PSYCH 639 Week 1 Ethical Principles and Professional Codes Example

"Just Send Me the Individual Scores": Ethical Principles, Professional Codes and a 360 Feedback Promise at a Grocery Chain

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

PSYCH/639: Ethics and Professional Skills in I-O Psychology

Week 1 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The grocery chain, its staff and the 360 program are composites written for a model paper; ethical standards and research come from the sources listed.

Industrial and organizational psychologists serve organizations while affecting the lives of employees. Their ethical obligations run to both, and the two sometimes collide. This paper applies ethical principles and professional codes to a request I received in my role at a grocery chain.

The Situation

I am a talent assessment specialist at Desert Fresh Markets, a regional grocery chain with forty-three stores across the Phoenix area, and I am completing an MS in Psychology with an I-O focus. Last spring I designed and ran a 360 feedback program for forty store managers. Each manager received ratings from their district manager, assistant managers and a sample of department leads on leadership behaviors such as coaching, communication and fairness. Before launching, I sent every manager and rater a written description stating that individual reports would be seen only by the manager and an assigned coach and would be used solely for development; the company would see only aggregated results across stores.

Last week the vice president of operations asked me to send him every manager's individual report. Three regional director positions are opening, and he wants the 360 data to help choose among candidates. "We paid for this," he said. "It's company data."

Stakeholders

Several parties have interests here. The store managers trusted the written promise and may have participated candidly in their own development plans. The raters, many of them hourly department leads, gave honest feedback because they believed it would not be used against anyone. The vice president needs good information to make important promotions. The company as a whole benefits from both fair promotions and a feedback culture that people trust. And I have obligations as an employee, as a developing psychologist and as the person who made the promise.

Principles in Tension

The APA Ethics Code (American Psychological Association, 2017) sets out general principles that express aspirations and enforceable standards that define conduct. Principle B, fidelity and responsibility, asks psychologists to establish relationships of trust and keep their commitments. Principle C, integrity, asks for honesty and the avoidance of unwise or unclear commitments. Principle E, respect for people's rights and dignity, includes respect for privacy and self-determination. Principle A, beneficence and nonmaleficence, asks psychologists to benefit those they work with and avoid harm. Several standards apply directly. Standard 1.03 covers the moment when an employer's wishes clash with the code: the psychologist must spell out the clash, say plainly that the code binds them and try in good faith to work it out. Standard 3.11 addresses psychological services delivered to or through organizations, requiring psychologists to inform clients and affected individuals in advance about the nature of the services, who will have access to information and the limits of confidentiality.

Sending the reports would break the commitment my written description created, reaching beyond what participants consented to.

A Model for Reasoning

Kitchener (1984) argued that gut feeling is a starting point, not a method, and offered five principles to reason with: let people decide for themselves, do no harm, do some good, be fair and keep faith with those who trusted you. When principles conflict, Kitchener argued, professionals should reason through which obligations carry more weight in the specific situation, rather than following rules mechanically.

Applied here, fidelity and autonomy weigh heavily: managers and raters agreed to participate under specific conditions. Nonmaleficence matters too, since managers could be harmed by reports that include candid weaknesses written for development, not evaluation. Beneficence and justice point toward the company's legitimate need to promote the best leaders fairly, but they do not require breaking a promise when other means exist.

The reports were written by raters who were told no one would grade a manager with them.

What Research on 360 Programs Shows

Bracken et al. (2016) reviewed the history of 360 feedback and argued that its value depends on design features, including clarity about purpose, rater training, accountability for using results and consistency between what participants are told and how data are used. They noted that organizations increasingly want to use 360 data for decisions such as promotion and pay, which can be appropriate when designed and communicated that way from the start, but that shifting purposes after the fact damages participants' trust and future candor.

If the company uses these reports for promotions now, raters will likely soften their ratings next year, and managers will distrust future development programs, undermining a tool the company paid for.

Options

I identified four options. First, comply and send the reports, which breaks the promise and violates Standard 3.11. Second, refuse outright, which protects participants but ignores the vice president's legitimate need and may damage my credibility. Third, ask each manager who applies for a regional role for permission to share their report, making clear that declining will carry no penalty. Fourth, offer the vice president alternative information: aggregated 360 results by leadership dimension, a structured interview and assessment exercise for the candidates designed for selection and the managers' existing performance records.

My Choice

I chose a combination of the third and fourth options. I met with the vice president and explained the promise, the code's requirements and the risk to future programs. I proposed a short selection process for the regional roles, built on the job's requirements and including a structured interview and a leadership case exercise, and offered to invite candidates to share their 360 reports voluntarily. He agreed after hearing that the selection process could be ready in three weeks. I documented the conversation.

Consulting Before Deciding

Before meeting the vice president, I consulted two people, which the code encourages when a situation is unclear. My faculty advisor confirmed that the written promise created an obligation under the code and suggested I bring alternatives rather than only objections. A colleague in the HR department who handles employee relations reminded me that several department leads had asked, before rating, whether their comments could ever reach their store manager's boss; I had told them no. Consultation did not make the decision for me, but it tested my reasoning against people who see the situation from different positions.

Ethics and Law

Nothing in Arizona law clearly prohibited sharing the reports, since the company owned the data. This case illustrates that legality does not settle ethical questions; professional codes often ask more than the law requires.

Prevention

The episode taught me to clarify, before any project, who owns data, who will see it and for what purpose, in writing, with leadership's signature as well as participants' notice. Next year's 360 agreement will state its purpose, and if leadership wants evaluative use, we will design and announce that from the start.

Conclusion

The request pitted a business need against a promise. The APA code's principles and standards, a reasoned weighing of moral principles and research on 360 programs all pointed toward keeping the commitment while finding another way to serve the business. Ethical practice in I-O psychology often means creating that third path.

References

American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct (2002, amended effective June 1, 2010, and January 1, 2017). https://www.apa.org/ethics/code

Bracken, D. W., Rose, D. S., & Church, A. H. (2016). The evolution and devolution of 360 feedback. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 9(4), 761-794. https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2016.93

Kitchener, K. S. (1984). Intuition, critical evaluation and ethical principles: The foundation for ethical decisions in counseling psychology. The Counseling Psychologist, 12(3), 43-55. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000084123005