Prior research generally presumes that auditors are more comfortable with better-supported management estimates because more support reduces the chance of misstatement; however, information processing theory suggests that auditor comfort is only increasing in evidential support to the extent that they need more support to be confident in their beliefs. Once auditors are confident, more support can make them less comfortable because it presents a potential challenge to their beliefs. I investigate this notion using an experiment with experienced auditors. I find that when estimate uncertainty is extreme, auditors are more comfortable with more evidential support; however, I find that when estimate uncertainty is moderate, auditors are more comfortable with less evidential support. Consistent with processing theory, further analyses reveal that more support provided in the moderate uncertainty condition did not change auditors’ confidence in their estimates but was perceived to make their estimates more difficult to defend. These findings highlight how auditors’ desires and needs to defend their judgments impact how they evaluate evidential support early in the audit process.

Introduction

Auditors use evidential support for two separate but related objectives when auditing estimates. First, auditors use evidence to reduce the risk of a material misstatement to a reasonable level, and second, they use evidence to defend their conclusions against criticism (Lambert & Agoglia, 2011; Peecher, 1996; Waller & Felix, 1984). Auditors must defend their judgments to numerous parties, including audit partners, client management, and potentially internal or external quality reviewers. Additionally, evaluators routinely use the evidence accumulated by auditors to criticize the auditors’ conclusions. Because of the subjective nature of accounting estimates, evaluators easily can arrive at different point estimates using the same evidence accumulated by auditors. In this study, I seek to investigate how the amount of evidential support available to the auditor differentially influences their attitudes and judgments pertaining to an uncertain estimate because of their perceptions of the defensibility of their judgments.1 One way auditors can manage evaluation risk is not gathering more evidence than the amount needed for them to get comfortable that management’s estimate is not materially misstated.2 Auditor comfort is an important measure because it captures an emotional affective reaction to risks (Pentland, 1993), which helps inform our understanding of professional skepticism (Nolder & Kadous, 2018), and highlights the subjective nature of auditor judgements. While auditor comfort is predominantly driven by obtaining sufficient and appropriate audit evidence, psychology theory about how individuals manage the support they gather (or do not gather) to enhance message persuasiveness supports the notion that auditor comfort can decrease with more evidence (e.g., Chaiken, Giner-Sorolla, & Chen, 1996). This notion is consistent with prior accounting research, which has shown that accumulating less evidence and documenting fewer audit procedures reduces evaluators’ perception of auditors’ culpability and liability for damages (Backof, 2015; Reffett, 2010).