Decoding the Ethics Code

Standards on

Advertising and

Other Public Statements

5. Advertising and Other Public Statements

5.01 Avoidance of False or Deceptive Statements

(a) Public statements include but are not limited to paid or unpaid advertising, product endorsements,

grant applications, licensing applications, other credentialing applications, brochures,

printed matter, directory listings, personal resumes or curricula vitae, or comments for use in

media such as print or electronic transmission, statements in legal proceedings, lectures and

public oral presentations, and published materials. Psychologists do not knowingly make public statements that are false, deceptive, or fraudulent concerning their research, practice, or other work activities or those of persons or organizations with which they are affiliated.

Psychologists aspire to promote accuracy, honesty, and truthfulness in the science, teaching, and practice of psychology and do not engage in subterfuge or intentional misrepresentation of fact (Principle C: Integrity). Standard 5.01a of the

APA Ethics Code (APA, 2010c) prohibits false, deceptive, or fraudulent public statements regarding work activities or the activities of persons or organizations with which psychologists are affiliated.

The terms avoidance and knowingly exclude as violations statements that psychologists

would reasonably be expected to believe are true but that they may later learn are false.

? A psychologist in a group practice distributed brochures with a listing of the group

members’ credentials, only to discover that one member had submitted false credentials.

She ceased distribution and ordered a corrected brochure.

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Chapter 8 Standards on Advertising and Other Public Statements——163

Definition of Public Statements

This standard begins with a definition of public statements. This definition

applies to the use of the term public statement or statement in all standards under

Section 5, Advertising and Other Public Statements. The definition refers only to

statements made in the public domain. It does not apply to statements made during

private professional or personal conversations with clients/patients, organizational

clients, attorneys, students, colleagues, or others with whom psychologists have a

professional or personal relationship.

Decoding the Ethics Code

The following are the types of statements included in this definition along

with examples of false or deceptive statements that would be in violation of this

standard:

? Paid or unpaid advertising or product endorsements. A toy company paid a

school psychologist for her endorsement stating the proven effectiveness of a taperecorded

language lesson for infants that would improve reading comprehension in

elementary school. There was no empirical evidence supporting this claim.

? Licensing, grant applications, and other credentialing applications. In the

Preliminary Studies section of a federal grant application, an experimental psychologist

listed as completed a pilot study that was still in the data collection phase.

? Directory listings, personal resumes, or curricula vitae. A psychologist with a

Ph.D. in social psychology and no specialized clinical or other practice-oriented postdoctoral

training listed himself in the city directory under health care providers.

? Business cards. A clinical neuropsychologist set up a practice in which she prescribed

psychotropic medications through her license as a nurse practitioner. Her business

cards only included her degree and title as a neuropsychologist, but listed both her

psychology and nursing state licensure numbers.

? Comments for use in print, electronic, or other media. In a television interview,

a psychology professor who had an academic freedom suit against his university

claimed that the university refused to allow any faculty to teach courses that

include discussion of human sexuality when in fact the university catalog listed

several such courses.

? Statements in legal proceedings, lectures, public oral presentations, and

published materials. An industrial–organizational psychologist was hired as an

? A research psychologist gave a public lecture, a series of media interviews, and congressional

testimony during which he publicly concluded that empirical evidence

supported a particular policy initiative. Six months later, the release of results from a

large federally funded study challenged those conclusions.

? A clinical psychologist, whose professional website included links to online listings of

national and local mental health informational services, vetted the accuracy of the

information on each listed website before the initial listing, and periodically thereafter.

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164——PART II ENFORCEABLE STANDARDS

(b) Psychologists do not make false, deceptive, or fraudulent statements concerning (1) their training,

experience, or competence; (2) their academic degrees; (3) their credentials; (4) their institutional

or association affiliations; (5) their services; (6) the scientific or clinical basis for, or results

or degree of success of, their services; (7) their fees; or (8) their publications or research findings.

In contrast to Standard 5.01a, 5.01b does not include the term knowingly

because it is assumed that psychologists would have sufficient information about

the facts listed to avoid false, deceptive, or fraudulent statements.

The following are examples of violations of the eight types of statements listed

under Standard expert witness by an attorney for a large retailing firm accused of discriminatory hiring practices. She testified that data on the firm’s hiring of women and ethnic minority applicants were not significantly different from national data on employment practices in similar companies, despite the fact that she had not examined any of the firm’s actual employment data. See the Hot Topic at the end of this chapter on “Avoiding False and Deceptive Statements in Scientific and Clinical Expert Testimony.”

Decoding the Ethics Code

HMO

? Training, experience, or competence. On a professional liability insurance application,

a psychologist stated that she had obtained substance abuse certification from

the APA College of Professional Psychology when in fact she only attended a workshop

on substance abuse treatment at an APA meeting.

? Degree. A health psychologist applying to the ABPP for diplomat status in behavioral

psychology falsely claimed he had received his doctorate in clinical psychology.

? Credentials. On his business cards, a clinical psychologist with formal postdoctoral

training in neuropsychology listed herself as a “licensed clinical neuropsychologist”

when her state only issues licenses in psychology (see Meharg & Bush, 2010).

? Institutional or association affiliations. A psychologist in independent practice

who rented office space from a university created a letterhead on his stationery that

suggested he was affiliated with the institution.

? Services. A psychology group practice website listed family therapy as one of the

services offered, even though the only psychologist offering this service had left the

group more than a year ago.

? Scientific or clinical basis for, or results or degree of success of, their services.

A behavioral psychologist running a weight loss program for obese adolescents

stated in the program brochure that “99% of clients maintain their weight

loss after they leave the program.” The statement did not include the fact that for

most of these clients, the maintenance of weight loss lasted for less than 3 weeks.

? Brochures and printed matter. A consulting psychologist distributed brochures to

personnel departments of banks in major cities stating that he had developed a foolproof

psychological technique for preemployment integrity screening to weed out

applicants who were prone to dishonesty. The claim was based on undocumented

consultations conducted by the psychologist over several years.

? Fees. A child clinical psychologist presented a talk on childhood disorders at a parents’

association meeting. After the talk, she handed out printed information about

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NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION, SALE, OR REPRINTING.

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Chapter 8 Standards on Advertising and Other Public Statements——165

Comparative statements regarding the desirability of one type of service over

another are not prohibited if there is substantial evidence to support the claim

(Shead & Dobson, 2004; Standard 2.04, Bases for Scientific and Professional

Judgments).

Deceptive Web-Based Services

Potentially deceptive web-based advertisements and claims regarding Internetbased

mental health services risk violating Standard 5.01b. In their survey of

e-therapy websites, Heinlen et al. (2003) found substantial gaps in ethical compliance,

including (a) failure to inform consumers that the psychologist’s license to

provide mental health services online might be restricted by state law, (b) unsupported

statements disparaging face-to-face therapies in comparison to online

services, (c) descriptions of psycho-educational web-based services that could lead

consumers to believe that they would receive individualized counseling, assessment,

or therapeutic services, and (d) failure to clarify the boundaries of the psychologist’s

competence to provide services across a broad spectrum of

psychological disorders.

her practice that stated that she offered all clients a sliding scale of fees beginning at

$40 a session. The handout did not mention that the $40 rate was only for clients

specifically referred by the HMO with which the psychologist had a contract.

? Publications or research findings. A school psychologist on the faculty of a large

university received a grant from an educational services company. The purpose of the

funded project was to compare student academic achievement in city-administered

public schools with those run by the educational services company. Data from schools

in the eight cities studied indicated significant differences in favor of the city-run

schools in two cities, significant differences in favor of the company-run schools in two

cities, and no significant differences in the other four school districts. The psychologist

published only data from the two cities in which a positive effect of companycontracted

schools was found and suggested in the conclusion of the article that these

results could be generalized to other cities (see also Standard 3.06, Conflict of Interest).

? A psychologist developed a web-based service for parents of children with behavioral

problems at “www.parent-therapy-online.com.” Parents could pay $25 to e-mail a

specific question about how to help their child that was answered within 24 hours by

one of eight psychologists identified on the website as “child experts who will provide

therapeutic advice personalized to each request.” In actuality, the “personal” e-mail

responses provided prewritten general statements about behavioral child management

techniques. In small print at the bottom of the web page appeared the following

statement: “The information provided on this website is for educational purposes and

does not constitute treatment.”

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Decoding the Ethics Code

166——PART II ENFORCEABLE STANDARDS

(1) were earned from a regionally accredited educational institution or (2) were the basis for

psychology licensure by the state in which they practice.

Standard 5.01c applies only to psychologists who are claiming degrees or credentials

as evidence of their competence to provide health services. Unlike

Standard 5.01b, this standard is not directed at whether a psychologist actually

obtained the degree but whether the degree can be claimed as a basis for offering

therapy or diagnostic or other types of health services.

Psychologists may refer to only two types of degrees as evidence of education and

training in the field of psychology that qualifies them as a health service provider.

The first type is a degree in psychology (e.g., Ph.D., Ed.D., or Psy.D.) earned from a

regionally accredited educational institution (e.g., the Commission on Higher

Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools). The second

type of degree is from a program in a nonaccredited institution, whose curriculum

and training experiences have been approved by the state in which the psychologist

practices as qualifying him or her for eligibility for licensure in psychology.

A psychologist who claims a degree as a credential for health services that does

not meet the above criteria would be in violation of this standard:

Need to Know: Websites and

Potential Violation of Other Standards

Website advertising can place psychologists in violation of other Ethics Code standards

(Koocher & Keith-Spiegel, 2008; Nagy, 2011; Nicholson, 2011). Below are two examples of

such violations:

??A neuropsychologist posted quasi-psychological screening tools with questionable

validity and items drawn from standardized tests to “help” potential clients

evaluate whether they needed his services (Standard 9.02a & b, Use of Assessments

and Standard 9.11, Maintaining Test Security).

??A school psychologist’s professional website included information sheets on

different disorders and treatments related to learning disabilities without

appropriate citation (Standard 8.11, Plagiarism). The violation was exacerbated

when her website was listed by search engines as providing expert information for

consumers on childhood learning disorders.

? An individual licensed as a social worker in his state acquired a Ph.D. in counseling

psychology from a nonaccredited university. He was unable to obtain licensure in

psychology because the state in which he practices did not recognize his doctoral

training as a basis for licensure in psychology. His business cards and professional

letterhead included a Ph.D. after his name, the title Counseling Psychologist, and his

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NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION, SALE, OR REPRINTING.

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Chapter 8 Standards on Advertising and Other Public Statements——167

(b) Psychologists do not compensate employees of press, radio, television, or other communication

media in return for publicity in a news item. (See also Standard 1.01, Misuse of Psychologists’

Work.)

Decoding the Ethics Code

Standard 5.02b underscores psychologists’ obligations to avoid actions that

might encourage others to make false or fraudulent statements about their work.

5.02 Statements by Others

(a) Psychologists who engage others to create or place public statements that promote their

professional practice, products, or activities retain professional responsibility for such statements.

Psychologists retain professional responsibility for false, deceptive, or fraudulent

public statements by others whom they have engaged to promote their work or

products. Failure to prevent or to correct such misstatements is a violation of

Standard 5.02.

? A psychologist viewed the website of the company that was publishing a book she

had just completed. She was surprised and pleased to see the company had started

advertising the book as “forthcoming.” She then noticed that she was wrongly listed

on the website as professor of psychology at a university where she had taught as an

adjunct several years ago. She called her editor at the company to notify him of the

error and to ask him to take steps to correct the website. She followed up with a letter

to him reiterating this request and copied the chair of the psychology department at

the university mentioned.

? A psychologist developed a program that enabled other psychologists to score a

popular psychological test on their computers. The psychologist had not yet completed

complementary software that would provide narrative interpretations of the

scores. The marketing staff at the distribution company he contracted with to sell

his product advised him that the scoring software would sell better if it was advertised

as providing both scoring and interpretation. They argued that even though

this was not currently true, because he was already working on the new program,

eventually those who bought the original software would be able to use the complementary

software for narrative interpretations. The psychologist agreed to the

misleading advertisement.

social work licensure ID number. The letterhead did not indicate that his license was

in social work and not psychology.

? On her personnel curriculum vitae, a psychologist claimed that she had received her

Ph.D. from an accredited university, when her actual degree was from an unaccredited

school to which she had transferred.

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NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION, SALE, OR REPRINTING.

ANY AND ALL UNAUTHORIZED USE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

168——PART II ENFORCEABLE STANDARDS

This standard prohibits psychologists from paying or otherwise compensating

members of the media in return for news coverage of their work. The use of the

term compensate rather than pay means that psychologists who give nonmonetary

gifts or pay for expensive dinners for journalists or others in the media in return for

publicity in a news item may be considered in violation of this standard.

as such.

Standard 5.02c permits psychologists to run paid advertisements describing

their services, publications, products, or other aspects of their work, as long as it

is stated or otherwise clear to consumers that it is a paid advertisement. The standard

applies to advertisements on the Internet, in print, or in other media.

“Canned columns” are an example of a paid advertisement that often is presented

in a way that can be deceptive to consumers. Canned columns written and paid

for by psychologists are typically presented in news or advice column format

intended to mislead readers to believe that the psychologist has been invited or

hired by the magazine or other media outlet to write the column because of his

or her expertise. The “column” usually includes a description of the psychologist’s

services, the psychologist’s picture, and contact information. Canned columns

that do not include a clear statement that the column is a “paid advertisement”

are in violation of this standard. In some instances, psychologists do not write the

column themselves but purchase it from a writer who sells columns to psychologists

nationwide. In such instances, the column must state that the psychologist

is providing but has not written the column (see also Standard 5.01a, Avoidance

of False or Deceptive Statements).

5.03 Descriptions of Workshops and

Non-Degree-Granting Educational Programs

To the degree to which they exercise control, psychologists responsible for announcements, catalogs, brochures, or advertisements describing workshops, seminars, or other nondegree-granting educational programs ensure that they accurately describe the audience for which the program is intended, the educational objectives, the presenters, and the fees involved.

Decoding the Ethics Code

Decoding the Ethics Code

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