Helping auditors identify deception through psycholinguistics
Abstract
Purpose
This paper reviews an array of psycholinguistic techniques that auditors can deploy to explore written and oral language for signs of deception. The review is drawn upon to propose some elements of a forward research agenda.
Design/methodology/approach
Relevant literature across several disciplines is identified through keyword searches of major bibliographic databases.
Findings
The techniques highlighted have considerable potential for use by auditors to identify audit contexts which merit closer audit investigation. However, the techniques need further contextual empirical investigation in audit contexts. Seven specific propositions are presented for empirical testing.
Originality/value
This paper assembles literature on deceptive communication from a wide range of disciplines and relates it to the audit context. Auditors’ attention is directed to potential linguistic signals of fraud risk, and opportunities for future research are suggested. The paper is consciousness-raising, has pedagogic purpose and suggests critical elements for a future research agenda.
Keywords
Citation
Nicolaides, R., Trafford, R. and Craig, R. (2018), "Helping auditors identify deception through psycholinguistics", Journal of Financial Crime, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 1062-1076. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFC-05-2017-0042
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited