A Synthesis: Accounting and Behavioral Science

Abstract

In recent years, a new field of science has emerged that has as its focus the problems of how individuals search, code, weight, and combine information in order to form judgments and decisions. This field, which is at the intersection of psychology, economics, statistics, and management science, is of particular relevance to such business areas as accounting, marketing, and finance. The interest in behavioral decision by accountants is particularly heartening since a large part of accounting deals with the evaluation of information, the forming ofjudgments, and the making of decisions based on judgments. Such topics as information presentation, cue consistency, informational reliability, and judgmental accuracy, should be of interest and concern to many accountants. While the existence of this conference attests to at least partial acceptance of concepts as being useful for accounting, there are still those who believe that economic theory is all that is necessary to understand decision-making/judgment behavior. While economic theory may be necessary, it is by no means sufficient for understanding how individuals process and evaluate information. The reasons for believing this follow. The economic conception of man is unrealistic. Edwards [1954] has