Handelsman: Training Ethical Psychologists: An Acculturation Model

Overview

• Article: Training Ethical Psychologists: An Acculturation Model
• Authors: Mitchell M. Handelsman, Michael C. Gottlieb, Samuel Knapp
• Organization: Proposes ethics training as an acculturation process, using J. W. Berry’s acculturation framework to understand how students become ethical professionals in psychology.
• Core idea: Students bring their own moral value traditions into training and encounter new ethical principles; ethical development is not just rule-following but a cultural/identity formation process.
• Motivation: Ethics training is complex, often under-emphasized relative to other aspects of professional preparation; ethics codes can be vague or conflicting; learning by osmosis and purely rule-based teaching is incomplete; ethics is about right/wrong and best practices, not just laws.
• Goal: Help students develop a professional ethical identity and better respond to a diverse, complex professional world.

The Culture of Psychology and Acculturation

• Psychology is a distinct culture with its own values, traditions, and methods for implementing ethical principles.
• Values commonly shared in psychology include: scientific thinking, appreciation of behavioral complexity, scientifically informed practice, pursuit of truth, lifelong learning, sharing knowledge, improving society, tolerance for diversity, and social justice.
• Acculturation is the process of adapting to a new culture while negotiating one’s culture of origin; in ethics, this involves maintaining personal moral traditions while adopting the profession’s ethical standards.
• The culture of psychology is pluralistic but still has agreed-upon values, traditions, and rituals that shape professional behavior.
• The acculturation of psychology students is both complex and lengthy, deserving deliberate educational attention.
• The culture of psychology extends beyond ethics; thus, an acculturation model can be applied more broadly than ethics alone, but the article focuses on ethics because it pervades all aspects of practice.

Berry’s Model of Acculturation (Basic Framework)

• Core idea: Acculturation involves two dimensions that produce four strategies of adaptation:
  • Cultural maintenance: the degree to which individuals value and retain their culture of origin.
  • Contact and participation: the degree to which individuals value and engage with the dominant/adopted culture.
• The two dimensions create four quadrants (strategies):
  • Integration: high cultural maintenance and high contact/participation.
  • Assimilation: low cultural maintenance and high contact/participation.
  • Separation: high cultural maintenance and low contact/participation.
  • Marginalization: low cultural maintenance and low contact/participation.
• Formalization: The strategy is determined by where an individual sits on the two continua; attitudes and behaviors across the four options reflect the acculturation path.
• Notion of dynamics: Acculturation is a dynamic, lifelong process rather than a fixed state; individuals and cultures change over time, with continual adaptations.
• External and internal factors influence strategy choices:
  • External: conditions in origin and new culture, level of support for cultural maintenance, cultural distance between cultures.
  • Internal: coping style, voluntariness of acculturation, moral/ethical orientation.
• Ethical acculturation applies Berry’s model to the profession’s ethics, treating the profession’s ethics as a culture with its own values and expectations.
• The authors emphasize using acculturation as a lens to understand and guide ethics education rather than categorizing students rigidly.

The Four Acculturation Strategies (Applied to Ethics Training)

• Integration (high cultural maintenance, high contact/participation)
  • Retains heritage values while adopting psychology’s ethical standards.
  • Considered the most effective acculturation strategy; associated with better psychological adaptation.
  • Can enable “good work”: combining technical expertise with a strong ethical sense.
  • Reflects compatibility between personal notions of respect and professional expressions of respect.
  • May involve reconciling tensions between the two cultures to foster deeper understanding.
• Assimilation (low cultural maintenance, high contact/participation)
  • Adopts the new culture with little personal sense of a moral base from origin culture.
  • Risks: external trappings (office, credentials) may become symbols of status without genuine ethical grounding.
  • May lead to a false sense of competence if the personal ethical base has not been integrated.
  • A misconception: the APA Ethics Code contains all needed knowledge; treating rules as sufficient for living ethically rather than understanding underlying principles.
  • Analogy: like building a strong structure on a weak foundation; risk of legalistic, simplistic applications of ethics.
• Separation (high cultural maintenance, low contact/participation)
  • Keeps personal/moral codes from origin culture; resists engaging with psychology’s values.
  • Risk: personal morals are presumed to translate universally into professional ethics, which may conflict with professional obligations (e.g., autonomous patient decisions, confidentiality).
  • Examples: allowing abortion personal beliefs to override autonomy; sharing clients’ contact information due to perceived compatibility.
  • Variations within separation: active rejection of psychology’s professional obligations; belief that APA code is arbitrary or politically motivated; may reflect ignorance about differences between cultures.
• Marginalization (low cultural maintenance, low contact/participation)
  • Little identification with either culture; greatest risk for ethical infractions.
  • Can be temporary (transition between cultures) or enduring (alienation).
  • Ethical risk: act out of personal convenience or external pressure rather than moral conviction.
  • Misconception: all ethics codes are arbitrary or repressive; a tendency to rationalize unethical behavior (e.g., time-sheet falsification).
• Conceptual takeaway: Each strategy lies on a continuum; individuals may move along the spectrum over time and across contexts.
• Practical note: In training, extreme versions of strategies are less common; many trainees display blends or shifts depending on context.

Factors Influencing Acculturation in Training (External/Internal Influences)

• External factors:
  • Support for cultural maintenance within training programs or agencies.
  • Cultural distance between origin culture and the psychology culture.
• Internal factors:
  • Trainee coping styles; voluntariness of acculturation; orientation to moral/ethical issues and judgment.
• These factors shape the likelihood of choosing Integration, Assimilation, Separation, or Marginalization during training.

Implications and Applications of an Acculturation Model for Instructors and Supervisors

• Two major ideas underpin the acculturation approach:
  1) An acculturation lens offers a more positive, developmental way to teach ethics by framing student disagreements and decisions as acculturation tasks rather than evidence of poor learning or indoctrination.
  2) Acculturation is a long-term developmental process; ethics education should acknowledge ongoing development and consider continuing education as part of the process.
• Outcomes of adopting an acculturation approach:
  • Trainees engage in active integration rather than mere rule compliance.
  • Ethics is about more than obeying rules; it’s about becoming a full member of the culture of psychology.
  • Codes, licensing rules, and disciplinary documents provide a floor; true ethical identity goes beyond minimum standards.
• Practical implications for instructors/supervisors:
  • View ethics teachable as an acculturation task; discuss tensions as part of development rather than failures.
  • Encourage students to integrate ethics with their personal values rather than a forced conformity.
  • Assess and facilitate acculturation over time; recognize that development is ongoing and lifelong.
• Selection and admission considerations:
  • Use acculturation concepts to select applicants who can reasonably adapt to a new ethical culture.
  • Propose assessment prompts (e.g., essays about expectations of the ethical culture, willingness to adopt new values, prior demonstrations of moral adaptability).
  • Treat assessments as indicators of trainability rather than predictors of ethical behavior.

Selection of Trainees

• First-year students may have limited awareness of professional ethics beyond helping behavior.
• Acculturation framework helps explain potential stressors and misalignments as they confront the broader ethical landscape of psychology.
• Suggested selection prompts:
  • Essays on expectations of the ethical culture they are entering.
  • Evidence of prior accomplishments that demonstrate adaptability and internalization of values.
• Purpose of prompts: gauge trainability and readiness to adapt to the ethical culture; not a definitive predictor of behavior in practice.

First Stages of Ethical Acculturation

• Early stage challenges:
  • Wide variance in knowledge about psychology ethics among new students.
  • Acculturation stress when confronted with values, traditions, and behaviors of the new culture.
• Crisis and crisis resolution:
  • A crisis phase may occur where conflict comes to a head and a resolution is needed, guiding strategy selection (as per Berry & Kim, 1988).
• Stressors influencing acculturation strategies:
  • Personal, economic, or political difficulties in origin culture; gender; cultural distance; inadequate social support; poor training; lack of role models in the new culture.
• Practical classroom/supervision techniques:
  • Ask questions like: “What was the most counterintuitive or surprising professional activity you learned so far?”
  • Highlight how personal relationships and expectations shift under professional responsibilities (e.g., change in how friends perceive the trainee as a professional).
• Goal: move toward Integration by recognizing and managing acculturation stressors.

Ethics Courses (Curriculum as Acculturation Ground)

• Ethics education as a space to explore acculturation and develop an ethical identity.
• Methods to foster integration:
  • Have students reflect on their backgrounds, value traditions, and ethical cultures of origin before/while learning codes.
  • Use ethics autobiographies to trace the student’s development as an ethical professional; can be assigned at multiple points (beginning of ethics course, supervision, or graduate school applications).
  • Ethics genograms or ethnograms to explore family and influential figures’ moral orientations (as per de las Fuentes et al., 2003).
  • Use case vignettes, narrative accounts from clients and professionals, and exploration of contextual/emotional factors influencing ethical behavior (Knapp & Sturm, 2002).
  • Debates or critiques of the APA Ethics Code to juxtapose principles from origin culture with psychology’s professional code (Kitchener, 2000).
• Culture shedding (Berry, 1992): unlearning aspects of one’s previous repertoire that are no longer appropriate; stress can accompany retraining when entering a culture with different expectations.
• Instructor self-reflection:
  • Trainers are encouraged to write their own ethics autobiographies and genograms to understand their own acculturation and perhaps share selective reflections to model transparency and growth.
• Practical example: the integration goal is achieved when students can discuss and justify ethical decisions that respect both personal values and professional standards.

Practicum Supervision (Applying the Acculturation Model in Real Settings)

• Transition phase: from classroom to practicum, with real ethical decision-making that tests the trainee’s ethical identity.
• Supervisory balance:
  • Immunization vs. exposure: warning students about real-world complexity without signaling that ethical missteps are tolerated.
  • Supervisors should model thinking aloud about ethical decisions to demonstrate how personal and professional principles interact.
• Complexity and ambiguity:
  • Some cases require reconciling apparently conflicting principles within the professional code; more advanced trainees expect such contradictions.
• Factors that can impede ethical thinking in practicum:
  • Early reliance on supervisors, limited time for reflection, and the necessity to act quickly.
• Best practices for supervisors:
  • Create a space for open discussion of ethical issues as acculturation tasks rather than signs of weakness.
  • Encourage trainees to narrate their acculturation experiences, update ethics autobiographies, and discuss how conflicts between personal values and professional duties were resolved.
• Example scenario for integration:
  • A spouse asks for details of therapy sessions during dinner conversation; trainee must balance confidentiality with respect and caring, potentially moving from separation toward integration by explaining boundaries and finding alternative topics.

Training Programs and Creating an Ethical Culture

• Goal: foster an ethical culture within departments and agencies, not just teach rules.
• Role of faculty:
  • Faculty reflect on their own acculturation to create environments that support integration among students.
  • An ethical environment emerges from caring, support, and open discussion.
• Institutional strategies to foster ethics culture:
  • Involve students as active participants in department culture (not passive recipients).
  • Use rituals and awards to celebrate ethical achievements (ethics conferences, ethics awards).
  • Highlight ethical role models who have demonstrated generosity and ethical leadership.
  • Use ethical narratives to illustrate virtues and exemplary practices.
• Addressing acculturation stress within programs:
  • Mismatches between espoused values (stated ethics) and practiced values can erode ethical principles; documented concerns include unethical conduct in some training programs (e.g., inappropriate relationships between faculty and students).
• The Gardner–Good Work model (Gardner et al., 2001) is cited as a reference point for integrating “good work” with ethical commitments in other fields (genetics and journalism), offering a template for psychology’s ethics culture.

Continuing Acculturation (Ethics as a Lifelong Process)

• Acculturation does not end with a degree or license; cultures change, and professionals must adapt.
• External shifts to consider: managed care represents a significant cultural/ethical shift challenging traditional beliefs and practices in the helping professions.
• Identity dynamics: one’s primary acculturation strategy can change due to personal growth, professional experience, or life events (e.g., marriage, children).
• Continuing education as part of acculturation:
  • Revisit ethics autobiographies; re-assess internal/external factors impacting ethical identities.
  • The profession should recognize ongoing ethical development; propose national awards to celebrate ethical teaching, research, and practice (a gap noted by the authors).
• Practical implication: ethics training should be treated as an ongoing developmental process, with periodic reassessment and renewal of ethical identities.

How Culturally Pluralistic is Psychology?

• Berry & Kim (1988) identify two factors characterizing pluralism:
  • Availability of a network of social and cultural groups to support acculturation.
  • Greater tolerance for, and acceptance of, cultural diversity.
• Acculturation influences both origin and adopted culture; psychology must consider how to adapt therapeutic methods for diverse ethnic groups (Sue & Sue, 1999).
• The authors do not advocate absolute pluralism; even in plural societies, some cultural boundaries remain; psychology must explicitly address inclusiveness and diversity while maintaining core bedrock principles (e.g., prohibitions against sex with clients).
• Practical stance: cultivate a welcoming attitude toward new members while balancing standards and universal ethical commitments.

Conclusion and Vision for the Field

• An acculturation model can improve the socialization of students and their ethical identities.
• The authors advocate shifting from treating students as involuntary refugees to welcoming them as voluntary immigrants who bring enrichment to the culture.
• The goal is enrichment and integration of ethical identities, not replacement of personal identities with a sanitized professional identity.
• Predicted benefits of adopting the model:
  • Fewer ethical infractions, as ethical thinking becomes more internalized and embedded within professional networks.
  • Trainees become independent ethical thinkers capable of handling dilemmas beyond simple rule-following.
  • Long-term impact includes more flexible, collaborative, and socially responsible psychologists.

Key Concepts and Terms (Glossary)

• Acculturation: adaptation process when entering a new culture, involving changes in identity, values, and behaviors.
• Cultural maintenance: value placed on preserving one’s heritage culture.
• Contact and participation: value placed on engaging with the new culture.
• Integration: high cultural maintenance + high contact; ethical identity blends personal and professional values.
• Assimilation: low cultural maintenance + high contact; adopting the new culture with minimal personal grounding in origin values.
• Separation: high cultural maintenance + low contact; retention of origin values with limited adoption of professional culture.
• Marginalization: low cultural maintenance + low contact; weak identification with both cultures; highest risk for ethical infractions.
• Ethical identity: sense of oneself as an ethical professional within the psychology culture; includes APA Ethics Code, behaviors, virtues, and professional ideals.
• Good work: concept of excellence that integrates technical skill with ethical commitments (Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, Damon).
• Ethics autobiography: reflective writing about one’s development toward ethical professional identity.
• Genogram/ethogram: exploring family/mentors’ moral orientations and professional influences.
• Culture shedding: unlearning parts of one’s prior repertoire that are inappropriate in the professional culture.
• Positive ethics: a proactive, strengths-based approach to teaching ethics (see Handelsman, Knapp, & Gottlieb, 2002).
• Acculturation stress: tension and conflict experienced during the transition to a new professional culture.

Notable Examples and Illustrative Scenarios

• Lending money to clients is often a sign of personal care in everyday life but can signal problematic boundaries in psychotherapy.
• Abortion case: personal beliefs versus professional obligation to respect patient autonomy.
• Sharing clients’ phone numbers among friends due to perceived compatibility can violate confidentiality.
• Time-sheet falsification and other ethical lapses reflect a misalignment with professional culture, not just individual moral failing.
• A trainee’s spouse requesting session details at dinner demonstrates a micro-level acculturation challenge; solutions involve integrating confidentiality with respectful communication.

Connections to Foundational Works and Related Concepts

• Berry, J. W. (1980, 1992, 2003) on acculturation and adaptation; Berry & Sam (1997) on acculturation and adaptation; foundational theory for this model.
• Berry & Kim (1988) on acculturation and mental health; contextual backdrop for acculturation stress factors.
• Forsyth (1980) on ethical ideologies; informs understanding of ethical judgments as part of acculturation.
• Kitchener (2000) on foundations of ethical practice; links to understanding ethical principles beyond codes.
• Stoltenberg & Delworth (1987) and Stoltenholt & Rønnestad (1992) on developmental approaches in supervision and clinical skill development.
• Knapp & Sturm (2002) and Branstetter & Handelsman (2000) on ethics education and integration of diversity into the curriculum.
• Grater (1985) on psychotherapy supervision and development of professional patterns over social patterns.
• Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, & Damon (2001) on good work; used as a cross-disciplinary exemplar for integrating ethics with professional excellence.
• APA Ethics Code (American Psychological Association, 2002) as a minimum standard and a starting point for ethical discussions.

References (Selected)

• American Psychological Association. (2002). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct.
• Berry, J. W. (1980, 1992, 2003). Acculturation theory and models.
• Berry, J. W., & Sam, D. L. (1997). Acculturation and adaptation.
• Kitchener, K. S. (2000). Foundations of ethical practice, research, and teaching in psychology.
• Knapp, S., & Sturm, C. (2002). Ethics education after licensing: Ideas for increasing diversity in content and process.
• Handelsman, M. M. (1986); Handelsman, M. M., Knapp, S., & Gottlieb, M. C. (2002). Positive ethics.
• de las Fuentes, C., Willmuth, M. E., & Yarrow, C. (2003). Knowledge is not enough: Training for ethical competence.
• Gardner, H., Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Damon, W. (2001). Good work: When excellence and ethics meet.
• Stoltenberg, C. D., & Delworth, U. (1987). Supervising counselors and therapists: A developmental approach.
• Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (1999). Counseling the culturally different: Theory and practice.
• Skovholt, T. M., & Rønnestad, M. H. (1992). The evolving professional self.
• Worthington, E. L., Jr. (1987). Changes in supervision as counselors and supervisors gain experience.

Summary Takeaways

• Ethics education in psychology benefits from viewing training as an acculturation process, not just rule-learning.
• Integrating personal values with professional ethics (integration) yields the strongest ethical identity and professional performance.
• Trainees’ acculturation experiences are influenced by a mix of external cultural conditions and internal coping/ethical orientations; awareness of these factors can guide curriculum design, supervision, and ongoing professional development.
• Ethical training should emphasize ongoing growth, cultural inclusivity, and the development of a supportive ethical community within departments and professional networks.
• The acculturation model aims to reduce ethical infractions by fostering genuine internalization of ethical principles, cultivating independent ethical thinkers capable of navigating complex dilemmas in a diverse world.