EPPP Cheat Sheet: High-Yield Facts for All 8 Content Areas

Free EPPP cheat sheet for Part 1-Knowledge: high-yield facts for all eight content areas, including psychopharmacology, psychometric formulas, statistical test selection, and APA Ethics Code standards.

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EPPP Exam at a Glance

Questions: 225 multiple-choice (175 scored, 50 unscored pretest)
Time: 4 hours 15 minutes
Passing score: ASPPB recommends a scaled score of 500 for independent practice (scale 200-800)
Content areas: 8, weighted as follows

Biological Bases of Behavior (10%)
Cognitive-Affective Bases of Behavior (13%)
Social and Cultural Bases of Behavior (11%)
Growth and Lifespan Development (12%)
Assessment and Diagnosis (16%)
Treatment, Intervention, Prevention and Supervision (15%)
Research Methods and Statistics (7%)
Ethical, Legal, and Professional Issues (16%)

Practice with the 10-question EPPP quick start or the EPPP practice exam hub.

Domain 1: Biological Bases of Behavior (10%)

Exam tip: For each drug class, know the mechanism, the most dangerous side effect, and what has to be monitored.

Aphasias: Broca's (left inferior frontal): nonfluent, effortful speech with comprehension relatively spared. Wernicke's (left posterior superior temporal): fluent but empty speech with poor comprehension. Conduction (arcuate fasciculus): repetition is impaired.
Hemispatial neglect: Usually follows right parietal damage; the person ignores the left side of space and of their own body.
Frontal lobes: Prefrontal damage produces executive dysfunction, disinhibition, poor planning, and perseveration, often with intact IQ scores.
Memory structures: Hippocampus consolidates new declarative memories; bilateral medial temporal damage (patient H.M.) causes anterograde amnesia with preserved procedural learning. Amygdala: fear conditioning and emotional memory. Hypothalamus: hunger, thirst, temperature, and pituitary control; its suprachiasmatic nucleus sets circadian rhythm.
Neurodegenerative disorders: Parkinson's: loss of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra. Huntington's: autosomal dominant CAG repeat expansion with caudate atrophy and chorea. Alzheimer's: amyloid plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, and a cholinergic deficit; treated with cholinesterase inhibitors (donepezil) and memantine (NMDA antagonist).
Korsakoff syndrome: Thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency, usually with chronic heavy alcohol use; severe anterograde amnesia with confabulation.
SSRIs: Block serotonin reuptake. Common effects: GI upset and sexual dysfunction. Serotonin syndrome risk when combined with MAOIs or other serotonergic drugs. Antidepressants carry a boxed warning for suicidal thinking in children, adolescents, and young adults.
MAOIs and tricyclics: MAOIs: hypertensive crisis with tyramine-rich foods such as aged cheese and cured meats. Tricyclics: anticholinergic effects (dry mouth, constipation, urinary retention), orthostatic hypotension, cardiac conduction effects, and high lethality in overdose.
Lithium: Narrow therapeutic index, so blood levels are monitored. Toxicity: coarse tremor, vomiting, diarrhea, ataxia, confusion. Levels rise with dehydration, NSAIDs, and thiazide diuretics. Long-term: hypothyroidism and kidney effects.
Anticonvulsant mood stabilizers: Valproate: liver toxicity, pancreatitis, neural tube defects. Carbamazepine: agranulocytosis and aplastic anemia. Lamotrigine: serious rash (Stevens-Johnson syndrome), so the dose is titrated slowly.
Antipsychotics: First-generation drugs (haloperidol) block D2 receptors and cause extrapyramidal effects: acute dystonia, akathisia, parkinsonism, and late, possibly irreversible tardive dyskinesia. Second-generation drugs carry metabolic risk (weight gain, diabetes, lipids). Neuroleptic malignant syndrome (fever, rigidity, autonomic instability, confusion) is an emergency.
Clozapine: Used for treatment-resistant schizophrenia and reduces suicidal behavior; risk of agranulocytosis requires regular neutrophil monitoring, and it lowers the seizure threshold.
Anxiolytics and stimulants: Benzodiazepines enhance GABA-A activity; tolerance and dependence develop, withdrawal can cause seizures, and combining them with alcohol or opioids risks respiratory depression. Buspirone (5-HT1A partial agonist) has delayed onset and no dependence. ADHD stimulants raise dopamine and norepinephrine; atomoxetine is a non-stimulant norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor.
Substance use medications: Opioids: methadone (full agonist), buprenorphine (partial agonist), naltrexone (antagonist); naloxone reverses overdose. Alcohol: disulfiram (blocks aldehyde dehydrogenase, causing an aversive reaction), naltrexone, acamprosate.
Behavioral genetics: Heritability is the proportion of trait variance in a population due to genetic differences; it says nothing about a single individual and can change with the environment. Higher MZ than DZ twin concordance points to genetic influence.

Practice Biological Bases of Behavior questions

Domain 2: Cognitive-Affective Bases of Behavior (13%)

Exam tip: Learning questions turn on one distinction: reinforcement increases behavior, punishment decreases it; positive adds, negative removes.

Classical conditioning: A neutral stimulus paired with an unconditioned stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus that elicits a conditioned response. Delay conditioning (a forward pairing) works best; backward conditioning is weakest. Extinction: CS without the UCS. Spontaneous recovery: the CR returns after a rest. Blocking (Kamin): a prior CS prevents learning about a new one.
Operant consequences: Reinforcement increases behavior; punishment decreases it. Positive adds a stimulus; negative removes one. Negative reinforcement (escape or avoidance of something aversive) is not punishment.
Reinforcement schedules: Variable ratio gives the highest, steadiest response rate and greatest resistance to extinction (gambling). Fixed interval produces a scallop; fixed ratio produces a post-reinforcement pause. Intermittent reinforcement resists extinction more than continuous reinforcement.
Other operant principles: Extinction burst: a brief rise in responding when reinforcement stops. Premack principle: a high-probability behavior can reinforce a low-probability one. Response cost removes a reinforcer; time-out removes access to reinforcement.
Observational learning (Bandura): Requires attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation. The Bobo doll studies showed that learning can occur without reinforcement, while performance depends on consequences, including vicarious ones.
Memory models: Atkinson-Shiffrin: sensory, short-term, and long-term stores. Short-term capacity is about 7 plus or minus 2 items (Miller); newer estimates are about 4 chunks (Cowan). Baddeley's working memory: central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and episodic buffer.
Serial position effect: Primacy reflects transfer to long-term memory; recency reflects items still in short-term memory. A filled delay before recall removes the recency effect.
Interference and encoding: Proactive interference: old learning disrupts new. Retroactive: new learning disrupts old. Encoding specificity and state-dependent learning: recall is best when retrieval conditions match encoding. Levels of processing: deeper, semantic processing improves recall.
Forgetting and spacing: Ebbinghaus showed forgetting is fastest soon after learning. Distributed (spaced) practice produces better long-term retention than massed practice.
Theories of emotion: James-Lange: physiological arousal comes first and is felt as emotion. Cannon-Bard: arousal and emotion occur together (thalamus). Schachter-Singer two-factor: arousal plus a cognitive label. Lazarus: cognitive appraisal comes first. Zajonc: affect can precede cognition.
Yerkes-Dodson law: Performance is best at moderate arousal; the optimal level is lower for complex or unfamiliar tasks.
Motivation: Self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan): autonomy, competence, and relatedness support intrinsic motivation. Overjustification effect: expected external rewards can undermine intrinsic interest. Maslow: physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, then self-actualization.
Theories of intelligence: Spearman's g; Thurstone's primary mental abilities; Cattell-Horn fluid (declines earlier in adulthood) versus crystallized (stable or rising into late life); Gardner's multiple intelligences; Sternberg's triarchic theory (analytical, creative, practical).
Learned helplessness and attributions: Seligman: uncontrollable aversive events lead to passivity. The reformulated model links depression to internal, stable, and global attributions for negative events.
Signal detection theory: Separates sensitivity (d') from response bias (criterion). Outcomes: hits, misses, false alarms, and correct rejections.

Practice Cognitive-Affective Bases of Behavior questions

Exam tip: Know the classic studies by design and finding, and be ready to apply identity and acculturation models to a short vignette.

Attribution biases: Fundamental attribution error: overweighting dispositional causes of others' behavior (stronger in individualistic cultures). Actor-observer bias: a tendency, weaker than once thought, toward situational explanations for our own behavior. Self-serving bias: credit for success, external blame for failure.
Cognitive dissonance (Festinger): Inconsistency between attitudes and behavior creates discomfort. With insufficient justification (paid $1 rather than $20), people change their attitude more. Bem's self-perception theory offers an alternative explanation.
Persuasion: elaboration likelihood model: Central route (high motivation and ability, strong arguments) produces durable attitude change; the peripheral route relies on cues such as source attractiveness and produces weaker, shorter-lived change.
Conformity and obedience: Sherif's autokinetic studies show informational influence; Asch's line studies show normative influence. In Milgram's baseline study about 65% of participants obeyed to the highest shock level.
Bystander effect: Darley and Latane: the more bystanders present, the less likely any one person is to help, largely through diffusion of responsibility.
Group processes: Social facilitation (Zajonc): an audience strengthens the dominant response, improving simple or well-learned tasks and impairing complex or new ones. Social loafing: less effort when individual output is not identifiable. Group polarization: discussion makes positions more extreme. Groupthink (Janis): cohesive, insulated groups suppress dissent.
Compliance techniques: Foot-in-the-door: a small request first. Door-in-the-face: a large request that is refused, then a smaller one. Low-ball: agreement first, then the cost goes up.
Reducing prejudice: Allport's contact hypothesis works best with equal status, shared goals, cooperation, and institutional support. Sherif's Robbers Cave study: superordinate goals reduced intergroup hostility. The jigsaw classroom (Aronson) applies cooperative interdependence.
Stereotype threat: Steele and Aronson: awareness of a negative stereotype about one's group can lower performance in the stereotyped domain; effects are smaller in recent large replications.
Acculturation (Berry): Integration (keep heritage culture and engage the new one), assimilation, separation, and marginalization. Integration is generally linked to the best adjustment.
Racial and cultural identity models: Cross (Black identity): pre-encounter, encounter, immersion-emersion, internalization. Helms (White identity): contact, disintegration, reintegration, pseudo-independence, immersion/emersion, autonomy. Atkinson, Morten, and Sue: conformity, dissonance, resistance and immersion, introspection, integrative awareness.
Sexual identity (Cass): Identity confusion, comparison, tolerance, acceptance, pride, and synthesis.
Microaggressions and intersectionality: Sue's microaggression types: microassaults, microinsults, and microinvalidations. Intersectionality (Crenshaw): overlapping identities combine to shape distinct experiences of privilege and oppression.
Cultural dimensions (Hofstede): Individualism versus collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity versus femininity, later expanded with long-term orientation and indulgence.
Personality models: Big Five: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism. Rotter: internal versus external locus of control. Bandura: reciprocal determinism among person, behavior, and environment.

Practice Social and Cultural Bases of Behavior questions

Domain 4: Growth and Lifespan Development (12%)

Exam tip: Place the person in the vignette on a timeline first (age and stage), then pick the theory that fits.

Piaget's stages: Sensorimotor (birth to about 2; object permanence), preoperational (about 2 to 7; egocentrism, centration, no conservation), concrete operational (about 7 to 11; conservation and reversibility), formal operational (about 11 and up; abstract, hypothetical reasoning). Adaptation occurs through assimilation and accommodation.
Vygotsky: Zone of proximal development: what a child can do with help but not alone. Scaffolding is support that is gradually withdrawn. Private speech guides self-regulation.
Erikson's psychosocial stages: Trust vs. mistrust; autonomy vs. shame and doubt; initiative vs. guilt; industry vs. inferiority; identity vs. role confusion; intimacy vs. isolation; generativity vs. stagnation; integrity vs. despair.
Marcia's identity statuses: Defined by exploration and commitment: diffusion (neither), foreclosure (commitment without exploration), moratorium (exploring, not yet committed), achievement (explored and committed).
Moral development: Kohlberg: preconventional (punishment, self-interest), conventional (approval, law and order), postconventional (social contract, universal principles). Gilligan argued the model overlooked a care orientation.
Attachment: Ainsworth's Strange Situation classifies infants mainly by reunion behavior: secure (seeks comfort and settles), avoidant (ignores the caregiver), ambivalent/resistant (seeks contact but resists and is hard to soothe), and disorganized (Main and Solomon; contradictory behavior, linked to maltreatment and frightening or frightened caregiving). Harlow's monkeys showed the importance of contact comfort.
Parenting styles: Baumrind: authoritative (warm with firm limits) is linked to the best outcomes; authoritarian (strict, low warmth); permissive (warm, few limits). Maccoby and Martin added uninvolved (neglectful).
Temperament (Thomas and Chess): Easy (about 40%), difficult (about 10%), slow-to-warm-up (about 15%); the rest did not fit one type. Goodness of fit between temperament and environment predicts adjustment.
Language milestones: Cooing around 2 months, babbling around 6 months, first words around 12 months, two-word telegraphic speech around 18 to 24 months. Overextension (all animals are dogs) and overregularization (goed) are normal errors.
Developmental research designs: Cross-sectional designs confound age with cohort. Longitudinal designs confound age with time of measurement and suffer attrition and practice effects. Cross-sequential designs combine both.
Adolescence: Elkind's adolescent egocentrism: imaginary audience and personal fable. Early-maturing girls face higher risk of depression, substance use, and early sexual activity.
Aging: Processing speed and fluid abilities decline earlier; crystallized knowledge is maintained. Socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen): older adults prioritize emotionally meaningful relationships. Baltes: selective optimization with compensation.
Genetic and chromosomal conditions: Down syndrome: trisomy 21, more likely with older maternal age, and early-onset Alzheimer's risk. Fragile X: most common inherited cause of intellectual disability. PKU: autosomal recessive; a low-phenylalanine diet prevents intellectual disability. Turner: 45,X (female). Klinefelter: 47,XXY (male).
Prenatal alcohol exposure: Fetal alcohol syndrome: smooth philtrum, thin upper lip, short eye openings, growth deficits, and central nervous system problems. No safe amount of alcohol in pregnancy has been established.

Practice Growth and Lifespan Development questions

Domain 5: Assessment and Diagnosis (16%)

Exam tip: Practice the formulas until they are quick, and study diagnoses in confusable pairs by duration and onset.

Reliability coefficient: The proportion of observed-score variance that is true-score variance. r = .90 means 90% true variance and 10% error. It is interpreted directly, not squared.
Standard error of measurement: SEM = SD x square root of (1 - reliability). For SD 15 and reliability .91, SEM = 4.5. About 68% confidence: obtained score plus or minus 1 SEM; 95%: plus or minus 1.96 SEM.
Standard error of estimate: SEest = SD of the criterion x square root of (1 - r squared), where r is the validity coefficient. Used to build confidence intervals around predicted criterion scores.
Types of reliability: Test-retest (stability), alternate forms (equivalence), internal consistency (split-half corrected with Spearman-Brown, coefficient alpha, KR-20 for dichotomous items), and inter-rater (Cohen's kappa corrects for chance agreement). Reliability rises with more items, a wider range of scores, and less guessing.
Item analysis: Item difficulty p = proportion answering correctly (0 to 1); about .50 maximizes discrimination, higher when guessing is possible. Discrimination D = p(upper group) - p(lower group). Item response theory describes items with difficulty, discrimination, and guessing parameters.
Validity: Content (items sample the domain), criterion-related (concurrent or predictive), and construct. Convergent validity: high correlations with measures of the same trait; discriminant: low correlations with different traits (multitrait-multimethod matrix). A validity coefficient cannot exceed the square root of the predictor's reliability; r squared gives the variance in the criterion that is explained.
Diagnostic accuracy: Sensitivity = TP / (TP + FN). Specificity = TN / (TN + FP). Positive predictive value = TP / (TP + FP). Negative predictive value = TN / (TN + FN). As the base rate falls, PPV falls and NPV rises, even for an accurate test.
Incremental validity: The gain in decision accuracy from adding a test. Taylor-Russell: it is greatest when the base rate is moderate, the selection ratio is low, and the validity coefficient is high.
Standard scores: z = (X - M) / SD. T scores: mean 50, SD 10. Deviation IQ: mean 100, SD 15. In a normal curve about 68% of scores fall within 1 SD and 95% within 2 SD; z = +1 is about the 84th percentile. Percentile ranks are not equal-interval units.
Clinical judgment: Meehl: actuarial (statistical) prediction generally equals or outperforms clinical prediction. Common errors include base-rate neglect, confirmation bias, and the availability and representativeness heuristics.
Mood episode durations (DSM-5-TR): Major depressive episode: 5 or more symptoms for at least 2 weeks, including depressed mood or loss of interest. Manic: at least 1 week (any duration if hospitalized). Hypomanic: at least 4 consecutive days. Bipolar II requires hypomania plus a major depressive episode and no mania. Persistent depressive disorder and cyclothymic disorder: 2 years (1 year in children and adolescents).
Psychotic disorder durations: Brief psychotic disorder: 1 day to under 1 month. Schizophreniform: 1 month to under 6 months. Schizophrenia: at least 6 months, including at least 1 month of active symptoms. Delusional disorder: delusions for 1 month or more. Schizoaffective: psychosis for at least 2 weeks without a major mood episode, with mood episodes present for most of the illness.
Trauma and stressor durations: Acute stress disorder: 3 days to 1 month after the trauma. PTSD: symptoms for more than 1 month. Adjustment disorder: begins within 3 months of a stressor and resolves within 6 months after it ends. Prolonged grief disorder: at least 12 months after the death for adults (6 months for children and adolescents).
Other key criteria: Generalized anxiety disorder: excessive worry for at least 6 months. ADHD: several symptoms before age 12, in two or more settings; adults (17 and older) need 5 symptoms rather than 6.

Practice Assessment and Diagnosis questions

Domain 6: Treatment, Intervention, Prevention and Supervision (15%)

Exam tip: Match each common disorder to its first-line psychological treatment and that treatment's core technique.

First-line treatments: Specific phobia: in vivo exposure. Panic disorder: CBT with interoceptive exposure. OCD: exposure and response prevention. PTSD: prolonged exposure and cognitive processing therapy. Borderline personality disorder: DBT. Chronic insomnia: CBT for insomnia (CBT-I).
Cognitive therapies: Beck: the cognitive triad (negative views of self, world, and future), automatic thoughts, and schemas, addressed through collaborative empiricism and Socratic questioning. Ellis's REBT: A (activating event), B (belief), C (consequence), D (disputing irrational beliefs), E (effect).
Behavioral techniques: Systematic desensitization (Wolpe): relaxation paired with a graded fear hierarchy through reciprocal inhibition. Flooding: prolonged full-intensity exposure. Habit reversal for tics and hair pulling. Token economies apply secondary reinforcement.
DBT (Linehan): Balances acceptance and change. Four skills modules: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness. Delivered through individual therapy, skills groups, phone coaching, and a therapist consultation team.
Motivational interviewing and stages of change: Transtheoretical model: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance. Motivational interviewing (Miller and Rollnick) resolves ambivalence by evoking the client's own change talk.
Interpersonal psychotherapy: A time-limited treatment for depression that targets one of four areas: grief, role disputes, role transitions, or interpersonal deficits.
Humanistic and experiential therapies: Rogers's person-centered therapy: empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence. Gestalt therapy (Perls): here-and-now awareness and empty-chair work.
Family therapies: Structural (Minuchin): boundaries, enmeshment and disengagement, joining, enactment. Strategic (Haley): directives and paradoxical interventions. Bowen: differentiation of self, triangulation, genograms. Milan: circular questioning. Solution-focused (de Shazer and Berg): miracle, exception, and scaling questions. Narrative (White and Epston): externalizing the problem.
Group therapy (Yalom): Therapeutic factors include universality, instillation of hope, altruism, interpersonal learning, and cohesiveness, which works much like the therapeutic alliance in individual therapy.
Psychotherapy outcome research: Smith and Glass's 1977 meta-analysis: the average treated client was better off than about 75% of untreated controls. Howard and colleagues' dose-effect study: roughly half of clients improved by 8 sessions and about three-quarters by 26. The therapeutic alliance (Bordin: goals, tasks, bond) consistently predicts outcome.
Prevention: Primary prevention lowers incidence (new cases), secondary lowers prevalence through early detection and treatment, and tertiary reduces disability. Gordon's framework: universal, selective (at-risk groups), and indicated (people with early signs).
Consultation (Caplan): Four types: client-centered case, consultee-centered case, program-centered administrative, and consultee-centered administrative. In consultee-centered case consultation the focus is the consultee's lack of knowledge, skill, confidence, or objectivity.
Career development: Holland's RIASEC types (realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, conventional) with congruence between person and environment. Super's life-span stages: growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, disengagement. Krumboltz: social learning and planned happenstance. Gottfredson: circumscription and compromise.
Supervision models: Bernard's discrimination model: the supervisor acts as teacher, counselor, or consultant while focusing on intervention, conceptualization, or personalization skills. Integrated Developmental Model (Stoltenberg): supervisees progress through levels in self- and other-awareness, motivation, and autonomy.

Practice Treatment, Intervention, Prevention and Supervision questions

Domain 7: Research Methods and Statistics (7%)

Exam tip: Pick a statistical test by counting the independent variables, the groups, and the scale of the dependent variable.

Scales of measurement: Nominal (categories), ordinal (rank order), interval (equal intervals, no true zero), ratio (true zero).
Choosing a test: interval or ratio data: One IV with two groups: t-test (independent samples, or correlated samples for matched or repeated measures). One IV with more than two groups: one-way ANOVA. Two or more IVs: factorial ANOVA. Same people measured repeatedly: repeated-measures ANOVA. Controlling a covariate: ANCOVA. Two or more DVs: MANOVA.
Choosing a test: nominal or ordinal data: Frequencies: single-sample chi-square for one variable, multiple-sample chi-square for two or more variables. Ranks: Mann-Whitney U (two independent groups), Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-ranks (two related groups), Kruskal-Wallis (three or more independent groups).
Errors and power: Type I error (alpha): rejecting a true null hypothesis. Type II error (beta): retaining a false null. Power = 1 - beta; it rises with larger samples, a larger alpha, a larger effect size, a one-tailed test, and less error variance.
Effect size and clinical significance: Cohen's d: about .2 small, .5 medium, .8 large. Eta squared and r squared show the proportion of variance explained. Statistical significance does not establish clinical significance; the reliable change index (Jacobson and Truax) tests whether individual change exceeds measurement error.
Correlation coefficients: Pearson r: two interval or ratio variables. Spearman rho: two ranked variables. Point-biserial: one continuous variable and one true dichotomy. Biserial: one continuous variable and one artificial dichotomy. Phi: two true dichotomies. Restricted range lowers a correlation.
Multivariate techniques: Multiple regression predicts a continuous criterion from several predictors and works best when predictors correlate with the criterion but not with each other (low multicollinearity). Discriminant function analysis and logistic regression predict group membership.
Factor analysis: A factor loading is the correlation between a variable and a factor; squaring it gives the variance explained. Communality is the variance in a variable explained by all factors. Orthogonal rotation yields uncorrelated factors; oblique rotation allows correlated factors.
Threats to internal validity: History, maturation, testing, instrumentation, statistical regression (extreme scorers move toward the mean), selection, and differential attrition. Random assignment is the main control for selection threats.
Threats to external validity: Reactivity (Hawthorne effect), demand characteristics, multiple-treatment interference, and pretest sensitization. Random selection supports generalizability; double-blind procedures control expectancy effects. The Solomon four-group design tests for pretest effects.
Research designs: True experiments use random assignment; quasi-experiments do not. Single-case designs: AB, ABAB (reversal or withdrawal), multiple baseline across behaviors, settings, or participants (used when reversal is unethical or impossible), and changing criterion.
Sampling: Simple random, stratified random (ensures subgroup representation), cluster (randomly selects intact groups), and convenience sampling.
Distributions: Positive skew (tail to the right): mean > median > mode. Negative skew: mean < median < mode. Adding a constant changes the mean but not the standard deviation; multiplying by a constant changes both.
Meta-analysis, qualitative research, and evaluation: Meta-analysis combines effect sizes across studies and is vulnerable to the file-drawer (publication bias) problem. Qualitative credibility is strengthened by triangulation and member checking. Formative evaluation improves a program during implementation; summative evaluation judges its outcomes.

Practice Research Methods and Statistics questions

Domain 8: Ethical, Legal, and Professional Issues (16%)

Exam tip: In vignettes, choose the lowest appropriate level of action first (discuss, consult, document) before formal reporting, unless someone is at risk.

APA General Principles (A to E): A: Beneficence and Nonmaleficence. B: Fidelity and Responsibility. C: Integrity. D: Justice. E: Respect for People's Rights and Dignity. They are aspirational; the Ethical Standards are the enforceable rules.
Canadian Code of Ethics (CPA): Four principles, ordered by the weight each generally gets when they conflict: I Respect for the Dignity of Persons and Peoples, II Responsible Caring, III Integrity in Relationships, IV Responsibility to Society.
1.02 Conflicts Between Ethics and Law: Clarify the conflict, make known your commitment to the Code, and take reasonable steps to resolve it. The standard can never be used to justify violating human rights.
1.04 and 1.05 Colleague violations: Try informal resolution with the colleague first when appropriate and confidentiality allows. Take further action, such as referral to an ethics committee or licensing board, when the violation has caused or is likely to cause substantial harm and informal resolution is inappropriate or fails.
2.01 and 2.02 Competence and emergencies: Practice within the boundaries of your education, training, and experience. In an emergency with no other services available, you may provide services to ensure they are not denied, and stop once the emergency ends or appropriate services become available.
3.05 Multiple Relationships and 6.05 Barter: A multiple relationship is unethical only if it could reasonably be expected to impair objectivity, competence, or effectiveness, or risks exploitation or harm. Barter is allowed only if it is not clinically contraindicated and the arrangement is not exploitative.
3.10 and 10.01 Informed consent: Use language the person can understand. Explain early the nature and course of therapy, fees, third-party involvement, and limits of confidentiality. For people legally unable to consent: explain, seek assent, consider their preferences and best interests, and get permission from a legally authorized person. When a supervisor holds legal responsibility, trainees disclose that they are supervised and name the supervisor.
4.02 Discussing the Limits of Confidentiality: Discuss limits of confidentiality and foreseeable uses of information at the outset of the relationship (unless not feasible or contraindicated) and again as circumstances change. For services delivered electronically, explain the privacy risks.
4.05 Disclosures: Disclose with appropriate consent. Without consent, disclose only as mandated by law or as permitted by law for a valid purpose: providing needed services, consultation, protecting someone from harm, or obtaining payment (for payment, only the minimum necessary).
9.04 Test Data vs. 9.11 Test Security: Test data (scores, client responses, notes about test behavior) are released to the client or others named in a client release; you may withhold them to prevent substantial harm or misuse. Without a release, provide them only as required by law or court order. Test materials (manuals, protocols, items) are kept secure.
Sexual intimacies (10.05 to 10.08, 7.07): Never with current clients (10.05) or their known close relatives, guardians, or significant others (10.06). Do not accept former sexual partners as clients (10.07). Not with former clients for at least two years after termination, and even after that only in the most unusual circumstances, with the burden on the psychologist (10.08). Not with students or supervisees in your department or under your evaluative authority (7.07).
10.10 Terminating Therapy: Terminate when the client no longer needs services, is not likely to benefit, or is being harmed. You may terminate if threatened. Unless prevented by the client or payor, provide pretermination counseling and suggest other providers as appropriate.
8.07 Deception and 8.08 Debriefing: Deception is allowed only when justified by significant scientific, educational, or applied value and no effective nondeceptive alternative is feasible. Never deceive about research expected to cause physical pain or severe emotional distress. Explain deception as early as feasible and no later than the end of data collection, and let participants withdraw their data.
8.12 Publication Credit: Authorship reflects relative contribution, not status or position. A student is usually listed as principal author on a multiple-authored article substantially based on the student's dissertation.
Landmark cases and privilege: Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California (1976): a therapist may have a duty to take reasonable steps to protect an identifiable victim of a client's serious threat; duty-to-protect laws vary by jurisdiction. Jaffee v. Redmond (1996): the U.S. Supreme Court recognized psychotherapist-patient privilege in federal courts, including for licensed clinical social workers. Privilege is a legal right held by the client.

Practice Ethical, Legal, and Professional Issues questions

Last reviewed October 11, 2026 against the EPPP (Part 1-Knowledge) exam topics. APA Ethics Code standard numbers refer to the 2002 code as amended in 2010 and 2016; diagnostic terms follow DSM-5-TR.

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