The Effect of Staff Accountant Objectivity in the Review and Decision Process: A Tax Setting

2001 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Charles Hatfield
Keyword(s):  
Decision Process ◽  
Confirmation Bias ◽  
Research Report ◽  
Information Evaluation ◽  
Client Advocacy ◽  
Initial Opinion ◽  
Evaluation Of Evidence ◽  
Staff Accountants ◽  
Staff Level

Prior studies report that less experienced staff accountants are often susceptible to confirmation bias in the evaluation of evidence. This bias results in nonobjective information evaluation by staff-level accountants. This study examines how the perceived objectivity of the staff accountant and the manager's own client advocacy affect the manager's use of the staff accountant's research report when formulating client recommendations. The results suggest that objectivity judgments made by partner-/manager-level accountants are influenced by whether the staff accountant's research report confirms their initial opinion. Further, the confirmatory nature of the research report affects the manner in which the report is incorporated into a client recommendation. Nonconfirming research reports were given more weight than confirming research reports. Preference for client-favorable outcomes was found to affect the weight given to staff accountant research reports as well.

The Influence of Biased Tax Research Memoranda on Supervisors' Initial Judgments in the Review Process

2004 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Barrick ◽  
C. Bryan Cloyd ◽  
Brian C. Spilker
Keyword(s):  
Review Process ◽  
Confirmation Bias ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Tax Professionals ◽  
Realistic Possibility ◽  
Client Advocacy ◽  
Tax Research ◽  
Staff Level

This study experimentally investigates the effects of confirmation bias underlying staff-level tax research on supervisors' initial assessments and recommendations made during the review process for tax research memoranda. The theoretical framework underlying our hypotheses posits that tax professionals strive to make recommendations that meet both accuracy and advocacy objectives. Participants in our study addressed a client scenario in which both objectives could not be met because the client-preferred position did not have a “realistic possibility” of being successfully defended on its merits. In this context, we find that supervisors are more persuaded by an unbiased memo correctly concluding that the client-preferred position is not appropriate than by a biased memo reaching the same conclusion. This result suggests that when tax research memoranda are not consistent with the client advocacy objective, professionals are more persuaded by memoranda that fulfill their accuracy objective. On the other hand, we also find that supervisors are more persuaded by a biased memo incorrectly concluding in favor of the client's preferred position than by a biased memo correctly concluding that the client-preferred position is inappropriate. This result suggests that, when neither memorandum meets the accuracy objective, supervisors are more persuaded by memoranda that offer encouragement that their advocacy objective might be met than by those that do not. Finally, results also indicate that supervisors act to correct confirmation bias by requesting more rework of staff who prepare biased memos than of staff who prepare unbiased memos.

Confirmation bias in decision making for fingerprints, DNA and eyewitness evidence cannot be explained by cognitive style or thinking dispositions.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Edgcumbe
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Style ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Confirmation Bias ◽  
Criminal Case ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Legal Proceedings ◽  
Thinking Dispositions ◽  
Evaluation Of Evidence ◽  
Facial Composite

Pre-existing beliefs about the background or guilt of a suspect can bias the subsequent evaluation of evidence for forensic examiners and lay people alike. This biasing effect, called the confirmation bias, has influenced legal proceedings in prominent court cases such as that of Brandon Mayfield. Today many forensic providers attempt to train their examiners against these cognitive biases. Nine hundred and forty-two participants read a fictional criminal case and received either neutral, incriminating or exonerating evidence (fingerprint, eyewitness, or DNA) before providing an initial rating of guilt. Participants then viewed ambiguous evidence (alibi, facial composite, handwriting sample or informant statement) before providing a final rating of guilt. Final guilt ratings were higher for all evidence conditions (neutral, incriminating or exonerating) following exposure to the ambiguous evidence. This provides evidence that the confirmation bias influences the evaluation of evidence.

The Influence of Client Preferences on Tax Professionals' Search for Judicial Precedents, Subsequent Judgments and Recommendations

1999 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Bryan Cloyd ◽  
Brian C. Spilker
Keyword(s):  
Information Search ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
Confirmation Bias ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Professional Standards ◽  
Tax Professionals ◽  
Tax Returns ◽  
Federal Income Tax ◽  
Client Advocacy ◽  
Advocacy Role

Tax professionals provide valuable services to clients by reducing uncertainty about how clients should report transactions on their tax returns. To reduce uncertainty, tax professionals research applicable authorities (e.g., judicial precedents) and provide assessments to clients of the level of authoritative support for client-favorable positions. Tax professionals have strong incentives to make accurate assessments of the strength of client-preferred positions so that clients will understand the level of risk associated with the reporting position. Further, tax professionals must make accurate assessments of authoritative support in order to maintain compliance with tax professional standards and Federal income tax regulations. Incentives notwithstanding, psychological research on confirmation bias suggests that tax professionals' client advocacy role may inhibit professionals' ability to search objectively for relevant tax authority which, in turn, might inhibit their ability to accurately assess authoritative support. We report the results of two studies that examine causes and effects of confirmation bias in tax information search. In study 1, we find that subjects' information searches emphasized cases with conclusions consistent with the client's desired outcome (i.e., positive cases) over cases inconsistent with the client's desired outcome (i.e., negative cases), despite the fact that positive cases were no more similar to the client's facts. Additional analyses indicate that the extent of this confirmation bias was positively related to their assessments of the likelihood that a neutral court would resolve the issue in the client's favor and this in turn increased the strength with which they recommended the client's preferred tax position. Results of study 2 indicate that confirmation bias induced by client preferences can be strong enough to not only result in inaccurate assessments of authoritative support for the client-favored position, which is problematic in and of itself, but also to lead tax professionals to make overly aggressive recommendations.

Do Auditor Advocacy Attitudes Impede Audit Objectivity?

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Pennington ◽  
Jennifer K. Schafer ◽  
Robert Pinsker
Keyword(s):  
Information Search ◽  
Confirmation Bias ◽  
Search Strategies ◽  
Important Link ◽  
Big 4 ◽  
Audit Evidence ◽  
Evaluation Of Evidence

Biased evaluation of evidence exists when an auditor either over-emphasizes evidence that supports management assertions or over-emphasizes evidence against management assertions. This study examines if an auditor’s advocacy attitudes lead to bias in information search for audit evidence. We measure the range of advocacy attitudes of individual auditors and hypothesize that auditors at either end of the advocacy spectrum may impede the objectivity of evidence gathered. Results from 60 Big 4 auditors indicate that advocacy attitudes affect both initial judgments and consequent search strategies of auditors. When initial judgments are client-favorable, all auditors exhibit search strategies focused on finding evidence to take a more conservative position; however, when initial judgments represent an unfavorable client position, auditors with lower advocacy attitudes exhibit a stronger tendency to search for additional evidence against a client-favorable position, consistent with a confirmation bias. Conversely, auditors with more neutral attitudes plan a more objective search effectively mitigating the bias. Aggregate findings establish an important link between bias and information search that may manifest itself in auditor training procedures and be of interest to auditing regulators.

scholarly journals THE DYNAMIC EFFECTS OF ONLINE PRODUCT REVIEWS ON PURCHASE DECISIONS

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 2045-2064 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jia Chen ◽  
Gang Kou ◽  
Yi Peng
Keyword(s):  
Decision Process ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
Online Review ◽  
Purchase Decision ◽  
Product Reviews ◽  
Purchase Decisions ◽  
Dynamic Effects ◽  
Initial Opinion ◽  
Initial Impressions ◽  
Potential Customers

Previous studies have demonstrated that online reviews play an important role in the purchase decision process. Though the effects of positive and negative reviews to consumers’ purchase decisions have been analyzed, they were examined statically and separately. In reality, online review community allows everyone to express and receive opinions and individuals can reexamine their opinions after receiving messages from others. The goal of this paper is to study how potential customers form their opinions dynamically under the effects of both positive and negative reviews using a numerical simulation. The results show that consumers with different membership levels have different information sensitivities to online reviews. Consumers at low and medium membership levels are often persuaded by online reviews, regardless of their initial opinion about a product. On the other hand, online reviews have less effect on consumers at higher membership levels, who often make purchase decisions based on their initial impressions of a product.

CONFIRMATION BIAS AS A KIND OF THINKING ILLUSION

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oksana Shovkova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Information Flow ◽  
Confirmation Bias ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Test Strategy ◽  
Information Hypothesis ◽  
First Case ◽  
Myside Bias ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Evaluation Of Evidence

Nowadays people need to navigate the information flow. We process and evaluate a large amount of data. The ability of individuals to process objectively and analyze the obtained information plays an important role in modern society. The important characteristics of a modern person are unbiased beliefs and opinions of others and a critical attitude to one's own thoughts and views. Are we able to evaluate our own thoughts impartially? It is known that there is an obvious difference between an unbiased evaluation of evidence in order to come to an impartial conclusion and building a case to justify a conclusion already drawn. In the first case, the individual seeks evidence on all sides of a task, evaluates the information objectively, and draws the conclusion that the evidence, in the aggregate, seems to dictate. In the second case, the individual selectively, gives undue weight to evidence that supports one's position while neglecting evidence that would tell against it. The article provides a theoretical analysis of the concept of «confirmation bias» («myside bias») in cognitive psychology. It considers the approaches that lead to confirmation bias, identifies confirmation biases in the process of forming a hypothesis, and highlights the characteristics of confirmation bias that distinguish it from other heuristics. Keywords: confirmation bias, heuristics, thinking, positive test strategy, information hypothesis.

Sem/X-Ray Applications to the Forensic Science Field

1976 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 390-391
Author(s):  
K. Culbreth
Keyword(s):  
Forensic Science ◽  
Depth Of Field ◽  
Surface Phenomena ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Forensic Evidence ◽  
Science Field ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Hit And Run ◽  
Evaluation Of Evidence ◽  
Scanning Electron

The introduction of scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive x-ray analysis to forensic science has provided additional methods by which investigative evidence can be analyzed. The importance of evidence from the scene of a crime or from the personal belongings of a victim and suspect has resulted in the development and evaluation of SEM/x-ray analysis applications to various types of forensic evidence. The intent of this paper is to describe some of these applications and to relate their importance to the investigation of criminal cases.The depth of field and high resolution of the SEM are an asset to the evaluation of evidence with respect to surface phenomena and physical matches (1). Fig. 1 shows a Phillips screw which has been reconstructed after the head and shank were separated during a hit-and-run accident.

745: Confirmation Bias in Prostate Cancer Grading

2007 ◽  
Vol 177 (4S) ◽  
pp. 250-250
Author(s):  
Thomas M. Fandel ◽  
Maria Pfnuer ◽  
Claudia Corinth ◽  
Michael Ansorge ◽  
Sebastian W. Melchior ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prostate Cancer ◽  
Confirmation Bias ◽  
Cancer Grading

Prime Proportion Affects Masked Priming of Fixed and Free-Choice Responses

2010 ◽  
Vol 57 (5) ◽  
pp. 360-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen E. Bodner ◽  
Rehman Mulji
Keyword(s):  
Decision Process ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Previous Trial ◽  
Target Response ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Sequential Trial

Left/right “fixed” responses to arrow targets are influenced by whether a masked arrow prime is congruent or incongruent with the required target response. Left/right “free-choice” responses on trials with ambiguous targets that are mixed among fixed trials are also influenced by masked arrow primes. We show that the magnitude of masked priming of both fixed and free-choice responses is greater when the proportion of fixed trials with congruent primes is .8 rather than .2. Unconscious manipulation of context can thus influence both fixed and free choices. Sequential trial analyses revealed that these effects of the overall prime context on fixed and free-choice priming can be modulated by the local context (i.e., the nature of the previous trial). Our results support accounts of masked priming that posit a memory-recruitment, activation, or decision process that is sensitive to aspects of both the local and global context.

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