This study aims to test the framing effect in audit decision aid. The research employs a between-subject experimental design involving 56 undergraduate students as the sample. The dependent variable is the tendency to follow the aid recommendation which is measured using Gomaa, Hunton, Vaassen, and Carree's (2011) scenario. Framing effect is manipulated as follows: (1) positive framing, (2) negative framing. The result shows that framing effect exists in audit decision aid, especially, in how the aid reliability presented (positive or negative) influences the final participant's decision. This research seeks to contribute to the development of framing theory, particularly to test the framing phenomena in audit decision aid. Previous studies on this realm focus on health, politic, finance, business, and marketing areas and only a few studies are found discussing this issue in the auditing area. The result would also be useful in the practical field where it should now be obvious that an auditor should never be over-reliant on decision aid. Decision aid can indeed make decision bias if the auditor thinks using only the aid is enough to make a decision and forgets to use professional judgment. The result of the study gives a warning to auditors that the way information on the reliability of a decision aid is presented can make a decision bias.

Manuscript type: Research paper Research aims: This study empirically examines the role of warning messages on the reliance level on decision aids. We examine whether the offer of warning messages can lower the effect of framing so that it can influence the reliance level on decision aids. Design/Methodology/Approach: This study employs a 2 x 3 experimental design involving 65 undergraduates and 13 Accounting Profession Program professionals as samples. The dependent variable is the decision aid reliance which deploys a scenario that previously belonged to Gomaa, Hunton, Vaassen and Carree (2011). The framing effect is then manipulated as: (1) positive framing, and (2) negative framing while the warning messages are manipulated as (1) no warning, (2) weak warning, and (3) strong warning. Research findings: This study shows that the warning messages reduce the framing effect on decision aids. In particular, the findings show that in an audit context, both the weak and strong warning messages are successful in decreasing the framing effect bias on decision aids. These results suggest that warning messages can assist auditors in getting the best decisions in an audit process. Theoretical contribution/Originality: To the best of our knowledge, previous studies had only examined the debiasing effect of framing