Professional Skepticism and Auditor Cognitive Performance in a Hypothesis Testing Task

• In Event: Breakfast and Research Forum
  In Roundtable Session: Table 17: Professional Skepticism

Abstract

This study examines the effects of professional skepticism on auditor cognitive performance in a hypothesis testing task. Seventy-eight audit students and 85 practicing auditors examine an audit case and determine the evidence needed to test the validity of a management’s assertion in a Wason selection task (Wason 1966, 1968, 1969; Cosmides 1989). The 2x2 between-participants experiment manipulates the presence of a professional skepticism intervention and the presence of a cheater-detection intervention (Cosmides 1989; Cosmides and Tooby 2008). The personality trait of professional skepticism is measured with Hurtt’s (2010) scale. The presence of a professional skepticism intervention is found to improve cognitive performance in the sample of students, but not in the sample of auditors. The presence of a cheater-detection intervention has no significant effect on performance in the student or auditor sample. The personality trait of professional skepticism is a significant predictor of cognitive performance in the sample of students but not in the sample of auditors. Examining the individual effects of the different facets of professional skepticism reveals that for students, self-confidence, autonomy of judgment, and interpersonal understanding are positively related to performance. For auditors, autonomy of judgment and search for knowledge are found to improve performance, while self-confidence has a negative effect on performance. The implications of these findings are discussed and avenues for future research are proposed.

Author

• Marietta Peytcheva, Lehigh University