Source credibility is "a term commonly used to imply a communicator's positive characteristics that affect the receiver's acceptance of a message." Academic studies of this topic began in the 20th century and were given a special emphasis during World War II, when the US government sought to use propaganda to influence public opinion in support of the war effort. Psychologist Carl Hovland and his colleagues worked at the War Department upon this during the 1940s and then continued experimental studies at Yale University. They built upon the work of researchers in the first half of the 20th century who had developed a Source-Message-Channel-Receiver model of communication and, with Muzafer Sherif, (Muzaffer Şerif Başoğlu) developed this as part of their theories of persuasion and social judgement.
Overview Source credibility theory is an established theory that explains how communication's persuasiveness is affected by the perceived credibility of the source of the communication. The credibility of all communication, regardless of format, has been found to be heavily influenced by the perceived credibility of the source of that communication. The idea of credibility was first derived from Aristotle who argued that the speaker's reliability must be built and established in speech and that what the speaker did or said before such a speech was not of importance. Aristotle divided the aspects of persuasion into three categories: ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion) and logos (logic). As credibility refers to people believing whom they trust, emotion and logic indicate a person's emotional connection and means of reasoning to convince one of a particular argument and/or speech. The area of source credibility is studied for practical applications in communication, marketing, law, and political science.
Dimensions There are several dimensions of credibility that affect how an audience will perceive the speaker: competence, extraversion, composure, character, and sociability. These dimensions can be related to French & Raven's five bases of power (see below). These characteristics are fluid and affect each other as well as the speaker's transactional credibility. One dimension may strengthen the speaker's credibility if he/she struggles in another. The audience can perceive these attributes through certain behaviors in which the speaker delivers results, is concise and direct with the audience members. If a speaker displays characteristics of honesty, integrity, sincerity, and can show that they are trustworthy and ethical, the audience will be more inclined to believe the message being communicated to them, even if they do not remember every aspect of the interaction. They will, however, recall how the presenter made them feel, how they took in the information and what they may share with others once the presentation has concluded. For instance, if a speaker presents the audience with a short clip and includes a witty joke at the conclusion of the video to drive the point home, members of the audience may only remember the joke. Although the joke may only be a small element of the entire speech, someone will recall it and share it with others and perhaps speak kindly of the speaker and wish to interact with that person again, or promise to purchase product or feel inclined to tell anyone who will listen about what they learned. This is when terminal credibility comes into play, but is dependent on how well the speaker presented the information to the audience. Speakers must also present themselves to be likable since people are more inclined to trust those they generally like or feel comfortable with in a room. Being friendly, easy going, warmhearted, nice and kind can carry the speaker into a very comfortable space with the audience. Once the audience is at ease, the speaker can generally present their information, and it will be perceived positively. The late Dr. James C. McCroskey (University of Alabama at Birmingham) was known for his research in the dimensions of source credibility. His scales for the measurement of source credibility have been widely used in communication research. He noted in his 1975 article, "Image of Mass Media News Sources", that "the available scales for the measurement of source credibility should not be assumed to be universally applicable measures of source credibility." However, his research and his proposed scale from 1975 are still foundations for source credibility research. In McCroskey's work, he further breaks down each dimension as follows:
Competence The measurement of competence is based on seven values. These values are qualification, expertise, reliability, believability, openness (i.e. intellectual vs. narrow), value, and currency (i.e., informed vs. uninformed).
Character The measurement of character has four values. These are kindness, sympathy, selflessness (i.e., unselfish vs. selfish), and virtue.
Sociability The measurement of sociability has three values. These are friendliness, cheer, and temperament (i.e., good natured vs. irritable). Character and sociability may be combined by some researchers. In that case, researchers will employ the seven values under one "Character-Sociability" measurement.
Composure Four seemingly synonymous values are assigned to the measurement of composure. These are excitability (composed vs. excitable), calmness (calm vs. anxious), tension (relaxed vs. tense), and poise (poised vs. nervous).
Extroversion Like composure, extroversion is composed of four seemingly synonymous values. These are aggressiveness, boldness, talkativeness (i.e. talkative vs. silent), and voice (i.e., verbal vs. quiet). Dr. McCroskey's research concluded that of the five dimensions of credibility, competence, character and sociability were the most important in establishing and maintaining credibility.
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