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This paper examines whether auditor gender and task complexity interactively influence audit judgment efficiency as predicted by the selectivity hypothesis (Meyers‐Levy 1989). Twenty‐eight practicing auditors (16 males and 12 females) from four Big Five audit firms performed an analytical procedures task at one of two complexity levels. Consistent with a selectivity explanation, female auditors demonstrated significantly greater efficiency than males on a complex analytical procedures task. Additionally, female auditors exhibited greater efficiency in information processing on the more complex task than on the less complex task, while males demonstrated greater efficiency on the less complex task than on the more complex task. Prior research (Chung and Monroe 1998; 2001) has demonstrated gender‐based differences in information processing effectiveness. Thus, the current study extends gender‐based performance in auditing across different tasks. These results highlight the importance of considering the effects of systematic gender‐based differences in auditor information processing.
O’Donnell et al. (Sun,) studied this question.