Auditors' Judgment Performance under Stress: A Test of the Predicted Relationship by Three Theoretical Models

Abstract

Three competing theories of stress and judgment performance, namely, working memory capacity theory (Eysenck [1979]), cue utilization theory (Easterbrook [1959]), and coping behavior theory (Folkman [1984]) were compared for their efficacy in explaining the form of stress-induced performance changes in auditors' judgment. Two studies were conducted to test the goodness of fit of the three predicted stress-judgment relationships.

The first study was a five-phase field research that included the development of an Audit Mental Stress Scale and the usage of a complex audit judgment case. The results indicated that the cue utilization theory had a higher explanatory power than the other two competing theories. In accordance with this theory, auditors' judgment performance improved as stress increased from a low to moderate level with optimal performance efficiency occurring at a moderate level of stress, and thereafter a decrement in judgment performance at an excessive level of stress. In other words, there was an inverted U-shaped relationship between stress and judgment performance.

The second study reinforced the findings with a laboratory experiment. Forty-eight auditors were randomly assigned to four groups of 12 subjects each and the four groups assigned to one of four time pressure conditions. The auditors performed the same audit judgment case as in study one. An ANOVA that used orthogonal polynomial coefficients to test for the presence of trend was applied to identify which of the three models best fit the data. The results indicated that an inverted U-shaped curve contributed most to the data trend. The goodness of fit test once again supported the predicted relationship in Easterbrook's cue utilization theory.