Psychologists', are intended to be an essential guide and reference for psychologists for decision making. Each guideline is created to clarify the purpose, morals and values, associating them with principles of professional conduct. Also, it could be used as a reference, in making sure that relevant documents, services and other resources related to ethics are essential to the specified field in psychology. The APA and AP-LS outline the tasks and duties of psychologists. Another significant relationship between APA and AP-LS is that its goals are to foresee the welfare of clients, students and colleagues that may be associated with any services within psychology.
The three specialty guidelines I selected 1.01 Integrity, 1.08 Avoiding Conflict of Interest and 6.01 Timing and Substance. According to the Specialty guidelines for forensic psychology (2013), 1.01 Integrity states that Forensic psychology professionals must be able to strive for “accuracy, honesty, and truthfulness in the science, teaching, and practice of forensic psychology”. Forensic psychology professionals must refrain from pressures in offering services in any ways that might be deceptive or inaccurate (). For Instance, the historical event of the Tuskegee Syphilis (1932-1972) was conducted by the U.S. public Health Service. This study gathered 600 low-income African American males, where 400 of the participants were infected with syphilis. Each participant was monitored for 40 years ( the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Office for the Protection of Research Subjects, 2014). Participants who contact the disease were not told they had them and were prevented seek treatment. Although, penicillin was available, lack of treatment, many participants died. This is a big violation because researchers failed to provide accuracy, honesty, and truthfulness about their service, especially when people’s lives are in danger.
1.03 Avoiding Conflicts of Interest states forensic psychology professionals must abstain from upholding any role when “personal, scientific, professional, legal, financial, or other interests or relationships” that might be damaging to their ability, efficiency, or credibility and thus, expose others with association in professional affiliation that harm may exist ().
For Instance, The Stanford Prison Experiment carry out by Haney, Banks & Zimbardo is known for its significant study but also its violation of ethics in psychology (Haney, Banks & Zimbardo, 1973). The concept of this experiment was to determine the role of conformity in an experiment act to establish the correlation between prison guards and prisoners in the prison system(Haney, Banks & Zimbardo, 1973). Although, its success, the experiment received immense condemnation due to the ethical violations that occurred during the experiment. Philip Zimbardo failed to stop the experiment as soon as it was getting out of hand. Zimbardo and his colleagues were determining to see how far the experiment could go they failed to see the damage it was doing to their
participant.
6.01 Timing and Substance states forensic psychology professionals must inform their clients and colleagues about the nature and degree of reasonably anticipated forensic services (). In determining what information to impart, forensic psychology professionals are encouraged to inform their clients and others about the factors association with the “person’s experience or training in psychological and legal matters” (). For instance, the trial against 23 German physicians and administrators for willing participating in war crimes and crimes against humanity (University of Nevada, Las Vegas Office for the Protection of Research Subjects, 2014). The charges brought against the German physicians were a medical experiment conducted on thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent (University of Nevada, Las Vegas Office for the Protection of Research Subjects, 2014). This is an ethical violation because each German physician failed to get consent from their participants, which lead to their conviction and the creation of the Nuremberg Code.
Overall, the APA and the AP-LS strictly enforces ethics, values and morals to forensic psychology professionals. Each specialty guidelines and code of ethics are put in place to guarantee that clients and participant who seek services from forensic psychology professionals as well as the practitioners protected against any violation of conduct that may cause bodily or emotional harm to those whom are involved in the services.