Engineering Ethics

Practice as according to the final

Fill in the blank of the following spaces (enter as a comma separated list):

Engineers shall hold paramount the (blank), (blank), and
(blank) of the public.

safety, health, welfare

Fill in the blank of the following spaces (enter as a comma separated list):

Engineers shall issue public statements only in an (blank)
and (blank) manner.

objective, truthful

Fill in the blank of the following spaces (enter as a comma separated list):

Engineers shall act for each employer or client as (blank) or (blank).

faithful agents, trustees

Fill in the blank of the following spaces (enter as a comma separated list):

Engineers shall perform services only in the (blank).

areas of their competence

Fill in the blank of the following spaces (enter as a comma separated list):

Engineers shall avoid (blank) acts.

deceptive

Fill in the blank of the following spaces (enter as a comma separated list):

Engineers shall uphold and enhance the (blank), (blank), and
(blank) of the profession.

honor, integrity, diginity

What is “Responsibility”?

Explicit expectations expected of a person to perform a task. It is imposed externally on an individual by some authority.

What is “Accountability”?

Assumption of consequences for actions and judgments that occur in your organization. It is internally generated and is a key component of leadership.

What is the key difference between Responsibility and Accountability?

Responsibility can be delegated, but Accountability can not.

What is “Communication Failure”?

Important information relevant to an organization’s ethical obligations or overall performance is known in one part of the organization but does not appropriately influence decisions in another part of the organization.

“X” knows something important for “Y’s” decision but can’t bring it to Y’s attention.

What is “normalization of deviance”?

The gradual process through which unacceptable practice or
standards become acceptable. As the deviant behavior is
repeated without catastrophic results, it becomes the social
norm for the organization.

What is Implicit Bias?

An engineer considers a person and/or the work and information provided by him to be unduly positive or negative based on an unrelated personal characteristic: gender, age, education, wealth, race, etc.

What is Confirmation Bias?

An engineer believes that a condition exists and accepts information that supports the belief but rejects disproving information.

What is Anchoring Bias?

The first quantity or quality that an engineer hears (even if it has no justification) becomes an assumed value, and it becomes difficult to believe that reality is far from that “anchor” value.

What is Overconfidence Bias?

An engineer gains some experience with a situation and then believes she understands it better than she really does. Possibility of the situation departing from past experience is downplayed.

What is Groupthink Bias?

An engineer learns that several others believe something and becomes hesitant to challenge that belief – if the group believes it, then it must be true.

What is Framing Bias?

An engineer’s tendency to answer a question is affected by how the question is framed. It’s natural to respond differently to “Should we confirm this design parameter to ensure user safety?” versus “Should we force the project to go further over‐budget and behind schedule to consider a low probability scenario?”

What is Intertemporal Bias?

Greater weight is given to short‐term issues than long‐term ones. This can apply to both possible failures and possible rewards.

What is Loss Aversion Bias?

An engineer considers it more impactful to lose something she considers “in hand” than to gain the same net quantity from nothing.

For example, believing that it’s worse to state a project will be delivered in 4 weeks and be a week late than to state that it will be delivered in 5 weeks and deliver it on time; the net result is the same, but many will prefer the latter over the former.