Centering Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Ethical Decision-Making.

To provide effective and ethical psychological practice, psychologists must proactively integrate cultural context, as well as equity and justice, in the first and all subsequent steps of ethical decision-making. Extant ethical decision-making models provide substantial support to analyze and respond to ethical dilemmas, but often address culture as only one aspect of making good decisions. This article summarizes the strengths of three representative and current models, as well as limitations in terms of equity, diversity, and inclusion. We proposed a new model, the socially responsive ethical decision-making model that integrates culture and self-awareness throughout. This seven-step model focuses on considering culture immediately at the first step of problem definition, seeking out consultation and information from a wide variety of sources to improve self-reflection and self-awareness, and evaluation alternative solutions from a culturally curious and culturally humble perspective. We offer vignettes to demonstrate how to apply such a model, in both clinical and research situations. The article concludes with a brief commentary on the value of engaging in socially responsive decision-making when facing an ethical dilemma. Public Significance Statement This article presents a model of socially responsive ethical decision-making, which integrates cultural humility and cultural competence into the ethical decision-making required of health service psychologists. Providing both the steps of the model and application of those steps through two vignettes, this article challenges psychologists to integrate self-reflection, cultural awareness, and socially responsive analysis into each step of responding to an ethical dilemma.