EPPP Ethics, Legal and Professional Issues: The APA and CPA Code Rules Behind the 16% Area

What the EPPP ethics area covers

Ethics shares the top weight on EPPP Part 1 with assessment and diagnosis. ASPPB's current content areas give Ethical, legal, and professional issues 16%, which applied to the 175 scored items is about 28 questions. Its 11 knowledge statements (KN61 to KN71) group into five clusters:

It's also the area where first-time candidates score best. ASPPB's 2026 doctoral program report puts the 2021–2025 average at 77.99% correct for accredited-program candidates, the highest of the eight areas. A high average still leaves points on the table at this weight, which is why the EPPP study plan cautions against trimming ethics time unless your own practice scores there are strong.

Which APA Ethics Code version to study

APA's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct was adopted in 2002, took effect June 1, 2003, and was amended effective June 1, 2010 and January 1, 2017. That's the version APA's code page still showed in October 2026. APA's Ethics Code Task Force is drafting a revised code: it received more than 2,650 comments on a draft, and a final version still has to be approved by the Ethics Committee and adopted by the Council of Representatives. Until that happens, study the 2017-amended text.

Know how the code is built, because the structure decides what's binding:

• General Principles (A to E) are aspirational. The code says they guide psychologists toward the highest ideals but aren't obligations and shouldn't be the basis for sanctions. They are Beneficence and Nonmaleficence, Fidelity and Responsibility, Integrity, Justice, and Respect for People's Rights and Dignity.
• Ethical Standards are enforceable. They're grouped in ten sections, from Resolving Ethical Issues (1) to Therapy (10).
• A higher ethical standard wins over a lower legal one. If the code sets a higher standard than the law requires, psychologists must meet it. When ethics and law truly conflict, Standard 1.02 asks psychologists to clarify the conflict, make their commitment to the code known and take reasonable steps to resolve it, and never to use the conflict to justify violating human rights.
• It isn't a civil-liability rule. The code says it isn't intended to be a basis of civil liability.

The APA standards behind common EPPP ethics dilemmas

These enforceable standards settle many of the most common practice dilemmas. The wording is summarized from the 2017-amended code; read the full text of each.

The test-data distinction is easy to blur. Under 9.04, the portions of test materials that include the client's responses count as test data, and a psychologist may withhold test data to protect someone from substantial harm or misuse of the data or test, recognizing that the law often regulates that decision. Without a release, test data go out only as required by law or court order. Full EPPP prep planned for launch has explanations planned to name the APA Ethics Code standard behind each ethics item, so a miss points you to the rule.

Research and supervision ethics on the EPPP

KN69 and KN70 put research and training situations on the exam. The standards to know:

• Deception (8.07). Use it only when the study's prospective value justifies it and effective nondeceptive alternatives aren't feasible. Never deceive participants about research reasonably expected to cause physical pain or severe emotional distress. Explain the deception as early as feasible, preferably at the end of participation and no later than the end of data collection, and let participants withdraw their data.
• Debriefing (8.08). Give a prompt opportunity to learn about the research and correct misconceptions; if delaying information is justified, reduce the risk of harm.
• Publication credit (8.12). Credit reflects actual contribution, not status: a department chair title doesn't justify authorship. A student is usually principal author on a multiple-authored article substantially based on their dissertation.
• Student disclosure (7.04). Don't require students or supervisees to disclose sexual history, abuse history, psychological treatment or relationships, unless the program stated the requirement in its admissions and program materials, or the information is needed to evaluate or help a student whose personal problems could prevent competent performance or pose a threat.

The CPA code and its ordered principles

Part 1 covers the CPA code too (KN61). The Canadian Psychological Association's Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists is in its fourth edition (2017), the current version on CPA's code page. Unlike the APA code, it ranks its four principles by the weight each should generally get when they conflict:

1. Respect for the Dignity of Persons and Peoples. Generally the highest weight, except when there's a clear and imminent danger of bodily harm to someone.
2. Responsible Caring. Competence, maximizing benefit and minimizing harm, carried out in ways that respect dignity.
3. Integrity in Relationships. Values such as openness and straightforwardness may sometimes yield to the first two principles.
4. Responsibility to Society. Considered in every decision, but guided by the other three when they conflict.

The code also lists ten basic steps of an ethical decision-making process. In short: identify who's affected, identify the ethical issues and context, consider your own biases and pressures, develop alternatives, analyze their risks and benefits, choose after applying the principles and standards, act and take responsibility, evaluate the results, correct negative consequences, and act to prevent the dilemma from recurring. It encourages consulting the people affected and colleagues when deliberation takes time. In Passy's reading, that sequence is a solid pattern for "what should the psychologist do first" items: identification and consultation come before action.

Duty to warn and duty to protect: why the law varies

KN63 covers laws and judicial decisions, and the best-known is the California Tarasoff case. As summarized in a 2014 review in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, the California Supreme Court first held in 1974 that therapists have a duty to warn people in foreseeable danger from their patients, then, after a rehearing in 1976, broadened it to a duty to use reasonable care to protect the intended victim, which can include warning the victim, notifying police or other reasonable steps.

There's no single national rule. The review describes four groups of states in a 2012 survey: 23 with a mandatory duty in statute, 10 with a duty in case law, 11 that permit but don't require a breach of confidentiality when a threat is made, and 6 with no guidance. Other surveys classify states differently. For the exam, a practical reading is to know the concepts and the code's language: 4.05(b) permits disclosure without consent where the law allows it to protect others from harm. In practice, your own jurisdiction's law sets the duty.

How to choose between two reasonable EPPP ethics answers

This order is Passy's synthesis of the codes above, not an ASPPB rule, but each step rests on a standard or principle:

1. Is someone in danger? Protection from harm is a recognized reason for disclosure where the law permits (4.05(b)), and the CPA code makes imminent danger of bodily harm the exception to its first principle.
2. Does an enforceable standard settle it? The General Principles are aspirational and create no obligations, so when a standard such as 10.05 or 3.05 applies, it decides the answer.
3. Is the least intrusive step available? Informal resolution before a board report (1.04, 1.05), and only information germane to the purpose in reports and consultations (4.04).
4. Is consultation possible? The CPA code expects it during time-consuming deliberation, and the APA code's introduction lists consulting others in the field among the ways to apply the code.
5. Is it documented? 3.10(d) asks psychologists to document consent, permission and assent.

Two Passy-written EPPP ethics items

These items were written by Passy for practice. They aren't ASPPB items.

Item 1. A psychologist sees that a psychologist colleague in her group practice now advertises a trauma treatment the colleague has never trained in. No client has been harmed as far as she knows. What should she do first?

• A. Report the colleague to the state licensing board right away
• B. Raise the concern directly with the colleague and discuss it
• C. Say nothing until a client actually complains about care
• D. Contact the colleague's clients to warn them about the gap

Keyed answer: B. Standard 1.04 asks psychologists who believe a colleague may have violated the code to try resolving it informally with that person, when that seems appropriate and doesn't violate confidentiality. Here the information came from public advertising and no substantial harm is known, so informal resolution comes first. A skips that step; 1.05's further action is for violations that have caused or are likely to cause substantial harm and that aren't suited to, or weren't resolved by, informal resolution. C ignores the obligation, and D intrudes on clients who aren't hers.

Item 2. A former client signs a release asking her psychologist to send her test results to her attorney. Her file holds her scaled scores, her completed answer sheet and the test's scoring manual. What does the release generally cover?

• A. Her scores and answer sheet, which count as test data
• B. The scoring manual, so the attorney can check the scores
• C. Nothing, since all testing records are protected materials
• D. A summary letter only, since raw data are never released

Keyed answer: A. Under 9.04(a), test data include raw and scaled scores and the client's responses, including portions of test materials that contain her responses, and psychologists provide them to people named in a release. The manual is a test material that 9.11 asks psychologists to keep secure, so B is wrong, and C and D overstate the restriction. The psychologist may still withhold data to prevent substantial harm or misuse, a decision the law often regulates.

If you chose correctly but couldn't name the standard, that's the gap to close. The 216 ethics-area questions planned for EPPP prep are tagged to this content area, for practice in context once full prep launches.

Studying EPPP ethics in the right order

• Read the code itself, Sections 1 to 10. Summaries lose the qualifiers (reasonably, appropriate, potentially) that the code says are there to allow professional judgment.
• Memorize the few hard numbers. Two years after termination (10.08), deception explained no later than the end of data collection (8.07).
• Learn the CPA ordering cold. It's a short list that answers a whole class of conflict questions.
• Pair each standard with a situation. Write one line describing a case where the standard decides the answer, as in the table above.

Test yourself first with the 20 free EPPP practice questions, then build ethics into your weekly plan with the free EPPP study planner. For quick recall of standard numbers between sessions, 93 ethics flashcards are planned for full EPPP prep. Testing ethics (9.04 and 9.11) connects directly to the EPPP assessment and diagnosis guide, and research ethics to the research methods and statistics guide.