A preliminary investigation of ethical problems in publication and research

This paper describes a preliminary study investigating the nature of publication and research ethics problems encountered by psychologists. Descriptions of 25 ethical dilemmas were written by 22 psychologists. Those dilemmas involved conflicts about authorship credit (13), plagiarism (9), unethical research (1), and other related problems (2). Stage of career did not determine the likelihood of their being confronted with an ethical dilemma. The most often cited causes of problems and sources of distress were unethical demands by more dominant individuals who were perceived to hold power over the respondents.