Evolution of Professional Skepticism and Its Thought Background(*)

Yıl 2015, Sayı: 8 - Sayı: 8, 179 - 200, 01.01.2015

Akira Nin

Öz

With the advent of The Philosophy of Auditing by Mautz and Sharaf (1961)
which became a cornerstone on the path to establish auditing theory, auditor’s
Skepticism, which is called Professional Skepticism (PS) in audit standards began
to gradually permeate professionals’ mind sets. Cohen commission report (1978)
published in US had introduced the auditor’s posture of neutrality to be sought, and it
explored the ways to fill the “expectation gap” hindrances. Exposure of PS as a term
had been initiated from US SAS 53 (1988) and, among others, the two POB reports
(1993 and 2000). Those are the initial professional publications to be recalled in order
to pursue fraud risk-averse audit, availing the effect of PS which is applicable to
audit.
This article is mostly devoted to shed light on the evolution of PS which could
be observed historically in critical audit publications. In addition, it is the author’s
intention to draw attention to the “healthy PS” which could be understood with the
context of audit standard that typically asserts auditor’s neutrality, i.e. “the auditor
neither assumes that management is dishonest nor assumes unquestioned honesty”
(US AU230 ¶09). That is, as practices to be understood between the outcomes of
idealism and pragmatism, auditors eventually have to observe reasonableness and
they should do neither run the risk of α (risk of losing efficiency), norβ (risk of losing
effectiveness) .
At present of 21st century, however, neutrality could no longer be
conceived as auditor’s ideal posture, and professionals are now required to have more
rigorous attitude, i.e., Presumptive Doubt (PD) foundation on applying PS. Thought
background of PS has been evolved constantly to date.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Professional Skepticism (PS), Presumptive Doubt (PD), Neutrality, Reasonable Assurance, Belief Accumulation (anchoring), β Risk, α Risk.