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Ethical Decision Making among Family Therapists and Individual Therapists *
Author(s) -
Newfield Susan A.,
Newfield Neal A.,
Sperry Jeannie A.,
Smith Thomas Edward
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
family process
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.011
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1545-5300
pISSN - 0014-7370
DOI - 10.1111/j.1545-5300.2000.39203.x
Subject(s) - lawrence kohlberg's stages of moral development , ethical dilemma , psychology , dilemma , moral dilemma , ethical decision , social psychology , economic justice , moral reasoning , applied psychology , epistemology , philosophy , neoclassical economics , economics
In this study, we investigated the ethical decision making of 30 individual and 30 family therapists in order to detect the types of decision making used by practicing therapists. Informants responded to three ethical dilemmas. Two of the situations were hypothetical. The third dilemma was a situation the informant had experienced in practice. Each interview was assessed for decision‐making style, using content analysis. Kohlberg's justice reasoning and Gilligan's care reasoning provided the conceptual foundations for this analysis. The results suggest that both family and individual therapists prefer care reasoning on all dilemma types. There was significantly more care reasoning demonstrated on the personal dilemma than on the hypothetical dilemmas. Characteristics of informants did not provide clear explanations for the differences found in reasoning.