Professional Code of Ethics of Psychologists in Iran, United States and Germany:A Comparative Study

In order to minimize ethical problems in the work of psychologists, the code of ethics have established rules for psychologists' behavior by specifying ethical codes. Examining the code of ethics in other countries is helpful in determining the weakness points of the ethical codes of an association in which a psychologist works. The purpose of this study is to compare the code of ethics in three countries of Iran, United States and Germany.Materialsand

First, the professional code of ethics in all three countries were extracted from their relevant organizations. In the second step, their differences and similarities were examined in terms of the code structure. Finally, all three code of ethics were analyzed in terms of content and executive procedures.

The structural analysis of the code of ethics showed that the introduction and general principles are common in all three code of ethics. In the German code of ethics, a separate section is devoted to the ethical codes for research and publication, and other ethical codes, which have been raised in other two code of ethics in the form of ethical standards, are listed in the separate section under the heading "Psychology in practice". Also, the content comparison of code of ethics showed that general principles of the Iranian and United States code of ethics point to ideal goals that areunderpinned by ethical standards and, in their turn, are not enforceable rules, while in the German code of ethics, the general principles are the conditions and regulations that a psychologist has for have a professional identity in the German Professional Psychologists Association.EthicalConsiderations:Integrity and honesty in reporting, documenting and citing of resources were observed.

The differences between the codes of ethics can be explained by the difference in the research priorities of the relevant organizations, multicultural and multi-national of these countries and the differences in their technological advances.