Understanding Auditors’ Evidence Selection Behaviour in a Complex Task from a Heuristic-Systematic Model of Persuasion Perspective

In the auditing context, findings from previous research suggests there is weak support for confirmatory behaviour among external auditors. This paper not only re-examined the behaviour of auditors based on the experimental setting used by Trotman and Sng (1989) but also provides a psychological explanation that determines such behaviour using heuristic-systematic model of persuasion. Consistent with previous auditing studies, this paper also confirmed that confirmatory behaviour was not overpowering. The findings report that hypothesis framing affects evidence selection suggesting heuristic processing of evidence has occurred. Moreover, the interaction of hypothesis framing and prior expectation suggests an interplay of systematic and heuristic processing has occurred. Furthermore, consistent with Trotman and Sng (1989) this study reports that the comparative number of selectedevidence was influenced by hypothesis framing when prior expectation is strong but contrary to the previous finding, there is also a marginal influence of hypothesis framing when prior expectation is weak

Keywords:

Auditors , Hypothesis Framing , Prior Expectation , Heuristic-Systematic Model , Confirmation-Disconfirmation Behaviour