Source Factors (Factors Influencing Persuasive Effectiveness)

What is a ceiling effect? A floor effect?

(i) Ceiling Effect → when a given value cannot increase anymore (ii) Floor Effect → when a given value cannot decrease anymore

Identify factors that influence credibility and if they influence competence and/or trustworthiness.

- Credentials (education, occupation, and experience) - Nonfluency (vocalized pauses, superfluous repetition or words or sounds, corrections of slips of tongue, articulation difficulties..etc) - Citations (the use of relevant facts, opinions, information...etc to support their claims) - Unexpected Postion (against self-interest) - Humor (small amounts of appropriate humor) - Disorganization

What is Expertise/Competence?

- The assessment of whether the communicator is in a position to know what is right or correct. - Combinations include: qualified - unqualified; expert - not expert; experienced - inexperienced; informed - uninformed; trained - untrained; skilled - unskilled; intelligent - unintelligent.

What is Trustworthiness?

- The assessment of whether the communicator will likely be inclined to tell the truth as he or she sees it. -Combinations include: Honest - dishonest; trustworthy - untrustworthy; open-minded - closed-minded; just - unjust; fair - unfair; and unselfish - selfish.

Why does the magnitude of credibility's effect on persuasive outcomes vary?

1) The degree of direct personal relevance that the issue has for the receiver (involvement). → As personal relevance/involvement increases, variations (expertise & trustworthiness) in the source's credibility make less of a difference. 2) The timing of the identification of the communicator → The communicator's identity can be exposed before of after the audience has been exposed to the message → The impact of communicator credibility appears to be minimized when the identity of the source is withheld from the audience until after the message has been presented.

Why does the direction of credibility's effect on persuasive outcomes vary?

1) The direction is not constant b/c sometimes low credibility communicators are significantly more effective than high-credibility communicators. 2) The critical factor determining the direction of credibility's effects appears to be the nature of the position advocated by the message - specifically, whether the message advocates a position initially opposed by the receiver.

What is Factor analysis?

A statistical procedure that groups the scales on the basis of their intercorrelations: scales that are comparatively highly intercorrelated will be grouped together as indicating some underlying "factor" or dimension.

What is Credibility?

Credibility consists of judgments made by a perceiver (i.e. message recipient) concerning the believability of a communicator.

What conditions will higher-credibility sources be more persuasive than lower-credibility sources?

Depends if the message advocated is counterattitudinal or proattitudinal position from the perceiver b/c the proattitudinal positions are more effective w/ low credibility communicators than the higher credibility persuaders. This is b/c lower credibility communicators stimulate the perceiver to have more positive thoughts about the advocated position than the higher credibility communicator does.

What are the dimensions of Credibility?

Expertise and Trustworthiness

Does perceived similarity influence persuasive outcomes directly or indirectly? Explain.

It does influence persuasive outcomes, but indirectly through its effects on credibility and liking.

What is attitudinal similarity?

It's having similar attitudes (similar evaluations of attitude objects) - as opposed to having similar traits, abilities, occupations, or backgrounds.

What is the general rule of thumb concerning the effect of variations in liking?

Liked sources are more persuasive than disliked sources. However, the general principle that liked persuaders are more successful can be misleading.

Can liking be influenced by perceived similarities that are not relevant to the message topic?

No, only relevant similarities (or dissimilarities) are likely to influence judgments of the communicator's expertise.

What are some other characteristics influence Persuasive outcomes (so other than credibility, liking, and similarity)?

Physical Attractiveness

What research is used to identify the primary dimensions of credibility?

Respondents rate communication sources on a large number of scales. The set of scales used is composed of previously employed items. The ratings given of the sources are then submitted to factor analysis.

Describe the relative strength of the effects of credibility and the effects of liking (on persuasive outcomes).

The effects of liking on persuasive outcomes appear to be weaker than effects of credibility. Thus when the receiver's judgment of the source's credibility conflicts withthe receiver's liking for the source, the effects of liking may be overridden by the effects of credibility.

Describe how variations in involvement influence the effects of liking. What involvement conditions lead to relatively larger effects of liking?

The effects of liking on persuasive outcomes are minimized as the topic becomes more personally relevant to the receiver. The disliked stingy communicator is more persuasive than the liked generous communicator when they are both advocating large reward.

Does perceived attitudinal similarity engender greater liking?

Yes, but that may or may not mean greater effectiveness.

Can perceived similarities influence judgments of communicator credibility?

Yes, but the similarity or dissimilarity must be relevant to the influence attempt. • Not all relevant perceived similarities will enhance credibility and not all perceive dissimilarities will hurt credibility. • i.e. a perceived similarity in relevant experience (meaning that the person doesn't know any more than you do) will not enhance credibility, and might even reduce it.

How does Physical Attractiveness affect Persuasive Outcomes?

→ Results varied. → Generally, "existing research does indicate that heightened physical attractiveness enhances one's effectiveness as a social influence agent." → However, not plausible to say that physical attractiveness may (indirectly) influence judgments of the communicator's trustworthiness.

Can a disliked communicator be more persuasive that a like communicator?

→ Yes, sometimes, disliked communicators can be more effective persuadersthan liked communicators - even when the communicators are comparable in other characteristics (such as credibility). → For example, if a liked and disliked communicator each try to convince people to eat grasshoppers and they are both persuasive, the people who were influenced by the disliked one are more likely to have good feelings towards eating the grasshoppers because they have to make reasons for why they did this other than that the communicator was nice.