Study: PR Pros Score Higher in Ethics than Surgeons and Accountants
Spin doctors. Flacks. B.S. artists. The list of derogatory slang terms for public relations professionals goes on and on. Yet new research shows that this criticism is off target: "It turns out that public relations professionals are good ethical thinkers," says Renita Coleman, a Legacy Scholar at Penn State's Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication.
Coleman, along with another Page Center Johnson Legacy Scholar, Lee Wilkins, is the author of a new paper called "The Moral Development of Public Relations Practitioners: A Comparison with Other Professions and Influences on Higher Quality Ethical Reasoning." The study appeared in the July 2009 Journal of Public Relations Research.
PR pros scored better than orthopedic surgeons, business professionals, accounting students and veterinary students.
This research is the first to measure empirically the moral development of working public relations professionals. Coleman took a random sample from the 400 largest public relations firms.
The test poses six ethical dilemmas and asks respondents to rank statements following them.
Test scores of the public relations professionals were compared to the scores of 19 other groups whose members had taken the DIT test in the past. Seminarians and philosophers are the runaway winners on the moral development scale as measured by the test. After that come medical students, practicing physicians, journalists, dental students, nurses and public relations pros.
Despite popular conceptions, the researchers say that ethics are particularly important for PR practitioners: "Public relations professionals see their role as connecting clients to the larger world, primarily though journalists or to the news media. To accomplish this function, they need to maintain the trust of both parties, but particularly the trust of journalists who are already skeptical of their institutional role and their individual motives. Consequently, honesty and a lack of willingness to deceive those who receive information are critical in effective public relations practice."
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