Williams College 2017-2018 Supplemental Essay Prompts

Located in Williamstown, MA, Williams College is ranked number 1 in liberal arts colleges in the U.S.Williams College is one of the most popular liberal arts colleges in the U.S. Being a liberal arts college, Williams only has an undergraduate enrollment of around 2200 students, with approximately 550 students in each class. The small student body allows students to get to know their entire class, encourages classroom engagement, and fosters stronger relationships with professors. Like most liberal art colleges, Williams College follows the 4-1-4 academic calendar, with two 4-course semesters and one 1-course winter term in January. Williams has strong departments in mathematics, computer science, natural sciences, art history and economics. Want to learn more? Here are 10 fun facts about Williams College. If you’re interested in applying, you can check out successful personal statement examplesin our database! Williams also has a writing supplement that is entirely optional. You do not have to submit it if you don’t feel the need to. Just in case you do, here are the essay prompts you can choose from: Please respond to one of the prompts below in a short essay of 300 words or fewer. Essay Prompts #1 At Williams we believe that bringing together students and professors in small groups produces extraordinary academic outcomes. Our distinctive Oxford-style tutorial classes—in which two students are guided by a professor in deep exploration of a single topic—are a prime example. Each week the students take turns developing independent work—an essay, a problem set, a piece of art—and critiquing their partner’s work. Focused on close reading, writing and oral defense of ideas, more than 60 tutorials a year are offered across the curriculum, with titles like Aesthetic Outrage, Financial Crises: Causes and Cures, and Genome Sciences: At the Cutting Edge. Imagine yourself in a tutorial at Williams. Of anyone in the world, whom would you choose to be your partner in the class, and why? Essay Prompts #2 Each Sunday night, in a tradition called Storytime, students, faculty and staff gather to hear a fellow community member relate a brief story from their life (and to munch on the storyteller’s favorite homemade cookies). What story would you share? What lessons have you drawn from that story, and how would those lessons inform your time at Williams? Essay Prompts #3 Every first-year student at Williams lives in an Entry—a thoughtfully constructed microcosm of the student community that’s a defining part of the Williams experience. From the moment they arrive, students find themselves in what’s likely the most diverse collection of backgrounds, perspectives and interests they’ve ever encountered. What might differentiate you from the 19 other first-year students in an entry? What perspective(s) would you add to the conversation with your peers? Interested in reading successful essay examples that got students accepted into Williams? Unlock all of them in one go withour curated package.Ourpremium plansoffer different level of profile access and data insights that can help you get into your dream school. Unlock any of ourpackagesor search ourundergraduate profile databaseto find specific profiles that can help you make an informed choice about where to apply!

single sex education Essay Example

single sex education Essay Example single sex education Essay single sex education Essay Single Sex Education Single sex education consists of separating males and females and putting them in different classrooms or buildings in order to teach them differently. This type of schools relieves some of the pressure that parents have due to the stories they hear about the kids in co-education schools. Single sex education is psychologically, educationally and socially more effective than co-education due to scientific researches that have been held over more than a 100 elementary schools. Many people look at the idea of single sex schooling as a negative way of teaching. They ctually dont look at all the facts that have been proven scientifically. Scientific researches have concluded that there are brain differences between both boys and girls. They both need different teaching styles that will benefit each one academically in a specific way. For example, in an only-girls class, talking and discussing is used as a learning tool which results in an observation. While in a boys class, talking mainly results in a punishment. Other studies by David Chadwell have also proven that The composition of the male eye makes it attuned to motion and direction. Boys interpret the world as objects moving through space, he says (as mentioned in Kaufmann, C. ,n. d. , para. 4). This is why its suggested that the teacher should keep moving while explaining to keep them concentrated. However, girls are oriented towards shapes with a lot of details so to get their attention; the teacher sits them in a circle. David Chadwell also stated that the male eye is attracted to cool colours like blue, silver, grey, brown and black, while the female eye is attracted towards warm colours like red, yellow and orange. In addition to the sight, they also hear differently. Girls have a more finely tuned aural structure; they can hear higher frequencies than boys and are more sensitive to sounds,(as mentioned in Kaufmann, C. , n. d.. Para. 7) for example, girls get annoyed when a teacher raises her voice, while boys enjoy it as they find it exciting. Another reason for supporting single sex schooling is that it is more comfortable for the students to share their opinions and respond to questions in class. This causes them to become more competitive. They also act freely and arent afraid to be themselves as there is no pressure of trying to impress the opposite sex. Students choose the subjects they would like to study without having to think how theyd appear in front of the opposite sex. For example, girls can study math, science and technology subjects without the fear of appearing as tomboys; boys can study arts, poetry, music and advanced subjects without being afraid to be called a nerd or a freak. Scientists also found out by tests that girls mature earlier han boys and this might be the reason for the different thinking ways of the two sexes. Finally, an important factor found in single sex schools more than the co- educational ones is the fairness factor. In 1993, two professors in the American University, Myra and David Sadker, published a research that noted student-teacher interactions. They reached a conclusion which stated that in co-educational schools, female teachers always prefer male students and male teachers prefer female students. For example, when boys keep calling out answers and yell, the teacher oesnt remind them that they have to raise their hands first. While if a girl yells out Proponents of single sex schooling claim that the amount of academic improvement in this type of education is more than that in co-education. The idea of separating both genders eliminates any distractions that can be caused due to the relationships that could occur between them or the way both genders care about what the opposite sex thinks. When only one sex is available, it is easier for the teacher to find the most suitable technique for teaching her students. She becomes more effective due to the time spent trying to engage with the students through physical activities. Its also easier to explain topics that might embarrass girls when taught in front of boys, for example, the menstruation cycle. Opponents think that the social skills of students are affected by this type of education in a negative way. They assume that they wont know how to handle and socialize with the opposite sex. However, this idea can be easily refuted by scientific researches that have interviewed people who were n single sex schools and now are working and socializing normally. When interviewed, they totally disagreed with this assumption. They also said that single sex education tends to break social stereotypes that can be found in most of the co- educational schools. One of the most important social advantages of single sex schools is that the amount of bullying is very low. This is very important because some children who go through bullying eventually end up having socializing problems or becoming criminals. In single sex schools, students arent Judged by what they study, how they dress or how they look. They are accepted the way they are. It is a new experience that everyone should try. A new feeling not everyone gets the chance to feel! The school eventually becomes like a second home to the students and the people in the school are considered as a second family. People against this type of schooling should reconsider the idea and try it because there is a big possibility they will change what they think of it!

Analysis Of The Book The Circle

Dave Eggers’ The Circle, it set certain reverberations echoing in my mind, especially through the correlation of The Circle’s three slogans, â€Å"SECRETS ARE LIES, SHARING IS CARING, PRIVACY IS THEFT† (Eggers 305), with 1984’s â€Å"WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH† (Orwell 6). I then began to see, like others, that Eggers’ dystopia is a contemporary 1984; therefore, I felt it would be appropriate to compare them. In almost all the reviews and essays written on The Circle, there is not†¦ Grand Central Publishing released Flora Rheta Schreiber’s book Sybil. Through the book Dr. Wilbur, Sybil’s therapist psychoanalyses Sybil’s sixteen different personalities. The book went through all the different personalities and what is the cause of her dissociation. After her analysis was complete Dr. Wilbur thought a book should be written, this was when Flora was introduced into the picture. Flora had had previous work as a journalist and editor of varying psychiatric papers and articles. After†¦ The Hughes Brothers imprint their religious point of view in their 2010 American post-apocalyptic film, â€Å"The Book of Eli†. In this dramatic tale Denzel Washington stars as Eli, a mysterious wanderer that carries the world’s only remaining copy of King James’s Bible. He ventures 30 years across a desolated post-apocalyptic landscape in the attempt of finding a safe haven for this sacred book. Determined to complete his mission, Eli’s quote â€Å"We walk by faith, not by sight† from the Bible conveys a†¦ J07 -- THE BOOK OF TELLS 1 Citation. Collett, P. (2003). The book of tells: How to read people’s minds from their actions. London, United Kingdom: Doubleday. Tells are a recognizable action or a method of performing an action that reveal something about a person that is not otherwise easily observable (Collett, 2003, p.15). The Book of Tells, written by social psychologist Dr. Peter Collett, decodes tells to explain what these subtle clues of human behaviour and motivations are telling us. By delving†¦ establishing and emphasizing whatever specific emotion that the artist wishes to portray. It can also signify a call for extra attention from the reader to a specific page, as the line work suddenly changes in style between pages. In â€Å"The Outside Circle†, the line work on the 26th page is conveying the shattered life and transitioning that the character Joey Caver is going through, and is a visual representation of his emotions negatively being broken down. Lines are everything within a comic as†¦ Major Works Review General 1. Title- The Book Thief 2. Author- Markus Zusak 3. Date of Original Publication- 2005 4. Novel Type- Historical Fiction Structure 1. Point of View- Death 2. Relationship to Meaning- As an omniscient force Death can provide insight on several different events happening all over the world at different points in time, and thoughts running through all the characters’ heads, while also being able to share his own thoughts and feelings about humanity. 3. Plot Structure- a. Exposition-†¦ transporting them. As a result between with a death of 9.6 and 10.8 million Africans arrived in the Americas alive. With the odds against Aminata Diallo, she faces many losses but through these losses Aminata manages to re-defines herself. In "The Book of Negroes" the novel focuses on Aminata 's self-discovery through her many loses, including her loss of innocence, the loss of safety, and the loss of relationships. Aminata first losses her innocence at the age of 11 when colonist invaded her small†¦ Comparatively: A Review Circles are globally ubiquitous. They occur naturally, are used for style, and used as metaphors. One metaphorical use of circles is found in Zen Buddhism. An EnsÃ…  is a hand drawn circle, generally in one brush stroke. It is elegant in its simplicity and symbolises enlightenment, the void, and the wholeness of the universe. In Peter Singer’s book The Expanding Circle, he argues that moral progress comes when people use their reason to progressively expand their circle of empathy from†¦ The novel, The Book Thief, was published in the year 2005 and falls under the genre of historical fiction. In the novel, death narrates the story beginning in 1938. Liesel Meminger is presented as the book thief and is faced with many hardships at the beginning of the novel. She has lost both her parents including her little brother, Werner. This girl is faced with agony and death at such a young age in her life. This forms Liesel into a person who isolates her inner humanity and compassion towards†¦ According to Psychology Today, on average kids spend 5-7 hours a day looking at screens. This is a staggering amount, accounting for around half of daylight hours. In The Circle, a novel by Dave Eggers, a young girl named Mae in a job with a large technology company spends close to her entire day on a screen, leaving little time for interactions with people. Instead she relies on how others perceive her online, rather than as a real human being. Truman’s entire life is fake in The Truman Show, a†¦

Arabian Oryx in Arabian Peninsula and UAE Assignment

Arabian Oryx in Arabian Peninsula and UAE - Assignment Example In common usage of the term, biodiversity is normally used to explain entire species living in the specified area. If taken into consideration the largest region, the whole world, then a summary of biodiversity is termed as the life on earth. In conservation and evaluation biodiversity has four main types of diversities that are considered as landscape, ecological, species and generic. The varieties of these levels, as well as variability among or within them, are essential biodiversity concepts. Understanding these dynamics of the elements of complexity in time for the diverse ecosystems of the earth and habitats is very hard and in the field of scientific research. Despite losing the complexity of biodiversity concepts as well as dynamics, to the lowest level, as species go to form the biological diversity (Lachman et al., 2007). To go beyond this assessment of previous achievements, nonetheless, two obvious need of research is required. They are: to understand and improve the incentives and motives behind the biodiversity loss and protection and to improve new methods to optimize the multiple utilization of biodiversity, considering possible conflicts as well as trade-offs for the benefit of acquisition of scientific knowledge and enrichment. Hence, a qualitative maintenance of ecological balance would accentuate the minutest aspects of compatibility with species that are absolutely prevalent in females and males. This is meant for the purposes of maintenance of balance within the family and also maintaining balance in ecology. The conceptual clarity on the categories of the family of Oryx is required for analysis of their suitability and examination of an understanding. Such an understanding substantiates a positive thrust in maintaining balance in nature for the purposes of development of species.  The UAE has organized various breeding pairs consisting of captured ones for the purposes of maintaining a positive outlook for the balanced ecological system by ensuring non-poaching and limitation of hunting for enabling destruction for the purposes of freedom and ensuring behaviour that would augment the jeopardy of endangered species.     

Causes of lung cancer Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Causes of lung cancer - Essay Example Smoking, exposure to radon gas, reactive metals and genetic vulnerabilities has come up as the major causes of lung cancer. Research has identified cigarette smoking as the main cause of lung cancer in the world today. Stoppler (Para. 5) identifies that smoking contributes to over 90% of the total lung cancer infection in the world today. The level of smoking among direct smokers is quantized depending on the number of cigarettes they smoke per day and the number of years that one has smoked. The higher the product of the two, the more is the risk of getting lung cancer. Indirect smokers are those that inhale cigarette smoke within a smoker’s environment and are ultimately subjected to the risk of getting infected with lung cancer. Bhang smokers who smoke cigarette have a higher risk of contracting lung cancer since they have a tendency to take deep puffs exposing their lungs to a more contact with the smoke. Tobacco smoke contains carcinogenic compounds that trigger cancerous cells to grow more rapidly into a tumor. Research has proved that tobacco contains over 4,000 chemical compounds including nitrosamines and polycyclic hydrocarbons that are cancer causing compounds. The chances of developing cancer increase as the level of smoking increases. ... In essence, Radon gas is the second, after smoking, a common cause of Lung cancer in the world today (Stoppler Para. 1-2). When Uranium gas decays spontaneously, it releases many chemical compounds including Radon gas that has exposed many homes to the risk of developing lung cancer. Although uranium is a rare compound, its emissions can travel over long distances in the soil and can accumulate in the houses to reach toxic levels. The fact that Radon gas is odorless and is colorless, it is hard to detect it or measure its levels. Consequently, most families will be exposed without their knowledge unless experts assess the presence of the gas. When, Radon gas is inhaled, its radio activities are severe enough to trigger abnormal cell growth. In case of long exposure, the illness becomes severe and effective treatment cannot be realized. The third leading cause of cancer, as the Center of Disease and control (Para. 7) states, is exposure to asbestos fibers. Asbestos are silica compound fibers that were commonly used in work environments for thermal insulation and acoustically treated rooms. For instance, most music studios have asbestos linings to protect them from external sound mechanisms. The employees in such studios are highly exposed to the risk of developing lung cancer during their life time. When an individual inhales asbestos fibers, they attach to the lining of their lungs and can persist in this position for a long time. The fibers have carcinogenic compounds that affect the normal cell growth in the lugs eventually leading to cancer of the lungs. Research has it that cigarette smokers who are exposed to asbestos have the highest chances of developing complications. About 50% and 90% of all the smokers who

Conflict of Interest Essay Example for Free

Conflict of Interest Essay Abstract Information about the financial health of public companies provided by auditors ideally allows investors to make informed decisions and enhances the efficiency of financial markets. However, under the current system auditors are hired and fired by the companies they audit, which introduces incentives for biases that favor the audited companies. Three experiments demonstrate bias in auditors judgments, and show that these biases are not easily corrected because auditors are not fully aware of them. The first experiment demonstrates that the judgments of professional auditors tend to be biased in favor of their clients. The second and third experiments explore more closely the psychological processes underlying the bias. The results suggest that the closeness of the relationship between auditor and client may have a particularly strong biasing influence on auditors private judgments. Key words: Conflict of interest; Auditor independence; Self-serving bias; Motivated reasoning Auditor Independence, Conflict of Interest, and the Unconscious Intrusion of Bias By certifying the public reports that collectively depict a corporation’s financial status, the independent auditor assumes a public responsibility transcending any employment relationship with the client. The independent public accountant performing this special function owes ultimate allegiance to the corporations creditors and stockholders, as well as to the investing public. This public watchdog function demands that the accountant maintain total independence from the client at all times and requires complete fidelity to the public trust. -Chief Justice Warren Burger, writing on behalf of a unanimous United States Supreme Court in the case of United States v. Arthur Young Co. (1984) Independence is central to the function served by auditors. Although managers may have an interest in exaggerating, misrepresenting, or falsifying reports of their firm’s performance, an independent audit report is supposed to provide a credible, unbiased appraisal of the firms financial status. The importance of auditor independence is reflected in the Code of Professional Ethics of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and has been reinforced by numerous legal decisions, such as that rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court in the opening quote. Recent events, however, have led many to question whether the modern practice of public accounting is independent enough. In the wake of a number of accounting scandals, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) conducted a series of hearings on auditor independence in 2000. The SEC instituted modest changes to disclosure rules after the 2000 hearings and the issue receded from the public agenda until the failure of the Enron Corporation and the role of its auditor, Arthur Andersen, in that failure brought the issue of auditor independence to the fore. In analyzing the problem of auditor independence, both the academic accounting literature and the mass media have implicitly adopted what could be considered an â€Å"economic† perspective on the problem. Theoretical papers, empirical analyses, and media discussions of the Conflict of Interest 4 issue of independence assume, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly, that auditor bias is a matter of deliberate choice (Antle, 1984; DeAngelo, 1981; Simunic, 1984). Auditors are assumed to have the ability to complete high-quality, independent, unbiased audits if they choose to do so. Bias, to t he extent that it is thought to exist, is seen as a deliberate response to incentives. This â€Å"economic† account of independence and bias is challenged by psychological research which suggests that biased information processing is not only pervasive, but is typically unconscious and unintentional—i.e., seldom a matter of deliberate choice. Applied to auditing, this research suggests that auditors who face conflicts of interest may find it difficult, if not impossible, to avoid bias even if they attempt to do so. Whether auditor bias is a matter of conscious choice or is unintentional and unconscious has wide-ranging implications for policy, because conscious corruption and unconscious bias respond to different influences. In this paper, we first review findings from empirical research on biased information processing. Then we report results from three experiments. The first experiment documents biased judgment among professional auditors. The second and third experiments delve deeper into the psychological processes at work and examine the causes of bi ased judgment. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for the practice of and rules surrounding auditing. Motivated Information Processing Research shows that people evaluate evidence in a selective fashion when they have a stake in reaching a particular conclusion. They tend to focus on evidence that supports the conclusion they would like to reach and evaluate that evidence in an uncritical fashion (Holyoak Simon, 1999; Koehler, 1991; Lord, Ross, Lepper, 1979; Russo, Medvec, Meloy, 1996; Russo, Meloy, Medvec, 1998, see Rabin Schrag, 1999 for a theoretical model). When evidence conflicts with their desired conclusions, people tend to either ignore it or subject it to particularly critical scrutiny (Ditto Lopez, 1992). This selective information processing effect is so strong that when people on different sides of an issue are exposed to the same information they can all feel that the information supports their position. As a result, they may even hold more strongly disparate opinions after receiving the same information (Lord et al., 1979). One important influence on how people evaluate information is accountability. When people know that they will be accountable for their decisions, they show more concern for how their decisions will be received. When they do not know the preferences of their audience, this heightened concern leads to more systematic cognitive processing and a more thorough justification of the conclusion (Tetlock, 1983). However, when the preferences of the audience are known, accountability need not lead to more thoughtful processing, but can instead increase the likelihood that the decision-makers judgment will be consistent with the known preferences of the audience (Tetlock, 1983). In an audit, there can be little doubt regarding the preferences of the management of the client firm: They want to get an unqualified audit report. The effect of accountability cannot be easily explained by simple self-interest, because most of the research on accountability has not included any rewards for agreeing with the individual to whom one is accountable (Tetlock, 1992). But this is not to say that self-interest does not influence judgment. When a particular interpretation of the evidence will benefit them materially, people gravitate toward that interpretation, even when they hold an explicit goal of being impartial. For example, people tend to think that the allocation of resources that benefits themselves is fair (Messick Sentis, 1979), and believe that others will share their perspective (Diekmann, 1997; Diekmann, Samuels, Ross, Bazerman, 1997; Messick Sentis, 1983). Moreover, they are typically unaware that they are processing information in a self-serving fashion and, thus, are unaware that they are biased. Thompson and Loewenstein (1992) found evidence of a self-serving bias in negotiators’ reports of fairness. In their experiment, participants played either the role of management or union in a wage negotiation, and both roles were given the same information about the details of the situation. Before they negotiated, both parties were asked what they believed a fair outcome to be from the vantage point of a neutral third party. Their responses were egocentrically biased; individuals representing the union tended to believe that a higher wage was fairer, whereas those representing management tended to report that a lower wage was fairer. The parties then proceeded to trade bids until they came to settlement, and delay was costly to both parties. The magnitude of the egocentric bias—the difference between the two sides perceptions of a fair wage—predicted the length of time it took parties to come to agreement: The more egocentric the parties ex ante perceptions of fairness were, the longer strikes tended to last. Later research demonstrated the same result in real negotiations between union and school board presidents in Pennsylvania (Babcock, Wang, Loewenstein, 1996). In the studies cited above, the pre-negotiation fairness judgments had no direct consequence for the negotiators, so it is unlikely that the bias resulted from strategic misrepresentation. However, subjects were not given any incentive to report their judgments accurately, so the studies do not reveal whether people are able to provide impartial judgments when they are motivated to do so. Two studies (Babcock, Loewenstein, Issacharoff, Camerer, 1995; Loewenstein, Issacharoff, Camerer, Babcock, 1993), however, offered a clear incentive to participants to be accurate in their private fairness judgments. Participants whose judgments came close to the determinations of an impartial judge were given a cash bonus. This incentive did not eliminate egocentrism in participants reports, suggesting that their roles influenced their assessments of fairness in ways they could not disregard even when it was in their interest to do so. Kunda (1990) argued that this motivated reasoning leads to biased conclusions whenever there is sufficient ambiguity in the evidence to allow for a biased interpretation. Thompson and Loewenstein (1992) explicitly manipulated ambiguity and confirmed Kundas prediction: Greater ambiguity leads to more bias. In general, as Babcock and Loewenstein (1997: 120) concluded on the basis of the aforementioned studies: As soon as asymmetries are introduced between the parties—for example, different nonagreement values or costs of non-settlement, or subtle differences in roles—both parties notions of fairness will tend to gravitate toward settlements that favor themselves. They will not only view these settlements as fair, but believe that their personal conception of fairness is impartial. In sum, research on information processing and bargaining suggests both that people process information in a biased, self-interested, fashion, and that this bias is strong, automatic, and unconscious. Implications of Motivated Information Processing for Auditor Independence The research on motivated information processing has significant implications for auditor bias. Very few auditors begin their work hoping to find a client has breached accounting standards. Rather, auditors typically start with a desire to reach a positive conclusion about their clients and issue an unqualified audit report. Auditors generally want to be rehired by their clients, and it is often the case that an unfavorable audit report is likely to result in a client firm changing auditors (Levinthal Fichman, 1988; Seabright, Levinthal, Fichman, 1992). Even if the accounting firm is large enough that one account is a trivial percentage of its revenues, individual auditors’ jobs and careers may depend on success with specific clients. Perhaps more importantly, accounting firms often treat auditing work as a way to build relationships that will allow them to sell other services including management consulting, information technology assistance, or tax accounting. Although some have argued that the contingent rents available through consulting services should not influence audit quality (Antle, Griffen, Teece, Williamson, 1997; Dopuch, King, Schwartz, 2001), other recent evidence suggests that it may (Frankel, Johnson, Nelson, in press). An auditor’s job is complex, involving the accumulation and synthesis of a great deal of information about a client firm. The information available to auditors often includes the kind of ambiguity that facilitates motivated information processing. Joseph Berardino, Arthur Andersen’s former chief executive, in his congressional testimony on the Enron collapse, commented that: Many people think accounting is a science, where one number, namely earnings per share, is the number, and it’s such a precise number, that it couldn’t be two pennies higher or two pennies lower. I come from a school that says it’s really much more of an art (as quoted in Harris, 2001). This imprecision allows motivated reasoning to insinuate itself into auditors judgments. Historically, those who have defended auditors against charges of bias have emphasized their high ethical standards and professional values. For example, at the SEC hearings on auditor independence, Gary Shamis, Chairman of the Management of an Accounting Practice Committee at the AICPA, stated that: Conflict of Interest 9 We take the existing independence rules quite seriously, and consequently abide by all the existing rules. We are professionals that follow our code of ethics and practice by the highest moral standards. We would never be influenced by our own personal financial well being (Shamis, 2000) While it is likely that most auditors attempt to remain independent, neither ethical codes nor training are likely to be effective remedies against a bias that is unconscious and unintentional. Undoubtedly, the vast majority of auditors do not deliberately author biased reports. Instead, auditors’ roles influence their professional assessments so that their private beliefs become consistent with the interests of their clients. Although it is possible that auditors sometimes intentionally misrepresent their findings in public, it is more likely that self-interest operates indirectly, by unconsciously influencing auditors’ assessments of a client’s financial condition. The Studies The three experiments reported here bring together research on motivated reasoning and accountability to study the psychology auditors judgments. Experiment 1 presents data from professional auditors and tests the hypothesis that their judgments may be biased in favor of client firms (Hypothesis 1). The second and third studies examine the causes behind this effect; they examine factors that could moderate the magnitude of bias, and test the extent to which the bias can be consciously undone. Participants were asked to produce two judgments: one public and the other private. For the public judgments, subjects were given an explicit incentive to be biased. For the private judgments, they were given an incentive to be unbiased; they were paid on the basis of how close their judgments came to those provided by an impartial panel of experts. If participants were fully aware of the bias in their public reports, and if properly motivated to do so, they should have been able to adjust their evaluations to eliminate the bias in their private judgments. If they were not fully aware of the bias, as the research on motivated information processing would suggest, then their private estimates should have been biased as well (Hypothesis 2). Experiment 2 specifically tests the consequences of financial incentives on bias. To the extent that financial incentives affect the strength of the auditors desire to reach a particular conclusion, one might expect to observe parallel changes in the magnitude of bias. Experiment 2 tests the hypothesis that the greater one’s financial interest in a particular outcome, the more biased one will be in the direction of that outcome (Hypothesis 3). The third study examines the effect of the relationship between the auditor and the principal. Material interests are not the only factors that can undermine the impartiality of judgments. Personal relationships and affiliations can have a similar effect. The power of affiliations is evident in sports fans; questionable referee calls often provoke outrage by the fans of the call’s loser, but rarely by fans on the winning side. Indeed, one of the first studies that documented the self-serving bias involved sports teams. In their classic study of a particularly rough football game, Hastdorf and Cantril (1954) showed that fans from each side blamed the other team for behaving more aggressively; this result also held for fans who had not seen the game live but only watched a film of the game. These fans obtained no material benefit from their energetic advocacy but nevertheless made judgments that favored their own teams. The self-serving bias does not require the powerful affiliations associated with sports teams. Thompson (1995) has shown, in a simulated labor dispute, that it takes only a whiff of affiliation with a partisan to create sympathetic leanings. Naturally, this tendency is only strengthened when people feel accountable to the partisan (Lerner Tetlock, 1999; Tetlock, 1992). Most auditors are likely to have frequent close contact with a client, creating much stronger affiliations. Indeed, it is the cooperation of the client that makes it possible for auditors to do their jobs. Thus, Experi ment 3 tests the hypothesis that the closer one’s personal relationship with a particular individual, the more biased one will be in that person’s favor (Hypothesis 4). EXPERIMENT 1: Role-Conferred Biases Method Participants were 139 professional auditors employed full-time by one of the Big Four accounting firms in the United States. Their ages ranged from 23 to 55, with a mean of 29 years (SD = 6.2). Fifty-six percent of the participants were male. They had a mean of five years (SD = 5.7) working as an auditor. Nine participants requested, after they had handed in their questionnaires, that their responses be excluded from subsequent data analyses. Participants were given five different auditing vignettes and asked them to come to a judgment regarding the proper auditing in each case. The problems were intentionally chosen to be somewhat difficult accounting problems for which generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) did not provide an unambiguous solution. Each of the vignettes depicts a situation in which accounting issues that are not clearly addressed by current rule-based accounting standards. The issues addressed include the recognition of intangible assets on the financial statements (vignette 1), the restructuring of debt with dilutive securities (vignette 2), the recognition vs. deferral of revenues (vignette 3), capitalization vs. expensing of expenditures (vignette 4), and the treatment of research and development costs on the financial statements (vignette 5). Subjects were told that these cases were independent of each other and hypothetical, although are intentionally realistic. It was our goal to design these vignettes such that the issues that are described are more general and do not particularly apply to any one  industry, to ensure that auditors specializing in one industry will not have a specific advantage or disadvantage in answering any of the questions. All participants saw all five vignettes in the same order. The five vignettes are listed in Appendix A. The experiment had a 2 (role: hired by issuer or by outside investor) X 2 (question order: make accounting valuation first vs. evaluate other’s accounting first) between-subjects factorial design. The role manipulation varied whom participants were told they were working for. Half the participants’ materials informed them that they had been hired as the external auditor for the firm in question. The other half of participants were told that they were working for an outside investor considering investing money in the firm. The question order manipulation varied the order of the questions that followed every vignette. Those in the choice-first condition were first presented with (1) the firm’s unaudited accounting, and were asked whether they would accept it as complying with GAAP; and (2) what the right accounting would be. Those in the valuation-first condition got these two questions in the reverse order. All participants were also asked how confident they were about their judgments. Results Neither age nor years of auditing experience affected the dependent measures reported below. Therefore, we do not report them in any of the subsequent analyses. We hypothesized that participants would be more likely to come to the conclusion that the accounting behind a firm’s financial reports complied with GAAP if they were working for the firm than if they were not (Hypothesis 1). To test this hypothesis, we conducted a 2 (role: hired by issuer or by outside investor) X 2 (question order: make accounting valuation first vs. Conflict of Interest 13 evaluate other’s accounting first) MANOVA using the five approval decisions as dependent variables. The results show a significant main effect of role. Consistent with Hypothesis 1, those working as external auditor for a firm were significantly more likely to approve its accounting (M = 29%, SD = 24%) than were those who represented outside investors (M = 22%, SD = 21%), F (5, 107) = 2.9, p .05. Neither the main effect of question order nor its interaction with role is significant. We also expected, consistent with Hypothesis 1, that in addition to being more willing to endorse the firm’s own accounting, participants would be more likely to come to valuation decisions that were favorable to the target firm when they were considering the problem from the perspective of an outside auditor then when they had taken the perspective of a potential investor. To test this prediction, we first generated standardized scores for each item by computing a zscore of the valuation and reverse-scoring items as appropriate so that higher scores indicated valuations more favorable to the target firm. We then computed an average valuation for each participant and submitted these valuations to a 2 (role: hired by issuer or by outside investor) X 2 (question order: make accounting valuation first vs. evaluate other’s accounting first) ANOVA. The results show a main effect of role: Those playing the role of outside auditor came to more favorable valuations (M = .08, SD = .56) than did those working for a potential investor, (M = -.11, SD = .50), F (1, 134) = 4.07, p .05. Neither the main effect of question order nor its interaction with role is significant. Discussion The results of Experiment 1 are broadly consistent with research on accountability that shows that people tend to be proactively responsive to those to whom they expect to be accountable. When people are accountable to others with known preferences, then their judgments tend to be consistent with the preferences of those to whom they are accountable (Tetlock, 1983). An auditor who feels accountable to the client is more likely to issue a clean, unqualified audit report than one who feels accountable to an audit partner within his or her own firm (Buchman, Tetlock, Reed, 1996). However, it is worth noting that the accountability manipulation used in Experiment 1 was weak compared with the standard accountability manipulations in which people are led to believe that they will actually be meeting with a real person to whom they will need to justify their decisions. In Experiment 1, no mention was made of such accountability and participants were not required to justify their opinions. Nevertheless, this weak manipulation had an effect. We speculate that one reason for its effectiveness may be that the participants were familiar with the role of auditor, and so were able to easily put themselves in the role of being employed by, and accountable to, the client firm. One notable feature of the results of Experiment 1 is the low levels of endorsement. Nearly three quarters of the time, participants rejected the accounting proposed in the vignette as not complying with GAAP. This fact stands in contrast to the fact that the vast majority of all audit reports are unqualified. Two facts can explain the low endorsement rates in Experiment 1. First, the proposed accounting we gave participants in each vignette was intentionally designed to be fairly aggressive. Second, participants general suspiciousness was heightened because: (1) before they responded to the questionnaire, participants had to sign the consent form which, according to the rules of the institutional review board that approved it, had to include the name of the study: Auditor independence and bias; and (2) the participants had all been recently hired away from Arthur Andersen, and several expressed the concern that their ex-employers fate would be assumed to reflect badly on them. It is, perhaps, striking that the experiments manipulation worked despite participants heightened suspiciousness. Experiment 1 leaves a number of important theoretical questions unanswered. What, exactly, is it in the relationship between auditor and client that leads it to have the power to sway auditors judgments, given the clear ethical standards of their professions prohibiting such influence? Experiments 2 and 3 test two possible answers to this question: financial incentives and personal relationships. Because these two factors are confounded in actual auditor-client relationships, the experiments are conducted with participants who are not professional auditors. However, due to the fact that these non-auditor participants were unfamiliar with GAAP and so could not judge compliance with it, we created a slightly different experimental paradigm. EXPERIMENT 2: The Role of Financial Incentives Method Participants. One hundred twelve individuals participated for pay. Participants were recruited with advertisements in local newspapers and with flyers posted on the campuses of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Forty-nine percent of the participants were male. They ranged in age from 20 to 41, with an average age of 24 years (SD = 5.18 years). Procedure. Participants were run in groups of four. They were assigned to one of four roles: the buyer, the buyer’s auditor, the seller, or the seller’s auditor. Principals (the buyer and the seller) were seated next to their auditors. All four participants received the same packet of information about the target firm, named E-Settle (see Appendix B). After reading through these materials, the principals made public reports on the value of the firm. The auditors then reviewed these reports and offered either an unqualified endorsement of the principal’s assessment or offered their own assessments that could include suggestions for revision. In addition, all auditors were asked to specify both the most they thought the buyer should consider paying and the least they thought the seller should consider accepting. Both the principals’ and the auditors’ public reports were viewed by both principals. Armed with their own estimates and those of their auditors, principals then negotiated the purchase of the firm. The principals were paid based on their negotiated outcomes. In addition to the auditors’ public reports, which went to both principals, the auditors each completed a private report that went only to the experimenter. This private report instructed auditors to report their true belief in the value of t he target firm, and told them, â€Å"Your goal is for this assessment to be as impartial as you can make it.† Participants were told that their estimates of the firm’s value would be compared with the opinions of nonpartisan experts. The panel of experts consisted of eight professors of accounting and finance at Carnegie Mellon University’s Graduate School of Industrial Administration. The experts had assessed the value of the firm at $14 million. If a participant’s valuation were within $3 million of the experts’, he or she would receive an additional $3 payment. Participants were then asked to express how confident they were in the accuracy of their private appraisals. They were given the opportunity to bet on their private appraisals. If they chose to take the bet, they stood to win more money ($6 instead of $3, but their appraisals had to be more accurate (within $1.5 million instead of $3 million). Finally, participants answered questions designed to assess the degree to which they believed their own appraisals of the target firm (E-Settle) may have been bias ed by the roles they played: Conflict of Interest 17 1) To what extent do you believe your private appraisal of the value of E-Settle was biased by your role? The response scale ran from 0 (no bias whatsoever) to 10 (powerfully biased). 2) To what extent do you think your role interfered with your ability to give an impartial estimate of E-Settle’s value in your private assessment? The response scale ran from 1 (it did not influence me at all) to 7 (I found it impossible to make an impartial assessment). 3) How do you believe your role influenced your estimate of E-Settle’s value in your private appraisal? The response scale ran from -$3,000,000 (It led me to make an appraisal that was at least $3 million below what it would otherwise have been) to +$3,000,000 (It led me to make an appraisal that was at least $3 million above what it would otherwise have been). Design. The experiments manipulation of incentive structures included three conditions: Fixed fee, Pay for performance, and Future business. In the fixed fee condition, auditors were paid a fixed $9 fee regardless of their reports and regardless of the principal’s outcomes. In the pay for performance condition, auditors received a $3 base payment plus the same contingent payments as their principals: $.50 per $1 million in sale price either above $0 (for the seller) or below $30 million (for the buyer). This manipulation was designed to mirror a practice that the SEC has made illegal in which auditors have a direct financial stake in the success of a client firm. In the future business condition, auditors received a $3 base payment; after the negotiation was complete, principals could choose to award future business to the auditor, worth anywhere from $0 to $10. The decision of how much business to give to the auditor did not influence the principal’s own earnings. This manipulation was designed to mirror the incentives present for auditors who would like to continue offering profitable services to a client who has the choice of hiring them or some other firm. Results Public reports. After reading about the target firm, principals provided estimates of its value. A 2 (role: buyer vs. seller) X 3 (pay: fixed, pay for performance, future business) ANOVA revealed a main effect for role. Sellers estimated the value of the firm to be higher (M = $21.5 MM, SD = $8.5 MM) than did buyers (M = $12.3 MM, SD = $12.3 MM), F(1, 49) = 18.94, p .001. After having seen this report, auditors had the option of either unconditionally endorsing the principal’s report or suggesting changes. A logistic regression reveals that neither role nor the extremity of the principal’s valuation influenced the frequency of endorsement. However, pay condition was a significant predictor of the tendency to endorse, B = -.75, p .05. Auditors in the fixed payment and pay for performance conditions were about equally likely to issue unconditional endorsements (50 percent and 47 percent respectively). However, auditors in the future business condition were less likely to issue an unconditional endorsement (17 percent) and instead tended to offer suggestions for revision (see Table 1), χ2(2) = 4.89, p .05. In professional auditing, issuing a conditional endorsement of a client’s financial statements suggests that the auditor believes there are problems. However, participants in the present experiment were not constrained in this way. In their reports, about 12 percent of auditors suggested that their principals had been too extreme in their valuation of the company, and advised moderation (lower prices recommended to sellers and higher prices to buyers).

Gay Marriage Should be Legal :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

On June 26, 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled that the US Constitution guarantees the right for same-sex couples to marry. Should gay marriages be legal? Clearly we as a nation are undecided on this issue. Thirty-six states have passed legislation banning gay marriages, yet a few states have passed laws that allows homosexual couples the right to participate in civil unions. Several other states are also debating whether or not to allow these couples to marry. Unfortunately, the dispute has left the United States' homosexual community in an awkward position. There are some people who think that gay people have no rights and should never be allowed to marry, and others believe that gay people should enjoy the same rights and privileges as heterosexuals. I think that the United States should allow same-sex couples to marry just like heterosexual couples. There are many opponents of gay people as it is, and they all have their reasons to dislike the idea of permitting them get married. One of the main reasons is that the primary purpose of marriage is procreation. Because gay couples are unable to have children, they should not be allowed to marry (Schiffen 495). Another main argument is that the word marriage means the union of one man and one woman. This is a long-standing theme of most major Western religions. Under a proposed bill known as the Defense of Marriage act, marriage is defined as â€Å"a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.† Furthermore, it defines a spouse as â€Å" a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife† (What 1). Under these guidelines, it is quite obvious that gay couples would not be eligible for marriage. People against homosexual marriage also say that it is a person’s choice to be gay. Since the individual chooses to be a homosexual, they should not be given special privileges. Another argument that you hear is that these couples should not get married simply because of the torment and ridicule they would be faced with in their everyday lives. There are news reports from across America telling about how a gay person was beaten or killed just because they were looked at as different. Some of these people would end up the target of verbal abuse and maybe even physical abuse, just because some heterosexual people see them as different. Gay Marriage Should be Legal :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays On June 26, 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled that the US Constitution guarantees the right for same-sex couples to marry. Should gay marriages be legal? Clearly we as a nation are undecided on this issue. Thirty-six states have passed legislation banning gay marriages, yet a few states have passed laws that allows homosexual couples the right to participate in civil unions. Several other states are also debating whether or not to allow these couples to marry. Unfortunately, the dispute has left the United States' homosexual community in an awkward position. There are some people who think that gay people have no rights and should never be allowed to marry, and others believe that gay people should enjoy the same rights and privileges as heterosexuals. I think that the United States should allow same-sex couples to marry just like heterosexual couples. There are many opponents of gay people as it is, and they all have their reasons to dislike the idea of permitting them get married. One of the main reasons is that the primary purpose of marriage is procreation. Because gay couples are unable to have children, they should not be allowed to marry (Schiffen 495). Another main argument is that the word marriage means the union of one man and one woman. This is a long-standing theme of most major Western religions. Under a proposed bill known as the Defense of Marriage act, marriage is defined as â€Å"a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.† Furthermore, it defines a spouse as â€Å" a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife† (What 1). Under these guidelines, it is quite obvious that gay couples would not be eligible for marriage. People against homosexual marriage also say that it is a person’s choice to be gay. Since the individual chooses to be a homosexual, they should not be given special privileges. Another argument that you hear is that these couples should not get married simply because of the torment and ridicule they would be faced with in their everyday lives. There are news reports from across America telling about how a gay person was beaten or killed just because they were looked at as different. Some of these people would end up the target of verbal abuse and maybe even physical abuse, just because some heterosexual people see them as different.