IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joaced/v41y2017icp15-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Psychopathy and accounting students’ attitudes towards unethical professional practices

Author

Listed:
  • Bailey, Charles D.

Abstract

Psychopathy is a personality trait characterized by deficits of conscience and empathy, leading to callous attitudes and manipulative behavior, and is one of the “Dark Triad” of personality variables, along with Machiavellianism and narcissism. It has gained some attention in accounting literature, and clearly has serious implications for fraud and unethical behavior by accountants and auditors—arguably more so than other dark personality traits. Using a national sample of accounting students, this study documents the levels of psychopathy, the correlations with certain attitudes about unethical professional practices, and the potential trend across academic class level. Comparisons are made to previous samples of college students, accounting faculty, prisoners, and the general population. The responses of individuals high on the scale are described to offer insight into the attitudes and beliefs of those individuals. Implications for accounting education and opportunities for further research are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Bailey, Charles D., 2017. "Psychopathy and accounting students’ attitudes towards unethical professional practices," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 15-32.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joaced:v:41:y:2017:i:c:p:15-32
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jaccedu.2017.09.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0748575116302135
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jaccedu.2017.09.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Apostolou, Barbara & Dorminey, Jack W. & Hassell, John M. & Rebele, James E., 2017. "Accounting education literature review (2016)," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-31.
    2. repec:cup:judgdm:v:5:y:2010:i:7:p:497-505 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Magdy S. Farag & Rafik Z. Elias, 2016. "The relationship between accounting students’ personality, professional skepticism and anticipatory socialization," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(2), pages 124-138, April.
    4. Hughlene Burton & Brian Daugherty & Denise Dickins & Dan Schisler, 2016. "Dominant personality types in public accounting: selection bias or indoctrinated?," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(2), pages 167-184, April.
    5. Murphy, Pamela R., 2012. "Attitude, Machiavellianism and the rationalization of misreporting," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 242-259.
    6. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226316529 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Gregory Stevens & Jacqueline Deuling & Achilles Armenakis, 2012. "Successful Psychopaths: Are They Unethical Decision-Makers and Why?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 105(2), pages 139-149, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Smith, Kenneth J. & Emerson, David J. & Mauldin, Shawn, 2021. "Online cheating at the intersection of the dark triad and fraud diamond," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    2. Apostolou, Barbara & Dorminey, Jack W. & Hassell, John M. & Rebele, James E., 2018. "Accounting education literature review (2017)," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 1-23.
    3. Martin Mutschmann & Tim Hasso & Matthias Pelster, 2022. "Dark Triad Managerial Personality and Financial Reporting Manipulation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(3), pages 763-788, December.
    4. Bailey, Charles D., 2019. "The joint effects of narcissism and psychopathy on accounting students’ attitudes towards unethical professional practices," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    5. Teresa C. Herrador-Alcaide & Montserrat Hernández-Solís & J. Fortunato Hontoria, 2020. "Online Learning Tools in the Era of m-Learning: Utility and Attitudes in Accounting College Students," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-22, June.
    6. Apostolou, Barbara & Dorminey, Jack W. & Hassell, John M., 2020. "Accounting education literature review (2019)," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    7. Pruijssers, Jorien Louise & Singer, Gallia & Singer, Zvi & Tsang, Desmond, 2023. "Social influence pressures and the risk preferences of aspiring financial market professionals," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Apostolou, Barbara & Dorminey, Jack W. & Hassell, John M. & Rebele, James E., 2017. "Accounting education literature review (2016)," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-31.
    2. Abbott, Lawrence J. & Buslepp, William L., 2022. "An investigation of the market's pricing of auditor competence: Evidence from PwC's Oscars blunder," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    3. Martin Mutschmann & Tim Hasso & Matthias Pelster, 2022. "Dark Triad Managerial Personality and Financial Reporting Manipulation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(3), pages 763-788, December.
    4. Matthias Pelster & Annette Hofmann & Nina Klocke & Sonja Warkulat, 2023. "Dark Triad Personality Traits and Selective Hedging," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(1), pages 261-286, January.
    5. Christian W. Scheiner & Christian V. Baccarella & John Bessant & Kai-Ingo Voigt, 2018. "Participation Motives, Moral Disengagement, And Unethical Behaviour In Idea Competitions," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(06), pages 1-24, August.
    6. Nadia Smaili & Paulina Arroyo, 2019. "Categorization of Whistleblowers Using the Whistleblowing Triangle," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 157(1), pages 95-117, June.
    7. Christian Hauser, 2019. "Fighting Against Corruption: Does Anti-corruption Training Make Any Difference?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 281-299, September.
    8. Jani Saastamoinen & Hanna Savolainen, 2021. "Does a leopard change its spots? Auditors and lawyers as valuation experts for minority shareholders in the judicial appraisal of private firms," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3-4), pages 613-636, March.
    9. Benjamin R. Walker & Chris J. Jackson, 2017. "Moral Emotions and Corporate Psychopathy: A Review," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 141(4), pages 797-810, April.
    10. Hengky Latan & Charbel Jose Chiappetta Jabbour & Ana Beatriz Lopes de Sousa Jabbour, 2021. "To Blow or Not to Blow the Whistle: The Role of Rationalization in the Perceived Seriousness of Threats and Wrongdoing," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 517-535, March.
    11. Desai, Naman & Jain, Shailendra Pratap & Jain, Shalini & Tripathy, Arindam, 2020. "The impact of implicit theories of personality malleability on opportunistic financial reporting," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 258-265.
    12. Ling L. Harris & Scott B. Jackson & Joel Owens & Nicholas Seybert, 2022. "Recruiting Dark Personalities for Earnings Management," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 193-218, June.
    13. Anctil, Regina & Grimm, Stephanie D. & Maloney, Mary M., 2020. "Atlas managerial accounting case: Examining joint products in the international scrap metal recycling industry," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    14. Apostolou, Barbara & Dorminey, Jack W. & Hassell, John M., 2021. "Accounting education literature review (2020)," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    15. Clive R. Boddy, 2017. "Psychopathic Leadership A Case Study of a Corporate Psychopath CEO," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 141-156, September.
    16. Mark E. Lokanan & Prerna Sharma, 2023. "Two Decades of Accounting Fraud Research: The Missing Meso-Level Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(3), pages 21582440231, September.
    17. Apostolou, Barbara & Dorminey, Jack W. & Hassell, John M., 2022. "Accounting education literature review (2021)," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    18. Захарова Л. Н. & Шилова Л. Н. & Гадбеджи З. & Чжу Л., 2020. "Организационная Культура Индустриальных Колледжей И Предприятий России, Китая И Ирана В Оценках Студентов И Преподавателей," Вопросы образования // Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 3, pages 234-254.
    19. Xiaotao Liu & Arnold Wright & Yi-Jing Wu, 2015. "Managers’ Unethical Fraudulent Financial Reporting: The Effect of Control Strength and Control Framing," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 129(2), pages 295-310, June.
    20. Reckers, Philip & Samuelson, Melissa, 2016. "Toward resolving the debate surrounding slippery slope versus licensing behavior: The importance of individual differences in accounting ethical decision making," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-16.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joaced:v:41:y:2017:i:c:p:15-32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-accounting-education .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.