Ever since I left professional journalism a decade ago to join the ivory towers, I've gotten used to working in obscurity. Readers seldom call to say they loved or hated something I've written now that it only appears in narrowly focused academic journals. So it's rewarding and sometimes surprising when something catches the public's attention. Most recently, it was a study I did with Lee Wilkins of the University of Missouri measuring the ethics of public relations professionals. The industry seemed to be somewhat surprised and certainly relieved, if not vindicated, that our scientific research showed what they knew all along – that PR people do know right from wrong and are good at reasoning through moral dilemmas.

The headlines focused on how PR people are more ethical than you might think – seventh highest of all professions tested, in fact. But the real story lies deeper in the study; evidence of some of the things we can do that will help make PR professionals even better at thinking ethically. Those details seldom reach the body of a news story, and it's unlikely that anyone but other professors will slog through the original article with all its statistics and jargon, so here I'd like to explain what some of those things are in hopes that PR people will put them into practice. The next time we come calling to ask for participants in an ethics study, I hope the profession will be even higher than number seven:

Undertake a life of learning. The single thing most strongly associated with better quality ethical reasoning is education. That helps explain why the professions at the top of the ethics chart include medical doctors and Ph.D.s in philosophy and religion. Whether you do it formally or informally, keep learning new things. If you can go back for a graduate degree or even a few classes, do it. But an education doesn't occur just in classrooms. Travel, see new places and meet people from other cultures. Join a book club and learn from others in the discussions. Make friends with people who are interested in expanding their intellectual horizons. Argue and debate, discuss and deliberate. Believe it or not, all these things have been studied and found to predict higher moral development. Readings and classes focused on ethics can help, too, but learning in any domain promotes moral growth.

Question everything and hone the ability to think critically. Challenge authority (nonviolently) and the status quo. Ask why. Wonder about things even if they "must be true because the experts say so." This is at the crux of two of the most controversial findings about moral development – religiosity and political ideology. Often this is reduced to the idea that conservatives and religious fundamentalists are worse at ethics than liberals and those with non-fundamental religious beliefs, but that doesn't accurately reflect what's really going on. Researchers think the way we measure political ideology and religiosity are actually capturing something else – the phenomenon of a reluctance to question authority found in both conservative ideology and fundamental religions. Good ethical thinking demands high levels of analysis, which includes the willingness to question both rules and authority.

Look inward rather than to codes of ethics, laws, and employer standards. Such things are good places to start for ethical guidance, but should never be the final word. Many studies have found this to be the case and we confirmed it with the PR professionals in our research. Relying too much on externally imposed standards indicates lower critical thinking among PR professionals and keeps them from growing cognitively.

Commit to truthfulness and respect for people. We asked about the importance of truthfulness with questions about concealing information, misleading messages, covert deception, and creating false impressions. Seeking input from others who would be affected and facilitating mutual understanding made up our definition of "respect." Our study found that people who said these things were of the utmost importance to them were the best quality ethical thinkers.

Although the research showing PR professionals to be good, able ethical thinkers represented only 118 individuals in a profession of hundreds of thousands, I firmly believe that what we have found represents something real. The messages I see in PR publications about transparency, truth and respect reinforce that notion. I would now like to issue everyone in the field the challenge to not just talk about it, but go out and practice these and the other things we know to promote moral growth.

Renita Coleman is associate professor in the Journalism School at the University of Texas-Austin. She has 15 years experience as a journalism and 2 years in public relations. Her recent study was supported by the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communications at Penn State University.