| Course | PSYCH 639 Ethics and Professional Skills in I-O Psychology (PSYCH/639) |
|---|---|
| Week | 4 |
| Paper type | Ethics case analysis |
| Length | about 1,167 words, 4 double-spaced pages plus title page and references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | University of Phoenix |
| Program | MS in Psychology |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for PSYCH 639 Week 4
A Coaching Client Who Is Also a Friend, and a Survey Comment That Names a Harasser: Confidentiality and Multiple Roles for an Internal I-O Practitioner
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
PSYCH/639: Ethics and Professional Skills in I-O Psychology
Week 4 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The grocery chain, its staff, the coaching relationship and the survey comment are composites written for a model paper; ethical standards and research come from the sources listed.
Internal I-O practitioners often wear several hats: assessor, coach, survey analyst and colleague. Each role carries promises about who will learn what, and roles can overlap with personal relationships. This paper analyzes two situations from my work involving confidentiality and multiple relationships.
Case One: Coaching a Friend
Desert Fresh Markets assigned me to provide six months of leadership coaching to Dana Whitfield, a district manager whose 360 results showed problems with delegation. Dana and I have been friends for eight years. We play in the same Sunday softball league, our children attend the same school and our families have spent holidays together. Dana asked for me specifically, saying she trusts me.
When Multiple Relationships Become a Problem
Under the APA Ethics Code (American Psychological Association, 2017), a psychologist is in a multiple relationship whenever a professional tie to someone overlaps with a second tie to that person or to someone close to them. Standard 3.05 does not ban overlap outright. It tells psychologists to stay out of a second role when that role could cloud their judgment, weaken their work or open the door to exploiting or hurting the other person, and it says plainly that harmless overlaps are allowed.
Kitchener (1988) analyzed why dual role relationships become problematic and identified three factors: the more the expectations of the two roles diverge, the greater the risk of misunderstanding; the more the obligations of the roles differ, the greater the risk of divided loyalties and loss of objectivity; and the greater the power difference between the professional and the other person, the greater the risk of exploitation. Gottlieb (1993) proposed a decision model for avoiding exploitive dual relationships, assessing the current relationship on power, duration and clarity of termination, and examining how the proposed new relationship would compare on the same dimensions.
Applied to Dana, power is moderate: I would hold information about her weaknesses that the company might later ask about, and she might feel unable to disagree with a friend. Duration is long; our friendship will continue. Termination is unclear, since our families' lives are intertwined. Expectations diverge: as a friend I am supportive, while as a coach I must challenge her. I would struggle to give hard feedback, and Dana might share personal matters that complicate the friendship.
Why Internal Practitioners Face This Often
Multiple relationships are harder to avoid inside a company than in private practice. An internal I-O practitioner eats lunch with the people they assess, sits in meetings with the managers whose teams they survey and may report to an executive whose own leadership appears in the data. Small organizations and close-knit regions make overlaps more likely still. The code recognizes that not all overlaps can or should be avoided; the task is to notice them, judge the risk honestly and set boundaries or step aside when the risk is real. Pretending that a friendship will not affect coaching is the most common way such relationships go wrong.
Decision in Case One
I declined the assignment and arranged for an external coach the company already uses. I explained to Dana that I wanted her to have a coach who could challenge her without our friendship getting in the way, and I told my manager the reason, without disclosing anything about Dana's 360 results beyond what she had already shared with him. Dana was disappointed at first but agreed. I documented the decision.
Case Two: A Survey Comment Naming a Supervisor
Each year I administer the company's engagement survey, run through an external platform. The invitation states that responses are confidential, that only aggregated results for groups of eight or more will be reported and that written comments will be reviewed by me and summarized without identifying details, with one exception: "If a comment describes a threat to someone's safety or illegal conduct such as harassment, it may be shared with Human Resources so the company can respond. Your identity will be protected to the extent possible."
This year a comment from a store read: "The assistant manager on nights, [name], touches the young cashiers and makes comments about their bodies. Everyone is scared to report it."
Confidentiality, Anonymity and Their Limits
Confidentiality and anonymity differ. Anonymous responses cannot be traced to a person by anyone; confidential responses can be traced but are protected. Our survey is confidential, not anonymous: the platform links responses to store and job level. Section 4 of the code asks psychologists to explain up front where confidentiality ends and allows disclosure without consent only in narrow cases, protecting people from harm among them.
Rogelberg and Stanton (2007) discussed survey nonresponse in organizations and emphasized that employees' trust that their responses will be handled as promised shapes whether they participate and how candidly they answer. Breaking confidentiality carelessly would damage future surveys; keeping it in a way that leaves young workers at risk would be wrong as well.
The survey's promise had an exception written into it for exactly this comment.
Decision in Case Two
Because the invitation stated this limit in advance, sharing the allegation with HR fell within what participants were told. The comment describes potential sexual harassment, possibly of minors, since some cashiers are sixteen and seventeen, which the company has a legal duty to investigate. I forwarded the comment text to the HR director, without the respondent's store-level demographic details beyond what was needed to identify the location, and asked that the investigation not reveal that it arose from the survey. HR opened an investigation the same day, and the assistant manager was placed on leave pending its outcome. I documented my actions and consulted the company's employment attorney about my obligations.
Protecting the Respondent
One further concern remained: the person who wrote the comment. If the assistant manager or coworkers guessed the source, the respondent could face retaliation. I asked HR to begin its investigation through routine store visits and interviews with several employees, rather than by citing a survey comment, and to remind all staff of the company's anti-retaliation policy. The respondent took a risk by writing what everyone was afraid to say, and the response needed to protect that courage.
What I Would Change
Both cases point to policies. For coaching, I proposed a rule that internal practitioners disclose personal relationships before accepting assignments, with external coaches available. For surveys, I revised the invitation to state the limits of confidentiality more prominently and to include a direct link to the company's anonymous ethics hotline, so that employees have a channel built for reports of misconduct.
Conclusion
Confidentiality and multiple relationships are less about rigid rules than about honoring what people were told and protecting them from harm. A decision model showed why coaching a close friend risked impaired objectivity, and the stated limits of a survey promise allowed action on a serious allegation while respecting participants' trust.
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
Gottlieb, M. C. (1993). Avoiding exploitive dual relationships: A decision-making model. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 30(1), 41-48. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-3204.30.1.41
Kitchener, K. S. (1988). Dual role relationships: What makes them so problematic? Journal of Counseling & Development, 67(4), 217-221. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1988.tb02586.x
Rogelberg, S. G., & Stanton, J. M. (2007). Introduction: Understanding and dealing with organizational survey nonresponse. Organizational Research Methods, 10(2), 195-209. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428106294693
What the PSYCH 639 Week 4 instructions ask
Week 4 of PSYCH 639 usually focuses on confidentiality, privacy and multiple relationships in organizational practice. Prompts typically cover the limits of confidentiality in organizational settings, informing participants about those limits in advance, anonymity versus confidentiality in surveys, duties when information suggests harm or illegal conduct, multiple relationships and conflicts of interest and record keeping. Analyze each situation separately, identify what participants were promised, apply the specific code standards, weigh risks of harm, exploitation and loss of objectivity and describe both the immediate action and the policy change that would prevent a repeat. Support your reasoning with the code and scholarly sources in APA style.
How this PSYCH 639 Week 4 example is built
Kofi Mensah describes two problems at Desert Fresh Markets. First, the company assigned him to coach a district manager, Dana, who is also a close friend; they play in the same softball league and their children attend school together. A dual-relationship decision model, built on power, duration and clarity of termination, and an analysis of why such roles become problematic help Kofi decide to transfer the coaching. Second, an engagement survey comment, promised confidential, names an assistant manager who allegedly touches employees. Research on survey confidentiality explains why promises matter, but the code allows disclosure to prevent harm when participants were told the limits. Kofi follows the limits stated in the survey invitation.
PSYCH 639 Week 4 grading rubric: where the points go
Confidentiality and dual relationship papers are scored on precise application of the standards, a careful analysis of risk and action that fits what participants were promised. Instructors look for the difference between confidentiality and anonymity to be explained, for limits of confidentiality to be tied to what participants were told, for multiple relationships to be evaluated for risks of impaired objectivity, exploitation and harm and for actions to protect people while respecting commitments. Credit goes to using a decision model, to consulting and documenting and to proposing policies that prevent future dilemmas. Refusing every dual role or ignoring them both lose marks. Sources listed in APA style round it out.
PSYCH 639 Week 4 help: mistakes to avoid
Students often treat confidentiality as absolute, ignoring the limits that should be explained in advance, or treat it as meaningless in organizations. Another common mistake is assuming every multiple relationship is unethical, when the code prohibits only those that risk impairing objectivity or causing exploitation or harm. Some papers handle a harassment allegation as a confidentiality problem only, overlooking the organization's legal duty to investigate and the safety of the people involved. Others forget documentation. Separate the two issues, apply the relevant standards, weigh risks using a model, take action consistent with what participants were promised and fix the policy. A tutor can help you draft the limits-of-confidentiality paragraph for a survey invitation.
Related PSYCH 639 sample papers
Other PSYCH 639 week samples
- PSYCH 639 Week 1: Ethical Principles and Codes
- PSYCH 639 Week 2: Employment Law for I-O Work
- PSYCH 639 Week 3: Ethics in Testing and Selection
- PSYCH 639 Week 5: Ethics in Organizational Consulting
- PSYCH 639 Week 6: Personal Ethical Framework
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PSYCH 639 Week 4 questions, answered
What does PSYCH 639 Week 4 usually cover?
Confidentiality, privacy, anonymity, multiple relationships and conflicts of interest in I-O practice.
Where can I find a free PSYCH 639 Week 4 sample paper?
The full PSYCH 639 Week 4 case analysis on coaching a friend and a survey comment naming a harasser is available above, free.
What is the difference between anonymity and confidentiality?
Anonymous data cannot be linked to a person by anyone; confidential data can be linked but are protected from disclosure.
Are all multiple relationships unethical?
No; the APA code prohibits those that could reasonably be expected to impair objectivity or risk exploitation or harm.
Can a confidential survey comment be disclosed?
Only within limits explained to participants in advance, such as threats of harm or reports of illegal conduct.
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