Ethics for Behavior Analysts

Jon S. Bailey, Mary R. Burch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000559156
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Psicología cognitiva y cognición

This fully updated fourth edition of Jon S. Bailey and Mary R. Burch's bestselling Ethics for Behavior Analysts is an invaluable guide to understanding and implementing the newly revised Behavior Analyst Certification Board® (BACB) Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.

Featured in this new edition are explanations of each code standard along with case studies drawn from questions submitted to Bailey's ABA Ethics Hotline (with permission of the writers of the cases) along with edited responses. New chapters include significant changes in this code, an elaboration of the core ethical principles, and the distinction between a client and stakeholder. Further new features include a chapter on ethical decision-making, including flowcharts demonstrating how to arrive at ethical decisions. Additional new chapters focus on finding an ethical place to work, an updated code of ethics for organizations, and how to file a Notice of Alleged Violation.

This text is the go-to ethics resource for behavior analysts in training and in practice.

Unit Three Ethics Standards

6 Section 1: Responsibility as a Professional

DOI: 10.4324/9781003198550-9

With learning theory as a foundation, it was believed that these treatments might work to relieve suffering or dramatically improve the quality of life for institutionalized individuals who were not receiving any other forms of effective treatment.

Compared to other helping professions, behavior analysis has evolved in a unique way. Our field has a relatively short history, going back only to the mid-1960s, and our roots are firmly planted in the experimental analysis of behavior. The original behavior analysts were often experimental psychologists who recognized how procedures originally developed in the animal lab could be applied to help the human condition. The earliest applications with humans were almost direct replications of experimental (animal laboratory) methods. These procedures were used with popula tions that were abandoned by the other service professionals at the time. The 1960s was also a time in which questions about the ethics of treatment were not raised. Well-trained, responsible, experimental psychologists used their own conscience, common sense, and respect for human values to create new treatments. With learning theory as a foundation, it was believed that these treatments might work to relieve suffering or dramatically improve the quality of life for institutionalized individuals who were not receiving any other forms of effective treatment. There was no Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts, and there was no oversight of the PhD researchers turned cutting-edge therapists. Their work was done in the public eye with the full knowledge of parents or guardians, and a review of the work today would find little to fault in terms of ethical conduct. It was only much later that some poorly prepared and insensitive behavior analysts with serious ethics deficiencies would create the scandals described in Chapter 1.

Relative to other professions, behavior analysis is the new kid on the block. Physical therapy is said to have begun as a profession in Sweden in 1813, occupational therapy in 1921, and speech pathology in 1926. Our history as a field of applied research can be dated to 1959 with the seminal research of Dr. Ted Ayllon and Dr. Jack Michael’s “The Psychiatric Nurse as a Behavioral Engineer” (Ayllon & Michael, 1959). This work, carried out in Saskatchewan, Canada, was the beginning of our field. We received our current moniker, “applied behavior analysis” (“behavior analysis,” for short) in 1968 with the publication of Don Baer, Mont Wolf, and Todd Risley’s foundational paper, “Some Current Dimensions of Applied Behavior Analysis” (Baer, Wolf, & Risley, 1968). Thirty years later, in 1999, we coalesced as a profession when the Behavior Analyst Certification Board was formed by Jerry Shook and Michael Hemingway. The first code of ethics for behavior analysts was the Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts; this groundbreaking work was published in August 2014. Over the years there have been updates to the code, including a new name (Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts).

The current set of ethics standards follows the routine established by the BACB for there to be a review of the ethics code every five years. This review includes input from the profession. In 2020–2021, Dr. Tyra Sellers and a committee of behavior analysts updated the code, and the result was that the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts was reorganized into six sections (from the previous ten).

Overall, the new code is prescriptive in nature. Rather than focus on violations (i.e., what not to do), the code now describes the best ethical practices suited for a changing society. The code reflects positive aspirations and high expectations for professionals who are quite young (50% of our BCBAs have been in the field five years or less) but who represent the future of this dynamic and rapidly expanding discipline. This code is designed to educate young behavior analysts about their ethical responsibilities by spelling out in detail what it is to be a professional in the human services in the 21st century. Our great strength as a field is our unwavering commitment to the sci ence of behavior as envisioned by B. F. Skinner in his landmark work, Science and Human Behavior (Skinner, 1953), and to the exploding technology of effective and ethical behavior change methodology. This methodology is featured in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis.

This code is designed to educate young behavior analysts about their ethical responsibilities by spelling out in detail what it is to be a professional in the human services in the 21st century.

The six sections of the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts are:

1. Responsibility as a Professional
2. Responsibility in Practice
3. Responsibility to Clients and Stakeholders
4. Responsibility to Supervisees and Trainees
5. Responsibility in Public Statements
6. Responsibility in Research.

PREVIEW TO RESPONSIBILITY AS A PROFESSIONAL

This chapter covers the first standard, Section 1: Responsibility as a Professional. This standard has 16 elements. Some of these are new (see Chapter 2 for details on this), and others were held over and updated from the 2016 Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts.

Being Truthful is a given for any behavior analyst. We could not exist as an evidence-based profession without this building block of trust in our word. Further, we are obligated to promote this intrinsic value with colleagues and students. Conforming with Legal and Professional Requirements is another given for any field that expects to have the trust of consumers and funding agencies. The code also has an emphasis on Accountability for our actions and keeping commitments to employers as well as clients and stakeholders. As a profession matures, the boundaries become increasingly clear. Practicing within a Defined Role and within their Scope of Competence is essential for behavior analysts to be able to be fully responsible for the implementation of behavioral technology. The ability to deliver behavior change reliably and effectively over time requires Maintaining Competence, which does not come automatically but requires time, study, and effort to acquire those skills necessary to perform at the highest levels. Although not new to other professions, there is a new emphasis in the code on engaging in Cultural Responsiveness and Diversity. This is an essential requirement to serve our varied populations, and it ties in closely with a mandate promoting Nondiscrimination against clients, stakeholders, supervisees, and colleagues. All of these come to our field with different needs and backgrounds. Some of these individuals may hold biases which could prevent them from fully respecting any differences in ethnicity, race, religion, or sexual orientation of clients or colleagues. The code now addresses this issue head-on in requiring an Awareness of Personal Biases and Challenges. Provocation (i.e., engaging in behavior that is harassing or hostile toward others) is not allowed under any circumstance. Nonharassment is a clear policy for behavior analysts. It is all too easy to become friends with clients or supervisees, and the new code explains this challenge out by clearly discouraging Multiple Relationships. Multiple relationships can lead to conflicts of interest that could instill distrust in our profession. This version of the code allows modest gifts on an infrequent (no more than annual) basis from consumers who might feel slighted if they were refused. Also addressed is the potential for Coercive and Exploitative behavior that can arise given the power dynamic in delivery systems where there are entry-level behavior technicians working under master’s and PhD level behavior analysts. The power dynamic occurs because typically, behavior analysts at those levels are supervisors, company administrators, and executives. Equally disallowed are any Romantic and Sexual Relationships, which can easily affect the professional judgment of behavior analysts toward their clients and supervisees. Finally, the new code lays out a requirement for quickly Responding to Requests for information from clients, stakeholders, and others, as well as complying with requests for background checks and other practice requirements. The code sets a standard for Self-Reporting of Critical Information regarding violations of the code or arrests, investigations, and similar incidents to the BACB.

A CLOSER LOOK AT RESPONSIBILITY AS A PROFESSIONAL

1.01 Being Truthful

Behavior analysts are truthful and arrange the professional environment to promote truthful behavior in others. They do not create professional situations that result in others engaging in behavior that is fraudulent or illegal or that violates the Code. They also provide truthful and accurate information to all required entities (e.g., BACB, licensure boards, funders) and individuals (e.g., clients, stakeholders, supervisees, trainees), and they correct instances of untruthful or inaccurate submissions as soon as they become aware of them.

Being truthful is a value all behavior analysts should deliberately display in both their professional and personal lives.

Being truthful is one element of integrity. Being truthful is a value all behavior analysts should deliberately display in both their professional and personal lives. It would seem that being truthful would not be difficult considering that we work with a science-based treatments, we take data, and we use data to make our decisions in providing behavioral services. The problem comes when there is pressure to shade the truth to avoid an embarrassing or painful confrontation with a client, supervisor, or administrator. Sometimes this pressure is self-caused, such as when you slept late, got caught in traffi c, and arrived at the client’s house 30 minutes past the appointed time. An apology is in order since there has been an inconvenience to the client, and here is where the truth hurts. You have to explain that you failed to set your alarm (the truth). This exposes you to criticism, so a lie about a power outage in your neighborhood gives you cover. There is always the risk that this lie could be found out later and result in even greater criticism. Responding with a lie also opens the door to another possible untruthful response. For example, when you fill out your billing form, you might be tempted to indicate the assigned time to hide the truth of your lateness from your supervisor. This moves into the far more serious category of fraudulent billing. Fraudulent billing is a crime and will be found out through an audit conducted by the insurance company.

Pressure to engage in dishonest behavior can also come from the client who may want you not to report something you observed in the home. Examples that clients frequently do not want reported include abuse, neglect, or drug usage by a parent or relative. Some clients (including the parents) may want the behavior analyst to misreport the number of hours of service to lower their co-pay. There is also occasional pressure from one’s supervisor or the administration to misrepresent a situation to the client. A common example of misrepresenting a situation occurs when the behavior analyst is told to inform a family that they need to increase their hours of service to 20 hours per week. When the administrator tells the behavior analyst, “Since this is a new policy of the insurance provider, if the family doesn’t increase their hours, they will be dropped,” it puts the behavior analyst in a very uncomfortable spot. This is a true test of one’s integrity to pushback and say, “I’m sorry, I cannot do that. It is just not true.”

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CASE 1.01 PERILS OF TELLING THE TRUTH

“I am concerned that my previous supervising BCBA broke Ethics Code 1.01 which is Being Truthful. I was pulled into a meeting with two BCBAs within my company. They asked me about the company morale and why everyone seemed to be unhappy. I asked them if I would be retaliated against if I was honest or if what I said would reflect negatively on me. They both assured me this would not reflect negatively on me. I told them things that were wrong within the company and how many of the therapists felt about their workload and supervision. I was happy that they were promoting an honest environment, but I kept asking them if I was going to be in trouble for what I said. Every time I asked, they said no. Two days later, I was called to a meeting with the supervising BCBA and fired for what I said. I was very confused as I thought they wanted me to be honest and explain what was wrong. The supervising BCBA did not explain much to me but said I was fired due to the conversation ...