Audit regulators and commentators propose prompting auditors to more fully take an investor's perspective as a remedy to their concern that auditors underreact to material misstatements. By contrast, we predict that prompting auditors in this manner will backfire, making them less (more) heavily weight indicia that misstatements are (not) material. We further predict auditors will apply this asymmetric weighting instrumentally—to a greater degree as needed—to justify management-preferred conclusions. We test these predictions in two experiments in which in-charge audit seniors judge the likelihood that identified audit differences are material and choose required adjustment amounts. Between-participants, we manipulate whether or not auditors are prompted to take an investor's perspective and, within-participants, whether these audit differences would or would not violate a qualitative criterion—by breaking or not breaking a favorable profitability trend. Study 1 uses a context in which a relatively low degree of motivated perspective taking is needed, as the audit difference is just below tolerable misstatement (TM). Investor-prompted auditors assess audit differences as less likely to be material than do unprompted auditors, but only when the qualitative criterion is not violated. Study 2 adds a between-participant manipulation of misstatement tolerability—that is, whether the audit difference is just below or well above TM. Consistent with an instrumental increase in motivated perspective taking, investor-prompted auditors assess audit differences that simultaneously are less tolerable and violate a qualitative criterion as significantly less likely to be material. Overall, our theory and experimental evidence suggest prompting auditors to take the investor perspective may have unintended consequences.

中文翻译：

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有动机的观点采纳：为什么提示审计师采纳投资者的观点会使他们将已识别的审计差异视为不太重要*

审计监管机构和评论员建议促使审计师更充分地从投资者的角度出发，以解决他们担心审计师对重大错报反应不足的担忧。相比之下，我们预测以这种方式提示审计师会适得其反，使他们减少（更多）重要的错误陈述是（不）重要的标记。我们进一步预测审计师将工具性地应用这种不对称权重——根据需要在更大程度上——证明管理层偏爱的结论是正确的。我们在两个实验中测试这些预测，在这些实验中，负责审计的高级人员判断已识别的审计差异是重大的可能性并选择所需的调整量。在参与者之间，我们操纵审计师是否被提示采取投资者的观点，以及在参与者内部，这些审计差异是否会违反定性标准——通过打破或不打破有利的盈利趋势。研究 1 使用的环境需要相对较低程度的动机性观点采纳，因为审计差异仅低于可容忍错报 (TM)。投资者提示的审计师评估审计差异不太可能是重要的，而不是自发的审计师，但仅当不违反定性标准时。研究 2 增加了参与者之间对错报容忍度的操纵——即，审计差异是略低于还是远高于 TM。与积极采取观点的工具性增加相一致，受投资者推动的审计师评估审计差异同时更难以容忍并违反定性标准，因为它们不太可能是重大的。总体而言，我们的理论和实验证据表明，促使审计师从投资者角度出发可能会产生意想不到的后果。由投资者推动的审计师将同时难以容忍和违反定性标准的审计差异评估为显着不太可能是重要的。总体而言，我们的理论和实验证据表明，促使审计师从投资者角度出发可能会产生意想不到的后果。由投资者推动的审计师将同时难以容忍和违反定性标准的审计差异评估为显着不太可能是重要的。总体而言，我们的理论和实验证据表明，促使审计师从投资者角度出发可能会产生意想不到的后果。