【正文】 gative attitudes. There is increasing mitment to one39。 Sheridan, 1985。 Nowak, 1994). As a result, the study helps to link the escalation of mitment literature with a psychological theory which, up to now, has not been applied in an accounting domain. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The next section provides a brief summary of SFAS No. 144. The third section provides a review of the relevant literature and develops the research question and the hypothesis examined in this study. The fourth section explains the experiment and is followed by a section presenting the results of the statistical analyses. The final section provides discussion and conclusions. Recognition and measurement process for potential asset impairments SFAS Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 144 requires a threestep recognition and measurement process for potential asset impairments. In the first step, accountants review an entity39。s position such that one resists change in response to new information, but at some point, consistently favorable or unfavorable new information will lead to a catastrophic change in attitude. Empirical support for the CTA can be found not only in Latane and Nowak (1994) but also in Harton (1998), Harton and Latane (1997), and Liu and Latane (1995). Furthermore, the theory has been shown to be consistent with the contentions of other psychological theories including cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957), information integration theory (Anderson, 1981), thought polarization (Tesser,1976), and the elaborationlikelihood model (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986). This study considers whether CTA is useful in explaining the behavior of subjects in this , this study examines the following research question: R1: Will individuals who provide investment remendations exhibit hystersis in their subsequent assessments of the probability that an asset is impaired? Given that a major decision, such as an asset impairment decision, would be reviewed by external auditors, the impact of justification (a form of accountability) on the asset impairment decision is also examined in this study. In an extensive review of the accountability literature, Lerner and Tetlock (1999) conclude that accountability attenuates bias on tasks “to the extent that (a) suboptimal performance resulted from a lack of selfcritical attention to the judgment process and (b) improvement required no special training in formal decision rules, only greater attention to the information provided” (263). Similarly, in a review of the accountability literature in auditing, Messier and Quilliam (1992) conclude that accountability tends to increase the auditor39。 Guastello, 1984。s operations and scan the environment to determine if any indicators of potential asset impairments exist. SFAS No. 144 provides examples of impairment indicators (see Table 1)。s level of cognitive processing. Tetlock (1983a) concludes that individuals analyze evidence more carefully and pay particular attention to inconsistent information when faced with predecisional accountability. According to Tetlock and Boettger (1989), predecisional accountability can also reduce judgmental biases. For example, Tetlock(1983b) finds that accountability eliminated primacy effects in a legal decisionmaking task. Similarly,Kennedy (1993) concludes that accountability mitigates recency. Drawing on the accountability literature, FavereMarchesi and Pincus (2020) state, “accountability will motive decision makers to bee more plex, nuanced, and differentiated thinkers as they anticipate objections and engage in preemptive selfcriticism” (2). In a study of dilution effect in fraudrisk assessments, FavereMarchesi and Pincus (2020) find that accountability decreases the occurrence rate of dilution effects. Based on the accountability literature, this study tests the following hypothesis (stated in the alternative form): H1: Asking individuals to justify their impairment assessment will attenuate bias resulting from individual’s prior involvement in the investment remendation. In other words, the hypothesis predicts an interaction between involvement and accountability. METHODOLOGY Participating in the experiment were 89 undergraduate and graduate students from a large southeastern university. The author acknowledges that the use of student subjects may limit the generalizability of the study’s results. However, Brownell (1995) states that for student subjects to be a validation threat,students (1) must differ from the accountants for whom they serve as a surrogates and (2) any difference must interact with other variables to affect the oute. In this study, any differences between the student subjects and accountants who typically make impairment decisions was minimized by ensuring that the students had the same knowledge of the SFAS No. 144 requirements as an accountant may have. In addition, the subjects in this study had an average of years of experience working in accountingrelated positions, which would also help to minimize and Cheng (2020) defend the use of student subjects in an escalation of mitment study by stating: We are unaware of any particular study that has directly pared escalation of mitment between students and managers. However, some studies have reported consistent findings between their pilot study (using students as surrogate managers) and their main study (using managers – ., Booth and Schulz, 1988). (77). The experimental materials consisted of a case revolving around a large entertainment plex including a multiplex cinema, entertainment center, restaurants, and retail stores. The case provided information about the proposed investment in the entertainment plex and its subsequent performance over a 5 year period. The material