered the experiment's
final "450-volt shock", though many were quite uncomfortable in doing so. (One participant
found the experience so stressful that they had a seizure after the experiment had finished).No
subject stopped before the "300 volt" level. The experiment has been repeated by other
psychologists around the world with similar results. Variations have been performed to test for
variables in the experimental setup. For example, subjects are much more likely to be obedient
when the experimenter is physically present than when the instructions are given over telephone.
After the experiment, the participants were reunited with the ‘electrocuted’ confederates and
reassured that no electric shock had actually been given. Participants were also reassured that
others had behaved in a similar way and that their actions could be considered ‘normal’. One
year later, the participants were assessed by a psychiatrist. 84% stated that they were glad that
they had participated in the experiment. Only 1.3 % were ‘sorry’ or ‘very sorry’ that they had
taken part.
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Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)
In 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues set out to create an experiment that
looked at the impact of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. Zimbardo, a former classmate of
Stanley Milgram was interested in expanding upon Milgram's research. He wanted to further
investigate the impact of situational variables on human behavior. The question the researchers
asked was “how would the participants react when placed in a simulated prison environment?”
The method of the experiment was as follows:
The researchers set up a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University's Psychology
building, and then selected 24 undergraduate students to play the roles of both prisoners and
guards. The participants were selected from a larger group of 70 volunteers because they had
no criminal background, lacked psychological issues and had no major medical conditions. The
volunteers agreed to participate for a one- to two-week period in exchange for $15 a day.
The simulated prison included three six by nine foot prison cells. Each cell held three prisoners
and included three cots. Other rooms across from the cells were utilized for the prison guards
and warden. One very small space was designated as the solitary confinement room, and yet
another small room served as the prison yard.
The 24 volunteers were then randomly assigned to either the prisoner group or the guard group.
Prisoners were to remain in the mock prison 24-hours a day for the duration of the study.
Guards, on the other hand, were assigned to work in three-man teams for eight-hour shifts. After
each shift, guards were allowed to return to their homes until their next shift. Researchers were
able to observe the behavior of the prisoners and guards using hidden cameras and
microphones.
While the Stanford Prison Experiment was originally slated to last 14 days, it had to be stopped
after just six days due to what was happening to the student participants. The guards became
abusive and forced the prisoners to carry out demeaning tasks, the prisoners began to show
signs of extreme stress and anxiety.
While the prisoners and guards were allowed to interact in any way they wanted, the interactions
were generally hostile or even dehumanizing. The guards began to behave in ways that were
aggressive and abusive toward the prisoners, while the prisoners became passive and
depressed. Five of the prisoners began to experience such severe negative emotions, including
crying and acute anxiety, that they had to be released from the study early.
Even the researchers themselves began to lose sight of the reality of the situation. Zimbardo,
who acted as the prison warden, overlooked the abusive behavior of the prison guards until a
colleague voiced objections to the conditions in the simulated prison and the morality of
continuing the experiment.
Questions
Both of these studies have been criticised on ethical grounds. Some compliance issues
have been the subject of discussion. For your chosen study, identify issues of
compliance relevant to three ethical standards. Discuss and explain any arguments
around the issues. Make suggestions for improvements and note any implications for
psychological practice (i.e. how changes might have an effect in the ‘bigger picture’ of
Psychology).
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Assessment schedule
27692, Judgement Statements: Analyse ethical standards in psychological practice.
Achieved
Identify three ethical standards from two areas
of psychological practice and explain their
effectiveness in ensuring compliance with a
named code of ethics.
Achieved with Merit
Includes a discussion and explanation of the
key issues of compliance relevant to three
ethical standards within two areas of
psychological practice. The discussion shows
clear understanding of the ethical standards
and consider more than one view of the issues
of compliance
Achieved with Excellence
Includes a comprehensive discussion and
explanation of the issues of compliance
relevant to three ethical standards within two
areas psychological practice. The discussion
includes, with reasons, one or more suggested
improvements to psychological practice to
enable compliance with a code of ethics, and
considers the implications of these
improvements.

Identify a Code of Ethics.

As for Achieved, plus:

As for Merit, plus:

Identify and explain three ethical
standards (these can be taken from any
of the tasks).

Issues of compliance have been
discussed showing clear understanding
of the ethical standards.


Explanations are coherent and relevant.

Discussions show more than one view
related to the issues of compliance.
One or more improvements have been
suggested, with reasons, to enable
ethical compliance within psychological
practice and the implications of these
improvements are considered.
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27692, Evidence statements: Analyse ethical standards in psychological practice
Achieved
Achieved with merit
Achieved with excellence
Task One
From one code, three standards are
explained correctly.
Example:
Code of Ethics for Psychologists working in
Aotearoa/New Zealand
Sample answer for two ethical
standards:
Respect for the Dignity of Persons and
Peoples: This standard or ‘principle’ in the
NZ code covers a number of values and
gives guidelines for the use of these in
practice. The values cover things such as
‘general respect’, which simply means that
in professional practice, people should be
treated with respect at all times (this covers
points such as people should not be
harmed/exploited/ harrassed or spoken to
disrespectfully) to ‘informed consent’
(which covers points about research and
scientific practice such as; before
participating in research people need to be
informed fully about the intent of the
research/know what they are agreeing
to/not be misinformed).
Responsible Caring
Promotion of wellbeing
Integrity in Relationships
Social Justice and Responsibility to
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Society.
12 A.3.Informed consent
13 A.4. Privacy
14 A.5. Confidentiality
The Code of Ethics of the Australian
Psychological Society
Justice
Respect
Informed consent
Privacy
Confidentiality
The Code of Ethics and Conduct of the
British Psychological Society
Respect
Competence
Responsibility
Integrity
Task Two
Ethical standards that have been breached
are identified and explained. Explanations
may be lacking in detail. Answers can
include but are not limited to:
Psychologist 1 breached the principle of
Respect for the Dignity of Persons and
Peoples of the Code of Ethics for
Psychologists working in Aotearoa/New
Zealand . In particular,
they did not respect privacy/confidentiality
of the client by publishing Client A’s case
without her consent.
Explanations include a level of insight and
discuss suitable options for the
psychologist’s behaviour.
Psychologist 1 breached the principle of
Respect for the Dignity of Persons and
Peoples of the Code of Ethics for
Psychologists working in Aotearoa/New
Zealand . In particular,
they did not respect privacy/confidentiality
of the client by publishing Client A’s case
without her consent. In order for the
information to be published the
psychologist should have first asked for
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permission, secondly they should have
ensured that the publication did not include
any details which would make it possible to
identify Client A.
Psychologist 2 is in danger of breaching
the principle of Respect for the Dignity of
Persons and Peoples of the Code of Ethics
for Psychologists working in Aotearoa/New
Zealand. In particular, ‘respect for culture’
as they have not undertaken a number of
things that would show respect for the
dignity and needs of Maori.
Psychologist 2 is about to breach the
principle of Respect for the Dignity of
Persons and Peoples of the Code of Ethics
for Psychologists working in Aotearoa/New
Zealand. In particular, they have not
adhered to section 1.3.2. which states that
psychologists (both Maori and Non-Maori)
must seek advice and show respect for the
dignity and needs of Maori. Before they
embark on the study, Psychologist 2 must
consult widely about the appropriate way to
conduct research. Should permission be
given by whanau, they must seek advice
and training about the tikanga surrounding
the tangi.
Psychologist 3 has breached the principle
of Responsible Caring/Promotion of
wellbeing of the Code of Ethics for
Psychologists working in Aotearoa/New
Zealand. In particular, the standard of
‘informed consent’ by not gaining the
consent of the child’s parents before using
him in the psychologist’s own research.
Psychologist 3 has breached the principle
of Responsible Caring/Promotion of
wellbeing of the Code of Ethics for
Psychologists working in Aotearoa/New
Zealand. In particular, informed consent,
as the child is under 16, the psychologist
needed to gain consent from the parents
first. Issues of conflict in interest are also
evident as the Psychologist is using a
client who has come to them, in their own
research. The psychologist should get
participants for their research from another
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means.
Task Three
Ethical issues of compliance are identified
and explained for a chosen study.
Explanations may be supported with
evidence from the study.
Discussion shows an understanding of the
key issues of compliance. The discussion
shows clear understanding of why the
ethical standard was breached and if the
study could be replicated without a breach
of the standard.
The discussion includes, with reasons, one
or more suggested improvements to
psychological practice to enable
compliance with a code of ethics, and
considers the implications of these
improvements.
A part answer could include:
A part answer could include:
A part answer could include:
Milgram
Deception: The participants are deceived
in a number of ways throughout the study.
First, they are deceived about the true
nature of the study, which they are told is
about the “effectiveness of punishment on
learning behaviour”. They are deceived
again when the roles of the participants are
“chosen randomly”. The learner was an
actor and was not in fact receiving electric
shocks. The scientist was not really a
scientist and the apparatus was all fake.
Milgram
Informed consent: In a way, the
participants gave consent to take part in an
experiment, so therefore they exposed
themselves to the possibility that they
would be part of something that they had
no control over. It is just that they were
deceived about what the experiment
entailed. If the true nature of the
experiment had been revealed to
participants within the consent forms, then
they may not have consented and the
experiment would not have had the same
results. Not informing the participants
about the experiment helped to reduce the
possibility of demand characteristics.
Milgram
Protection of participants: A reason why
this standard was not achieved was prior to
the study, Milgram sought advice and
predictions from both the public and
psychiatrists/psychologists about people’s
behaviour. Most of the harm that was
caused was stress from many of the
people going to 450v, which was not
foreseen in predictions. In hindsight, an
improvement to the study could be to run a
pilot study and adjust the measures to
reassure participants directly after the
experiment, accordingly. Another
improvement could be simply stopping the
experiment as soon as the participant
showed any physical signs of stress. Other
improvements could be to insert a clause
in the consent form that asked if the
participants would be willing to inflict
shocks on another human being and give
them the option to opt out at earlier stages.
Other standards that could be identified
and their effectiveness explained:
Informed Consent
Protection of participants
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Right to Withdraw
Stanford Prison Experiment
Protection of Participants: The participants,
in particular the prisoners, in the
experiment were not protected in the
experiment. The guards made them
perform degrading activities and were
abusive towards them. As a result, many of
the prisoners began to show signs of
extreme stress and anxiety.
Other standards that could be identified
and explained:
Deception
Right to Withdraw
Implications of these improvements could
be that fewer participants might have
agreed to carry out the experiment
therefore lowering the sample size. Other
implications of these improvements could
be that the results of the experiment could
be drastically different and the experiment
could be more open to demand
characteristics.
Stanford Prison Experiment
Deception: Zimbardo argued that the only
deception that was involved in the
experiment was the “real arrests” carried
out by real police officers. Prisoners were
not informed of this before the experiment
due to difficulties in securing approval from
the police until last minute. Zimbardo
claimed that there was no way to inform
prisoners of this before the event. Some
would say that the use of police officers
does not even warrant as deception, as the
participants had agreed to be part of a
prison simulation study and that being
arrested is not an unreasonable
expectation around this. The prisoners
could easily have been transported to the
prison by another means.
Stanford Prison Experiment
Right to Withdraw: Zimbardo could not
have foreseen the effect that his “offering a
prisoner the opportunity to become an
informer” would have on the prisoners, who
interpreted it as a sign that they could not
withdraw from the investigation.
Suggestions for improvements to the
experiment, to enable the study to comply
with this standard, would be to have
someone other than Zimbardo acting as
the prison superintendent. This would
mean that he could have played a more
impartial role and would have hopefully
been able to see the study more
objectively. Secondly, the researchers
should have made it clearer to the
prisoners that they were able to leave at
any time if they felt they needed to.
Implications of these improvements would
be that perhaps the study would have been
stopped earlier than it was without
Zimbardo being directly involved and
perhaps more prisoners would have opted
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out of the study as soon as they started to
feel uncomfortable.
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