Some ethical concerns about counselling research

The whole approach of counselling researchers to ethics may be assumed to have been improving in recent years, especially with the BACP research guidelines (Bond, 2004 Bond, T. 2004. Ethical guidelines for researching counselling and psychotherapy. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 4(2): 4–9. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar]), with its focus on trustworthiness and on the researcher engaging with ethical issues. In this paper we share our concerns about the background to ethical decision making for researchers today followed by our specific concerns for counselling researchers namely: why do counselling research at all?; research that hurts participants; the impact of research on the therapeutic process; restrictive notions around what is data; the politics of funding and informed consent revisited.     

Proportionality, Just War Theory and Weapons Innovation

Just wars are supposed to be proportional responses to aggression: the costs of war must not greatly exceed the benefits. This proportionality principle raises a corresponding ‘interpretation problem’: what are the costs and benefits of war, how are they to be determined, and a ‘measurement problem’: how are costs and benefits to be balanced? And it raises a problem about scope: how far into the future do the states of affairs to be measured stretch? It is argued here that weapons innovation always introduces costs, and that these costs cannot be determined in advance of going to war. Three examples, the atomic bomb, the AK-47 and the ancient Greek catapult, are given as examples. It is therefore argued that the proportionality principle is inapplicable prospectively. Some replies to the argument are discussed and rejected. Some more general defences of the proportionality principle are considered and also rejected. Finally, the significance of the argument for Just War Theory as a whole is discussed.     

Piercing the Veil: Ethical Issues in Ethnographic Research

It is not unusual for researchers in ethnography (and sometimes Institutional Review Boards) to assume that research of “public” behavior is morally unproblematic. I examine an historical case of ethnographic research and the sustained moral outrage to the research expressed by the subjects of that research. I suggest that the moral outrage was legitimate and articulate some of the ethical issues underlying that outrage. I argue that morally problematic Ethnographic research of public behavior can derive from research practice that includes a tendency to collapse the distinction between harm and moral wrong, a failure to take account of recent work on ethical issues in privacy; failure to appreciate the deception involved in ethnographers’ failure to reveal their role as researchers to subjects and finally a failure to appropriately weigh the moral significance of issues of invasion of privacy and inflicted insight in both the research process and subsequent publication of research.

Scientific Self-Regulation—So Good, How Can it Fail?

To be a functional alternative to government regulation, self-regulation of science must be credible to both scientists and the public, accountable, ethical, and effective. According to some, serious problems continue in research ethics in the United States despite a rich history of proposed self-regulatory standards and oversight devices. Successful efforts at self-regulation in stem cell research contrast with unsuccessful efforts in research ethics, particularly conflicts of interest. Part of the cause for a lack of success in self-regulation is fragmented, disconnected oversight, and failure to embody genuine scientific and public consensus. To be accountable, credible and effective, self-regulation must be inclusive and multidisciplinary, publicly engaged, sufficiently disinterested, operationally integrated with institutional goals, and must implement a genuine consensus among scientists and the public. The mechanisms of self-regulation must be sufficiently broad in their oversight, and interconnected with other institutional forces and actors, that they do not create fragmented solutions.

Publication trends in individual DSM personality disorders: 1971–2015

Growth in personality disorder research has been documented by previous authors up to 1995. The aim of the present study was to extend this by examining publications rates for individual DSM personality disorders over the period 1971–2005, and making projections to 2015 based on these data. It was found that personality disorder research has grown in absolute terms, and as a proportion of overall psychopathology research. Research output is dominated by borderline personality disorder, with strong publication rates in other conditions such as antisocial and schizotypal personality disorders. In contrast, several personality disorders such as schizoid and paranoid personality disorder have failed to attract research interest. Based on current projections, there is expected to be no research output in 2015 for schizoid personality disorder. It was found that the rate of publications for personality disorders was not influenced by the publication of the last three revisions of the DSM diagnostic criteria. Several potential explanations such as the difficulty in conducting certain types of personality disorder research, and the validity of the current DSM diagnostic taxonomy are discussed.     

Some aspects of the psychoanalytic psychology of physicians

An earlier publication ( Halpert, 1994 ) dealt with patients' magical expectations of physicians. In this presentation, aspects of physicians' expectations of themselves as doctors will be explored. This exploration will include material from the history of medicine, a series of interviews with non-patients and the analyses of two physicians. One element in the psychology of physicians not previously appreciated that can be drawn out of this material is the role and importance of knowledge and knowing and their relation to illness, death, rescue fantasies and reality in the psychology of physians.     

Youth Action Research for Prevention: A Multi-level Intervention Designed to Increase Efficacy and Empowerment Among Urban Youth

Youth Action Research for Prevention (YARP), a federally funded research and demonstration intervention, utilizes youth empowerment as the cornerstone of a multi-level intervention designed to reduce and/or delay onset of drug and sex risk, while increasing individual and collective efficacy and educational expectations. The intervention, located in Hartford Connecticut, served 114 African-Caribbean and Latino high school youth in a community education setting and a matched comparison group of 202 youth from 2001 to 2004. The strategy used in YARP begins with individuals, forges group identity and cohesion, trains youth as a group to use research to understand their community better (formative community ethnography), and then engages them in using the research for social action at multiple levels in community settings (policy, school-based, parental etc.) Engagement in community activism has, in turn, an effect on individual and collective efficacy and individual behavioral change. This approach is unique insofar as it differs from multilevel interventions that create approaches to attack multiple levels simultaneously. We describe the YARP intervention and employ qualitative and quantitative data from the quasi-experimental evaluation study design to assess the way in which the YARP approach empowered individual youth and groups of youth (youth networks) to engage in social action in their schools, communities and at the policy level, which in turn affected their attitudes and behaviors.     

社会建构论与心理学理论的未来发展

社会建构论是当代西方心理学中的一股重要学术思潮。它认为知识不是一种科学发现,而是一种社会建构。知识的生产过程不是个体理性决定的,而是一种文化历史的过程,是社会协商和互动的结果。有关心理现象的分类、心理活动的形式方面的知识都是一定文化历史条件的产物。从社会建构论的视角看心理学的研究成果会有许多新的收获。从社会建构论的观点来看,理论不是经验事实的概括和抽象,而是一种社会建构。理论先于经验观察,也高于经验观察,这种观点将理论建构置于经验工作之首,为心理学理论的未来发展开辟了全新的视角。     

Leadership and Organizational Culture: Linking CEO Characteristics to Cultural Values

Purpose  The purpose of this study was to empirically examine organizational culture theorists’ assertions about the linkages between leadership and the cultures that emerge in the organizations they lead. Specific hypotheses were developed and tested regarding relationships between chief executive officers’ (CEO’s) personality traits, and the cultural values that are shared among their organization’s members. Design/Methodology/Approach  Thirty-two CEOs completed measures of the Big-Five personality traits and personal values. A total of 467 employees across the 32 organizations completed a competing values measure of organizational culture. Findings  Results indicate support for several hypothesized relationships between CEO personality and cultural values. Exploratory analyses indicated that several CEO personal values were related to culture values. Implications  Organizations need to seriously consider the “fit” between the current or desired organizational culture and CEO characteristics. Organizations attempting to change fundamental aspects of its functioning may need significant behavioral—or personnel—changes at the top of the organization in order to achieve those changes. Originality/Value  This is the first empirical study to establish a link between specific CEO characteristics and the cultural values of their organizations. This study provides evidence that CEO characteristics are felt throughout the organization by impacting the norms that sanction or discourage member behavior and decision making, and the patterns of behavior and interaction among members.