The effects of psychological factors on the performance of independent auditors in Iran

The aim of the present study is to evaluate the effect of psychological factors on Iranian independent auditors. The statistical population of this study includes Iranian independent auditors in 2017. The required data were easily available concerning the sample size and data were gathered from 200 subjects using the systematic elimination and maximum access methods. In this paper, surveying analysis based on questionnaire is employed, which are derived by Bar-on (2000), Scherer (1982), and Amram and Dryer (2007) and edited and localized according to the terms of the present study. The results of correlation coefficient and simple and multiple regression model indicated that self-esteem, accountability pressure, self-efficacy, and spiritual intelligence contributes to the increase of efficiency in auditors, but emotional intelligence did not influence the efficiency of auditors. These results explore the importance of social cognitive elements in investigating variations in audit judgment performance for audit judgment tasks with different types of characteristics. The incorporation of individual psychological differences as explanatory variables in audit literature studies may provide a better understanding of auditors’ judgment and decision making processes in developing economies which is not taken into full consideration in auditing and accounting literature.