Our view is that, in auditing complex estimates, auditors may collect
enough evidence, but they do not always approach the evidence in a
manner conducive to critical thinking. We show that changing auditors’
mindsets through a brief intervention allows them to make better use of
the evidence that they have. That is, in our study, all participants received
the seeded issues, but those in the deliberative mindset condition were
more likely to critically evaluate this evidence to identify the inconsistencies,
evaluate the biased fair value as less reasonable, and take appropriate
action. We expect that a deliberative mindset can help other decision
makers, including investors and managers, make higher quality decisions
by improving their critical analysis of a complete set of information.