Indução de emoções discretas e os efeitos nos profissionais de contabilidade : estudo experimental acerca da neutralidade das informações

Abstract

The present study highlights the influence of emotions on the cognitive processes of accounting professionals. To gauge if accounting professionals, in their analysis and generation of information, can be influenced by the induction of humor by visual stimuli, and thus generate information skewed, hurting neutrality. The study population consisted of 293 accounting professionals, workers registered in the Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) platform with a minimum criterion of 95% HIT approval rate (%) and monetary reward of US $0.90 in the year of 2019. In order to obtain the data, we decided to create an “online” experiment available on the platform. Workers were randomized to one of six experimental situations. Being two neutral and four with induction of humor by negative or positive valence. Next, they should analyze the balance sheets and the statement of income, especially with pessimistic or optimistic tendencies. From the initial sample, 103 accepted to participate in the experiment, in their (majority) Americans (57.3%, p <0.01), professionals working in accounting and auditing (X2 (7) = 65,311, p <0.01) (2) = 65,824, p <0.01) and professional experience up to 10 years (X2 (2) = 50,233, p <0.01). For the induction of mood, the chi-square test showed an association between the experimental situations and the emotions declared by the participants (X2 (30) = 66.82, p <0.001). A one- way ANOVA was performed to verify the effect of the experimental situation on the investment recommendation, in effect, the main experimental situation involved (F (5,97) = 2.86, p <0.05). Images with positive valence, with analysis of accounting data with optimistic tendencies (IB x DB), had a higher score regarding the company’s purchase recommendation (δ = -1.18, p = 0.04) compared to the group (IR x DR). On the semantic scales of humor induction, individuals exposed to positive valence images felt significantly happier when compared to individuals exposed to negative valence images, which felt sadder. The data also show that the induction of humor significantly influenced the analysis of the accounting data for counters with positive humor. Happy accountants gave higher scores for company recommendation when compared to sad accountants, characterizing optimism bias.