Soft Skills for the Professional Services Industry

CHAPTER 5Think Positively

THE AUDITORS AMONG YOU might say that it is part of your professional ethics to maintain at least a critical basic attitude throughout your work as an auditor. This includes questioning information, paying particular attention to signs that could indicate a misrepresentation, and critically assessing audit evidence.

Before we deal with the principle of positive thinking and its application in practice, it makes sense to consider why people think positively or negatively. It makes obvious sense to ask whether positive or negative thinking is innate. Does thinking positively or negatively depend on hereditary factors? And if so, what possibilities does a person who has a genetic tendency to think negatively have to change their behavior? Can a negative‐thinking person even become a positive‐thinking person, or are they trapped in their genetic makeup?

Researchers at the University of California have been studying people's personalities comprehensively and found that a person's personality depends on both hereditary factors and environmental influences. Five psychological factors were identified for measuring individual differences in personality:

• Extraversion Versus Introversion: characteristics include talkativeness, assertiveness, and a high level of activity;
• Neuroticism Versus Emotional Stability: traits are negative thinking, more anxious, depressed;
• Agreeableness Versus Antagonism, Hostility: traits are cooperative, compassionate;
• Conscientiousness ...