The Effects of Irrelevant Information and Minor Error in Client Documents on Auditor’s Skeptical Judgment

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of irrelevant information and minor error in client documents on auditor’s skeptical judgment. In the regard, this study conducted an experiment designed to examine how independent auditors respond to dirty documents. The set of case and questionnaire were randomly distributed among independent auditors working in trusted audit institutions of Securities & Exchange Organization in 2019. This study was at last conducted with the participation of 207 auditors in four groups. Data were analyzed using Kruskal Wallis and Mann-Whitney statistical tests. The results indicate that the presence of irrelevant information and minor error influenced auditor’s skeptical judgment and specifically, the presence of irrelevant information and minor error in audit evidence led to increases in the estimates of account misstatement likelihood.