Behavioral Ethics: Ethical Practice Is More Than Memorizing Compliance Codes
Ethical lapses are operant—rearrange the workplace contingencies, not just the rule book.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Cicero (2021) wrote a think-piece. He asked why smart BCBAs still bend rules.
He said ethics is not a quiz you pass once. It is operant behavior you do every day.
He urged us to look at what in the workplace makes the wrong choice easy.
What they found
The paper found no new numbers. It mapped ethics onto ABA terms.
Knowing the Code is just a verbal rule. What pays off in the moment still wins.
How this fits with other research
Lebbon et al. (2017) said the same about safety. Workers skip helmets when faster work is praised. Both papers treat lapses as shaped behavior, not bad people.
Udhnani et al. (2025) and Méndez (2024) ran lab tests. They showed people follow the rule that gives richer or surer payoff. These data back Cicero’s claim that codes alone lose if the floor contingencies are stronger.
Evenhuis (1995) warned that rules only work when they link to long-term gain. Cicero extends that idea: ethics training must build those links into daily workplace reinforcers.
Why it matters
Stop asking “Who knows the Code?” Start asking “What in this clinic reinforces cutting corners?” Change those payoffs and ethical behavior will follow.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Disciplines establish and enforce professional codes of ethics in order to guide ethical and safe practice. Unfortunately, ethical breaches still occur. Interestingly, it is found that breaches are often perpetrated by professionals who are aware of their codes of ethics and believe that they engage in ethical practice. The constructs of behavioral ethics, which are most often discussed in business settings, attempt to explain why ethical professionals sometimes engage in unethical behavior. Although traditionally based on theories of social psychology, the principles underlying behavioral ethics are consistent with behavior analysis. When conceptualized as operant behavior, ethical and unethical decisions are seen as being evoked and maintained by environmental variables. As with all forms of operant behavior, antecedents in the environment can trigger unethical responses, and consequences in the environment can shape future unethical responses. In order to increase ethical practice among professionals, an assessment of the environmental variables that affect behavior needs to be conducted on a situation-by-situation basis. Knowledge of discipline-specific professional codes of ethics is not enough to prevent unethical practice. In the current article, constructs used in behavioral ethics are translated into underlying behavior-analytic principles that are known to shape behavior. How these principles establish and maintain both ethical and unethical behavior is discussed.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2021 · doi:10.1007/s40617-021-00585-5