Values vs Ethics in ABA: They Are Not the Same Thing

A value is a belief that points you toward what matters, and an ethic is a rule that sets the floor for what you are allowed to do. People treat the two words like synonyms, but they do different jobs, and mixing them up is one of the quiet reasons good clinicians burn out.

This page is the conceptual ground floor for a stack of related work on this site. Once you can name the difference, the rest of the values writing (compass, mission, mid-career check-in) makes a lot more sense.

The 10-Second Difference#

Here is the smallest version of the answer.

Ethics tell you what you cannot do without losing your credential. Values tell you what you want to do because of who you are as a clinician. Ethics are a floor. Values are a direction.

A useful test: if you removed the BACB tomorrow, would the behavior still happen? If yes, it was a value. If no, it was compliance.

A short, usable definition came up in the Applied 2022 talk by Megh Crowley:

Beliefs that act as guiding principles for your decisions.

That is values. Ethics are a different category of thing. They are rules a credentialing body wrote down so the public is protected from harm. Both matter. They are not the same.

What the BACB Ethics Code Actually Is (a Floor, Not a Ceiling)#

The BACB Ethics Code is a set of enforceable rules. If you break them, you can lose your BCBA. That is the whole point of an ethics code. It exists to draw a line under what counts as acceptable practice and to give the public someone to call when a practitioner crosses it.

That means the code is a floor. It tells you the minimum.

It does not tell you what kind of clinician to be. It does not tell you how to sit at intake. It does not tell you whether to push a goal the family did not ask for. It does not tell you when to slow down and when to keep going. Those choices live above the floor, and they are not in the code because they cannot be.

When new BCBAs first read the code, a common reaction is "this is who I want to be." That is a category mistake. The code is who you have to be at a minimum to keep your credential. Who you want to be is a values question, and you answer it somewhere else.

What a Value Is in Behavior Analytic Terms (Verbal MOs, Not Rules)#

Here is where behavior analysis gives us something most fields do not have: a technical definition of a value.

In the Applied 2022 talk, Megh quotes Brian Middleton's framing of values inside an ACT lens:

This is a large class of verbally constructed, highly potent, long-term positive reinforcers. And that values-based interventions or committed action involves statements or rules that function as verbal MOs that increase or decrease the effectiveness of stimuli as reinforcers or punishers.

Translate that into kitchen-table English.

A value is a verbal statement you carry around that changes what feels reinforcing in the moment. If "I want to be a clinician who centers the family" is a real value for you, then sitting through an awkward intake question feels worth it. The discomfort of slowing down becomes a smaller cost because the value is functioning as a verbal MO. It is making the right behavior more reinforcing and the wrong behavior less reinforcing in the moment.

A rule does something different. A rule says "do this." It does not change what feels reinforcing. It just adds a consequence for non-compliance. That is what the ethics code is: a contingency added on top of behavior, not a motivational frame inside it.

So when someone says "the ethics code is my values," what they actually mean is "I follow the rules." Following rules is fine. It is also not the same psychological process as having values. The first is contingency control. The second is verbal MO control. You can have a clinician with perfect compliance and zero values clarity, and you can spot them within about two weeks of working with them.

Where the Two Overlap (Page Four of the Code)#

The overlap is real and worth naming, because if you ignore it you sound like you are pitting ethics against values, and that is not the point.

The BACB puts this out in the core principles on page four of the ethics code. Four foundational principles are compassion, dignity, respect, and behaving with integrity. So as we put forth this conversation, we're going to be starting kind of with the BACB core principles as our values.

So the BACB itself opens the code with four words that read like values: compassion, dignity, respect, integrity. Those are not procedures. You cannot audit "compassion" with a checklist the way you can audit a session note. They are stated as principles that the rules underneath are supposed to serve.

This is the cleanest version of the relationship. The code's enforceable rules are downstream of the four principles. The four principles look like values because they more or less are. The rest of the code is the floor that those principles have been operationalized into.

That gives a working BCBA a useful frame. Read the four principles as a starter values list. Read the rest of the code as the minimum behavior those values require. Then ask yourself what behavior those same principles ask of you above the minimum. That second question is where values live.

Why Treating Ethics Like Values Causes Burnout#

Here is the practical cost of the mix-up.

If your ethics code is also your values list, then every clinical decision becomes a compliance question. You stop asking "what does this client need" and start asking "am I allowed to do this." That shift is small in language and huge in practice.

It looks like this. A family wants a goal you do not think serves the child. You scan the code. The code does not forbid the goal. So you write the goal. You did nothing wrong by the rules. You also did something you do not believe in, and you have no way to name why it feels bad, because your only framework for "feels bad" is "code violation," and there is no code violation. You just absorbed the dissonance.

Stack that up across a caseload. Stack it up across two years. That is burnout. Not the dramatic kind, the slow kind, where a clinician who used to care about families slowly stops caring because she has no language for the gap between "allowed" and "right."

Values give you that language. They let you say "this is allowed and I still do not want to do it," and then they let you do something different.

Why Treating Values Like Ethics Causes Performative Practice#

The other direction is also a trap.

If you treat your personal values as if they were enforceable rules, two things happen. You start judging other clinicians for not sharing them. And you start performing them instead of practicing them, because once a value becomes a rule, you optimize for visible compliance instead of the underlying behavior.

You see this in agencies that put a values statement on the wall and then build no system for living it. The statement is treated like a code: read it, agree, move on. Nobody asks what behaviors the value would require on a Tuesday at 4pm with a tired RBT and a kid who is dysregulated. The value becomes scenery.

Values over procedures. Values over procedures. I'm going to encourage people to take a different approach. We're very good at developing procedures. We love procedures.

The reason this hits is that the field defaults to procedure mode. Procedures are easy to write, easy to audit, easy to check off. Values feel fluffy by comparison. So we write a procedure for the value and call it done. The procedure runs. The value does not.

A real value shows up as a behavior change you would not have made if the rule did not exist. If your "compassion" value produces the same intake you would have done anyway, it is not yet a value. It is a poster.

A Working Example: Same Case, Ethics Lens vs Values Lens#

Picture an intake. New family, kid is six, recently diagnosed, parents are anxious and tired. Your agency packet has 47 questions in a fixed order.

Through the ethics lens, your only job is to not violate the code. Do not misrepresent the service. Do not skip mandated disclosures. Get consent properly. Document. The code does not say anything about the order of your 47 questions, the tone of your voice, or whether you let the mom cry for a minute before moving on. So all of that is up to you, and through the ethics lens, none of it matters.

Through the values lens, almost all of it matters. If you value meeting people where they are, you skip question three, sit with the mom, come back to question three later. If you value transparency, you tell them up front what your agency is good at and not good at. If you value the kid's autonomy, you ask the kid something before you ask the parents anything. None of that is required. All of it is who you want to be.

The values lens does not replace the ethics lens. It sits on top of it. You still have to clear the floor. The values lens is what shows you the ceiling, and the ceiling is where the work that matters actually happens.

That is why one of the closing lines of the Applied 2022 talk lands:

I've used this as my compass in the clinical journey when I'm working with people.

A compass is the right metaphor. A floor tells you not to fall through. A compass tells you which way to walk. You need both, and you need to know which is which.

FAQ#

Is the BACB ethics code the same as my values as a BCBA?

No. The code is a set of enforceable rules that protect the public and define the minimum behavior required to keep your credential. Your values are the beliefs that guide how you practice above that minimum. They overlap at the four core principles on page four of the code (compassion, dignity, respect, integrity), but the code is a floor and your values are a direction.

Can something be ethical and still go against my values?

Yes, and this is the most useful test of whether you have a values list at all. If every ethical option felt equally fine to you, you would have no values, only compliance. The fact that some allowed options feel wrong is what tells you a value is operating. Your job is to name that value, decide whether to act on it, and accept that some clinical choices live above the code rather than inside it.

Why does my supervisor talk about values and ethics like they are the same?

Usually for one of two reasons. Either she was trained in a program that taught the ethics code as a values document, which was common, or she works in an agency that has not separated "what we are required to do" from "who we want to be," which is also common. Neither is malicious. It just means the conceptual distinction on this page has not been made out loud where she trained. You can make it for yourself anyway.

Keep Going#

If this page gave you the words for something you already felt, the full talk by Megh Crowley walks the same idea through intake, assessment, and goal selection. It is one ethics CEU, free, no signup.

Watch the full CEU on openceu.com.