Ethical standards and divided loyalties.

A final questionnaire of 22 incidents was constructed. "Each incident was so designed as to present a conflict between the best interests of the client and society, with the psychologist having made a decision in each whether to reveal to a third party any part or all of the information revealed to him by his client." Responses were in terms of 4-point client-society loyalty scale. 73.6% usable returns (of 501 questionnaires to Associates and Fellows in Divisions 12, 14, and 17) were analyzed. Applied psychologists "differ in their divided loyalty percepts according to certain reference group memberships… . While there were individuals at the extremes of both tails of the distribution, some indicating retention, some release of information, the bulk of psychologists adopted some compromise position… . There should not be any dichotomous viewing of divided loyalty situations as right or wrong, nor even judgments on a continuum of rightness or wrongness." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)