Ethics Terminology
These are the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior and guide decisions of right and wrong.
What are ethics?
Fabricating results without performing the test.
What is Dry Labbing
Employees who feel undervalued or disconnected from their work may experience this driver of unethical behavior.
What is disengagement?
Laboratory data must be these three things: representative, comparable, and _____.
What is complete?
This term describes your behavior when no one is watching.
What is Integrity
Changing data, instrumentation settings, or dilution practices to make results appear better than they are is called this.
What is manipulation?
When outcomes are heavily tied to rewards this becomes a strong driver for unethical behavior.
What is pressure?
Using pencil, whiteout, or overwriting files directly violates this critical requirement.
What is proper recordkeeping / data integrity?
These principles help define what is good vs. bad and clarify our rights and responsibilities
What are morals?
Leaving out required QC checks, failing to report failures, or discarding unwanted results fall under this type of improper practice.
What is omission?
This driver occurs when employees feel unsure about policies, norms, or company expectations.
What are unclear policies?
Mistakes happen—but doing this turns a mistake into fraud.
What is covering it up?
These are the four drivers of unethical behavior.
What is unclear policies, pressure, poor leadership, and disengagement?
Selecting only the data that fits desired outcomes—such as running multiple standards and choosing preferred results—is known as this prohibited activity.
What is cherry picking?
This happens when leadership normalizes bad behavior, makes unethical decisions, or abuses authority.
What is poor leadership?
This system includes SOPs, anonymous reporting options, proper documentation, and legally defensible signatures.
What is a system of integrity?
In a laboratory setting, ethics ensure that actions, decisions, and data meet these three goals.
What are data integrity, accuracy, and defensibility?
What federal law governs all public water systems which serve at least 25 individuals or 15 service connections for 60+ days a year?
1974 Safe Water Drinking Act (SDWA)
This behavior driver includes misaligned KPIs, toxic work environments, or personal issues that influence unethical choices.
What is pressure?
This requirement ensures data is accurate, consistent, complete, and legally defensible.
What is data integrity?