Investigating the Role Halo Effect in Auditors Decision Making; By Emphasis on Self-Explanation Process

Halo effect causes individuals to change their criteria when assessing and weighting information. Using self-explanation method of acquiring knowledge, auditors affected by halo effect will be able to specify their arguments about the risk of assessing material misstatements which they have already identified. The main problem this study seeks to investigate and analyze is to increase the quality of auditors’ decision making and judgments in order to further increase audit quality. Although recent empirical evidence has reported a decrease in halo effect through gaining experience, no solution has yet been proposed to reduce halo effect. In this regard, this study examines the role of halo effect in auditors’ decision making by emphasizing self-explanation process. The final sample of the study includes 229 auditors of Iranian Society of Certified Accountants. Also, Utami et al, (2017)’s adjusted questionnaire was used to collect the information.  To analysis data, descriptive statistics and t-test were used. The results showed that under the influence of halo effect, auditors would make more proper audit decisions through self-explanation.