ABSTRACT
Educational settings involving psychologists have many built-in multiple role relationships. The resulting roles can enhance or compromise the quality of students’ educational experience, but too often psychology faculty members may not fully grasp the significance of the ethical challenges related to multiple roles in educational settings. On the positive side, consider the professor who invites her seminar class to socialize at informal dinners in her home, the faculty member who invites students to join a research team and offers them co-authorship on resulting publications, or faculty members inclined to mentoring who assist their students in career development years after graduation. On the negative side, consider faculty members who ask students to run personal errands, who take advantage of students’ contributions to research without giving due credit, or who may get into trouble based on misunderstandings of sensitive information elicited from or revealed by students. We will highlight the most common ethical pitfalls related to multiple relationships in educational settings here, but refer readers to our other more comprehensive writings on these matters (Koocher & Keith-Spiegel, 2016).
