An Experimental Investigation of Professional Skepticism in Audit Interviews

Fraud‐related auditing standards define professional skepticism as a questioning mind or, according to Nelson, presumptive doubt, and advocate its exercising in fraud risk evaluations of evidence. The present experiment assessed auditors' mental perspective toward interviewees under levels of deception risk. Auditors judged informational veracity after observing an interviewee who, in actuality, was lying. In the experimental condition of high deception risk, the interviewee could gain financially from successful deception, and red flags suggested the possibility of deception. The percentage who incorrectly believed the interviewee was around 70 percent regardless of deception risks. These results suggest the prevalence of presumptive trust, as opposed to presumptive doubt. Its prevalence in conditions of deception risk may reveal a general reluctance among auditors to undertake deception detection in audit interviews, an attitude that could compromise authoritative calls for auditors to do so for fraud risk assessment.