Summary

This article explores social workers’ perceptions of their colleagues’ professional mistakes, and the influences of those opinions. Vignettes in a factorial survey helped to determine whether certain variables related to the social worker or the situation influenced the perception of others’ professional errors and ethical violations. The changed variables included personal characteristics of the offending social worker such as perceived race, gender, and sexual orientation of the social worker, and characteristics of the situation, such as the length of time involved in unprofessional behavior.

Findings

Licensed social workers in six U.S. states (n = 5596) read vignettes based on real cases brought before licensing boards (n = 22,127) and assigned levels of seriousness and importance to discipline. The vignettes rated most highly involved perceived harm to a client or other vulnerable individual. Those on the lower end of seriousness and importance to discipline were those violations against the profession of social work. Analysis of changed variables indicated respondents’ ratings were influenced by several situational factors, but not by personal characteristics of the social worker involved in the vignette.

Applications

Our findings provide some insight into the decision-making factors important to social workers. The results may be helpful to licensing boards considering the contextual factors of unprofessional behavior and whether to discipline certain actions.

中文翻译：

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社会工作者对同龄人不专业行为的看法

概括

本文探讨了社会工作者对其同事的专业错误的看法，以及这些看法的影响。因子调查中的小插曲有助于确定与社会工作者或情况相关的某些变量是否会影响对其他人的专业错误和违反道德的看法。变化的变量包括冒犯社会工作者的个人特征，例如社会工作者的种族、性别和性取向，以及情况的特征，例如涉及不专业行为的时间长度。

发现

美国六个州 ( n  = 5596) 的有执照的社会工作者根据提交给执照委员会 ( n  = 22,127) 的真实案例阅读小插曲，并指定纪律的严重性和重要性级别。这些小插曲对客户或其他弱势个人的感知伤害程度最高。那些对纪律的严肃性和重要性较低的人是那些违反社会工作专业的行为。对变化变量的分析表明，受访者的评分受几个情境因素的影响，但不受参与小插曲的社会工作者的个人特征的影响。

应用

我们的发现为社会工作者重要的决策因素提供了一些见解。结果可能有助于许可委员会考虑不专业行为的背景因素以及是否对某些行为进行纪律处分。