Testing the Effect of Risk Attitude on Auditor Judgments Using Multiattribute Utility Theory

The scaling constant of multiattribute utility functions derived for each of 15 practicing auditors was used to measure risk attitude for the subjects. The risk preference or risk aversion indicated by this metric allowed categorization of the auditors to test for an effect of risk attitude on audit judgments. The sample showed both risk aversion and risk preference among the auditors. The correlations among auditor evaluations of hypothetical internal control compliance test results were generally high and were different for audit seniors than for audit managers. Risk attitude was not found to explain the differences across rank nor the individual differences in consensus.