Ethics and professional conduct for the accounting profession are very important. Without the acceptance and trust of the users of the services provided by the accountants, it is useless. The trust in the service, the function of trusting the provider, and also the function of righteousness and adherence to ethics. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of professional ethics on professional auditor's skepticism. To this end, the impact of five components of components of the principles and criteria of professionalism, independence and impartiality, secrecy, integrity and honest competence and professional careers on the professional skepticism of the auditor through a questionnaire among 119 auditors of the Audit Organization and Institutions The audit of the member of the Iranian Society of Accountants, including all partners, managers and supervisors of the audited distribution, was analyzed. The research method is descriptive-survey. For analyzing the research hypotheses, analysis of variance and regression with SPSS software were used. The results of the data analysis showed that all five components of professional ethics of accountants have a positive and significant effect on audit professional skepticism. However, the greatest impact is on professional competence and care. Therefore, the audit firms should pay particular attention to increasing the knowledge and skills of the staff of their institution in order to increase the quality of judgments and decisions.

In this paper, we used Hurtt's [Hurtt, R.K. (2010), Development of a scale to measure professional skepticism, A Journal of practice & theory. 29 (1), 149-171.] model to clarify determinants of skepticism of auditors. In this research, we focus on exploring concept of skepticism and find relationship between auditors’ characteristics and professional skepticism. We expect professional skepticism of auditors is determined by factors such as self-determination and confidence, suspension in judgment, questioning mind, search for knowledge, and interpersonal understanding. Also, we expect that auditors' professional experience has a positive influence on their professional skepticism. We survey professional accountants in Iran, which is an emerging market, to test our hypotheses. We obtain some support for our hypothesis related to affect of knowledge, self-confidence, and interpersonal understanding on auditors professional skepticism. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the impact of culture of auditors in emerging market of Iran and compare attained results of individual-auditor level with obtained results of other countries.

Objective: This study has focused on the effects of auditors’ personality disorders on their professional skepticism. This is done in a sample of 293 auditors, consisting of chartered professional accountants, CPA, and individuals qualified for the CPA exam. Method: Data were collected applying the scrolling approach, and the statistical analysis was performed, using structural equations/regressions. The trait skepticism questionnaire of Hurtt (2010) was used to measure participants’ professional skepticism, and the brief form of the Personality Inventory for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (PID-5-BF), published by APA (2013), was used to assess the personality disorder of auditors. Result: The results indicated that all the dimensions of auditors’ personality disorders affect their professional skepticism negatively. Also, the most inverse relationship can be witnessed between personality disorders and the interpersonal perception criterion for professional skepticism. Conclusion: The attention paid to the factors shaping auditors’ personality disorder and the efforts made to remove the barriers can significantly improve the level of professional skepticism.

Objective This study aimed to examine the impact of auditors’ mind-reading abilities-assessed through their interpretation of others’ eyes and interpersonal reactions-on four components: perspective-taking, imagination, empathic attention, and personal distress. Additionally, the study explored the moderating role of these abilities in the relationship between professional skepticism and audit quality. Methods The study adopted an applied research design. Data collection and the final result for testing the rejection or acceptance of the hypothesis were done inductively by Hart's (2013) professional skepticism questionnaires, Baron-Cohen's mind-reading (2001), Davis's interpersonal reactions (1983), and Armgazarfar's (2015) audit quality. The reliability of the questionnaire was examined through Cronbach's alpha. The composite reliability and the extracted variance value, its test and validity were tested by comparing the root mean square of the extracted variance of each variable with the correlation of that variable with other variables. The results were obtained after analyzing the responses of 330 auditors working in auditing institutions, members of the Iranian Certified Public Accountants Society, and the Auditing Organization in the Iranian Calendar year 1402, using variance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) with PLS software. Results In this study, two hypotheses were examined. The first hypothesis examined the effect of the theory of mind on professional skepticism levels. This hypothesis was accepted, and the results confirmed that there existed a positive and significant relationship between mind-reading ability and auditors' professional skepticism levels, including questioning mind, judgment suspension, knowledge seeking, Interpersonal understanding, self-confidence, and self-determination. In the second hypothesis, theory of mind was examined as a moderating variable, and its strength and direction on the relationship between professional skepticism and audit quality were examined. The second hypothesis was also accepted, and the results confirmed the degree of influence of the professional skepticism variable and audit quality in the presence of the theory of mind as the moderating variable. Conclusion The findings indicated a positive and significant relationship between the theory of mind and auditors’ professional skepticism. In other words, auditors with higher mind-reading ability—who can better distinguish false beliefs from truth—tend to exhibit higher levels of professional skepticism. Also, theory of mind moderates and improves the relationship between professional skepticism and audit quality, and it can be said that in the implementation of professional skepticism by auditors, auditors who had higher Mind-reading ability performed audits with higher quality. "Considering the results of this study and the positive effect of theory of mind on professional skepticism, these findings represent an important contribution to the community of certified public accountants and the auditing organization. By assessing the mind-reading abilities of prospective auditors during recruitment, audit firms and organizations can select individuals with higher theory of mind, thereby promoting greater professional skepticism and ultimately enhancing audit quality.

This study investigate the relationship between self-efficacy, locus of control, organizational ethical climate, Job satisfaction and organizational commitment on auditor's professional skepticism on the basis of social cognition theory. According to this theory, judgment and decision making is influenced by personal factors such as ethical behaviors, individual moods and environmental factors. In this theory, self-efficacy and locus of control are two characteristics could impact on organizational ethical climate as well as Job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The statistical sample is comprised auditors who work in audit organization and private audit firms in 2018. Research theoretical foundation is collected by archival study, also, research data is obtained by survey study with using of questionnaire. Hypothesis testing has conducted by structural equation modeling. The results of this study show that organizational commitment has greatest impact on auditor's professional skepticism and then respectively job satisfaction, organizational ethical climate and locus of control have indirect impact on professional skepticism. Also, self-efficacy has no any significant effect on professional skepticism. The findings of this study show that auditor's psychological traits and organizational behavior could have different effects on their professional skepticism

 In recent years the attention of many researchers, students and professors of accounting has been attracted to the professional judgment of auditors. This attention, expresses the importance of professional judgment. Though identifying the factors that are influential on professional judgment can make a great help to independent auditors. One of the important factors that could affect the professional judgment is skepticism(skepticism orientation). The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between skepticism indexes and independent auditors' professional judgment in audit institutions of Iran certified accountants' society. This study, uses Hurtt et al modified questionnaire and 150 independent auditors' opinions as a sample survey. The results indicate that in audit institutions of Iran certified accountants' society, there is a positive and significant relation between skepticism and professional judgment.

Background & Aim: Audit professionals’ skepticism is one of the behavioral and personality traits that is effective in reducing agency costs, audit quality, and enhancing public confidence. On this basis, it is very important to know the factors contributing to enhancement or degradation of professional skepticism. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between temperaments and the level of professional skepticism of auditors. Methods: The statistical population consisted of auditors working in official accountants’ community of Mashhad in 2018. 147 auditors were selected using simple random sampling. Auditors' professional skepticism and temperament were measured using two valid and reliable instruments. Data were analyzed by SPSS software version 16 using multivariate linear regression at 95% significance level. Results: The results showed that hot and dry temperaments had a significant relationship with the professional skepticism variable (r = 0. 15 and p-value = 0. 04). Also, cold and wet temperament had a significant relationship with the professional skepticism variable (r =-0. 24 and p-value = 0. 03). Overall, the findings showed that those with hot and dry temperaments had more professional skepticism and those with cold and wet temperaments had less professional uncertainty. Conclusion: In conclusion, the findings indicate that temperament affects the level of professional skepticism in auditors.

professional skepticism in auditing is a behavioral feature emphasized by Legislators of the auditing profession in the application of professional judgment in all steps of auditing operations. Verdict and decision making are also influenced by cognitive biases containing learning styles. Therefore, the purpose of this survey is to assess the adoption of cognitive and innovation cognition among auditors and also to study the impact of those styles on professional skepticism. The theoretical framework of the research was collected through the library method and the research data were collected based on the survey procedures and using a questionnaire. The numeral sample of the present study includes 280 auditors working in private sector audit firms and the audit organization. The test research hypotheses based on correlation methods using multiple regression have been investigated. The results of this article show that adoption cognition has a positive and meaningful (significant) relationship with professional skepticism. But innovation cognition has no significant relationship with professional skepticism.

The present study examines the auditors' understanding of the concept of professional skepticism in the auditing independently. To review the auditor's understanding of this the key concept, the effect of the six factors of auditor Grade, gender, CPA, age, level of education, education field, has been used. The required information which distributed by the questionnaire among all employees at member audit firm Iranian society of CPAs. This research is a survey research group and test hypotheses using the chi-square test, Friedman nonparametric test, test Kramers V was Kendall Tav C. The research findings show that five factors have significant effect on the auditor's understanding of the concept of professional skepticism. The, results show that auditors with different characteristics, have different understandings of the concept of fundamental and key professional skepticism And this can be a challenge for the audit profession and requires more attention in the field of education and standards setting.