Everyday Ethical Challenges For Average Citizens & Behavior Analysts Chapter 5 Presented by: Heather Peltack ABA Summer 2012

Jon Bailey & Mary Burch

1. Introduction 2. Favors 3. Gossip 4. “White Lies” 5. Appreciation 6. Advice 7. Responsibility 8. Questions

Introduction  Everyday any citizen is challenged with ethical situations  Sometimes you may be aware of situations  Sometimes you may not be aware  As a child you absorb the rules of communities, religions and cultures  Parents  Teachers  Group Leaders  Adults play a key role start rules and delivering the consequences that will determine future adult behavior.

Good Example Leader (Presents Rules) Daisy Future Adult Behavior

Bad Example

Introduction  2 words that sum up this chapter “snowball effect”- Courtesy of Megan Borgese  Every topic we will discuss may cause a snowball effect if you do not handle ethically the first encounter.

Personal Ethics Personal Ethics= the way we allow ourselves to operate in our personal lives vs. Professional Ethics=the way our profession (BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS) expects us to operate in order to maintain our certification in order to reflect the high standards and continued positive development of the field

Favors- Be prepared for favors  Everyone are accustomed to asking for and returning favors  Just remember when you do a favor for someone you may be reinforcing the “favor” behavior to happen again  Scenarios from chapter  Can I borrow a DVD?  Can you tell me the name of a good counselor?  Working in a home program, mom asks you to run session in the car, do you do it?

Favor Examples?  Can anyone give an example from there personal live or job where you reinforced a favor?

Gossip

 Everyday/ Everywhere  Magazines  Coffee with a friend  E!  Reality TV  Family  Friends  Colleagues  Chapter  Gossip is one of the recognized coins of the popular culture, it is accepted by average citizens as normal in our society.  atch?v=OBHZ4fg0lS0 atch?v=OBHZ4fg0lS0

Gossip  Clinical  Parents asking about other learners  Therapists talking about learners  Limitation on therapist privacy  Example- Personal and Private life  Try to not reinforce gossip

 An attempt to avoid conflict  Our book they say “ In our culture people tend to cover up their motives, mistakes, or other shortcomings with white lies.  Use evasive tactics instead of the truth  Many people can not read your signals and they help you try to overcome every excuse you can think of  Example- Modified from book  A friend calls to invite you for coffee and you would rather go to the gym. You say you already have plans to take your niece shopping. “White Lies”

White Lies (Work and Personal) Because some things just aren’t worth taking credit for. It wasn’t me! Because it sounds a lot better than 15 minutes. The table will be ready in 5 minutes. Because option B involves admitting that I am clueless. Oh, yeah. That makes sense. Because telling someone that their gift sucked would make me look like an insensitive jerk. Thank you so much! I just love it! Because claiming ignorance is sometimes better than admitting to insubordination. No, officer… I have no idea how fast I was going.

White Lies (Work and Personal) Because 29 is like 20 years younger than 30. I’m 29. Because telling you I have 10 things to do first would just irritate you. Yeah, I’ll start working on that ASAP! Because that’s what friends do… we agree and ask questions later. Yes, John was with me last night. Because you can’t see me in this online chat room… ha ha! I’m 21, 6’5, with a muscular build. Because telling you that it was a low priority and I forgot would probably hurt our relationship. I thought I already sent that out. I’m sure I did.

Appreciation- Gifts  Gifts, money,  Service Appreciation  Doorman tip  Hairdresser  Newspaper delivery  Solutions we have discussed:  1 st day say “If you want to but buy something we have a donation list”  Exchanging of gifts creates a dual-role relationship

Advice  Is normally based on personal experiences, unspecified biases and undisclosed relationships.  Once becoming BCBA you must be careful of how and what advice you give to others  Book example (Page 43 & 44)  BACB Guidelines for Responsible Conduct, 1.05 a

Responsibility  When something is good… Many people hold themselves responsible  When something is bad… Many people do not hold them selves responsible  Politicians  Movie stars  Parents with child  Teach children if negative consequences are provided, both parties are reinforced to tactics to avoid responsibility

Responsibility  Behavior Analyst must be aware of this  Necessary steps that agreements with parents are followed through  Implementing good behavior plans at home BCBA

Summary  BCBA or BCABA-must make a conscious choice to uphold our fields strict GUIDELINES OF RESPONSIBLE CONDUCT.  Bailey and Burch assert that abandoning some of our personal ethics which might conflict with our GUIDELINES FOR RESPONSIBLE CONDUCT, is a “worthy challenge”.  Following the GUIDELINES FOR RESPONSIBLE CONDUCT bring benefits and integrity to the profession of behavior analysis.

Questions

Role Play 1. 6 Groups ( Favors, Gossip, “White Lies”, Appreciation, Advice & Responsibility)

References  Bailey, J.S., &Burch, M.R. (2011). Ethics for behavior analysts (2 nd Expanded Edition). Routledge.