The Persuasiveness of Source Credibility: A Critical Review of Five Decades' Evidence

“Evidence supports the idea that source expertise enhances the impact of interventions on behavior (e.g., Hovland & Weiss, 1952; Pornpitakpan, 2004).”

“A large body of literature has already demonstrated the effects of source credibility on persuasion (for a review, see Pornpitakpan 2004).”

“Source credibility is driven by perceived expertise and trustworthiness of the communicator and influences consumers’ attitudes (see Pornpitakpan 2004 for a review).”

“Indeed, the information processing literature has repeatedly demonstrated that attributes of a message source often exert direct effects on message recipients’ attitudes and behaviors, independent of the message content (e.g., Chaiken and Maheshwaran 1994, Petty et al. 1998, Simpson et al. 2000, Cohen 2003, Menon and…”

“Participants are more likely to believe information provided by people whom they view as being credible (reviewed in [55]), and a large literature from political science has robustly demonstrated the impact of elite messaging, in particular, on public opinion [56].”

“First, based on a well-established body of literature in persuasion demonstrating that aspects of a message’s source can influence the persuasiveness of the message (Briñol & Petty, 2009; Kumkale et al., 2010; Pornpitakpan, 2004; Wilson & Sherrell, 1993), the source of a fear appeal communication should be an importan…”

“Because consumers typically judge the information provided by other individuals to be trustworthy and credible (Pornpitakpan 2004), user-generated social media communications have a greater effect on consumers’ overall perception of brands than firm-created social media communication.”

“For instance, Pornpitakpan (2004b) reported cultural difference in the effects of the attractiveness and trustworthiness of endorsers on persuasion.”

“Findings of a study conducted by Pornpitakpan (2004) show that trustworthiness is more impactful than is expertise.”

“It captures the perceived expertise and trustworthiness of review sources [64,66].”

“Prior research has recognized the importance of source credibility in determining users’ acceptance of the advice from consultative knowledge based systems (Fitzsimons and Lehmann 2004; Mak and Lyytinen 1997; Pornpitakpan 2004).”

“…link with the three other Cs. Starting with critical thinking, sound communication implies fostering the conditions for a communicative exchange directed towards a common goal, which is, at least in educational and professional contexts, based on a fair evaluation of reality (Pornpitakpan 2004).”

“In addition, reviews have long been related to sales (or its proxies), and yet there is growing consensus that online conversion rate offers a better metric for gauging online retail performance (Gurley 2000; Moe and Fader 2004).”

“However, credibility, an aspect of trustworthiness, is related to individuals with both trusted ties (Pornpitakpan, 2004) to others in the organization and the power to execute their roles (Nesler, Aguinis, Quigley, & Tedeschi, 1993).”

“Fishbein, 1977; Kapitan & Silvera, 2016) and positive endorsement attitudes (Goldsmith, Lafferty, & Newell, 2000; Pornpitakpan, 2004).”

“According to Pornpitakpan (2004), this should enhance endorsers’ trustworthiness, leading to stronger effects (see Pornpitakpan 2004).”

“Further, the literature on source credibility suggests that messages delivered by a credible source are deemed more trustworthy compared to messages linked to low-credibility sources (Pornpitakpan, 2004); hence, corrective messages that leverage on source credibility are more likely to be effective.”

“, health professionals) improve adherence and goal attainment compared with interventions delivered by other parties (e.g., researchers; for reviews of the effects of source credibility, see Eisend, 2004; Kumkale & Albarracin, 2004; Latimer, Brawley, & Bassett, 2010; Pornpitakpan, 2004).”

“…and presentation (Papathanassis & Knolle, 2011; Sigala, 2011; Wathen & Burkell, 2002; Wilson & Sherrell, 1993), including valence (Casaló, Flavián, & Guinalíu, 2011; Sparks & Browning, 2011), informational cues (Hansen, 2005) and source credibility (Brinol & Petty, 2009; Pornpitakpan, 2004).”

“Over half a century of research reveals that with few exceptions, credibility enhances persuasion outcomes (for review, see Pornpitakpan, 2004).”

“Source credibility has consistently been identified as an important cue in informational influence process (Chaiken & Maheswaran, 1994; Pornpitakpan, 2004; Sussman & Siegal, 2003).”

“As a main dimension of source credibility, trustworthiness significantly influences the persuasiveness of a message (Miller & Baseheart, 1969; Pornpitakpan, 2004; Wathen & Burkell, 2002), and individuals’ evaluation”

“Human Communication Research 36 (2010) 593–617 © 2010 International Communication Association 595 Online Leaders and Social Influence D. Huffaker Scholars have also noted that the credibility of the individual is very important for fostering trust and increasing influence (Pornpitakpan, 2004).”

“…is intimately tied to persuasion, but it was not until the twentieth century that researchers began to test this assumption rigorously (see Pornpitakpan, 2004, for a review) and to identify conditions under which source credibility exerts no effect on persuasion or, paradoxically,…”

“…have been recognized by researchers in the past, but expertise and trustworthiness are still regarded as the principal aspects of credibility (Pornpitakpan, 2004), and these two were also the key determinants of the effectiveness of a message according to source credibility model (Hovland,…”

“However, evidence supports the idea that source expertise enhances the impact of interventions on behaviour [113,114] and reviews of interventions report that health educators were more persuasive than were research assistants for promoting behaviours such as cancer self-examination [54].”

“Many personal factors can influence the persuasiveness of arguments, including ability to comprehend, need for cognition, locus of control and tendency towards selfmonitoring (Pornpitakpan, 2004).”

“This makes sense from a theoretical perspective – provision of additional information should make that information seem more credible and thus make the argument more persuasive (Petty & Cacioppo, 1984; Pornpitakpan, 2004).”

“In each domain, this confidence heuristic is so powerful that it can overwhelm the role of judgmental accuracy (Keren and Teigen 2001; Price and Stone 2004; Yates et al. 1996; cf. Tenney et al. 2007).”

“In fact, whether the emphasis is on expertise (e.g., Rhine & Severance, 1970) or trustworthiness (e.g., Mills & Jellison, 1967), high credibility sources have typically been found to be more persuasive than low credibility sources (see Petty & Wegener, 1998; Pornpitakpan, 2004).”

“As one of the components of source credibility, trust in the information sender is strongly associated with the perceived credibility of content (Pornpitakpan, 2006).”

“Nevertheless, research has not yet identified which variable is critical in affecting the perception of credibility (e.g., Hughes et al. 2014; Pornpitakpan 2004).”

“Source expertise on the other hand refers to the extent to which the source of a persuasive message is perceived to be capable of making correct assertions [41].”

“…design, i.e., a simulated social 14 “may reduce barriers to correction that are likely to occur in more overtly politicized spaces” (Vraga & Bode 2017, p. 624).7 Historically, source credibility has been viewed as a function of a speaker’s expertise and trustworthiness (Pornpitakpan 2004).”

“…explanation for these same outcomes is that individuals simply possess different beliefs about which sources are accurate (Druckman and McGrath, 2019), since source credibility and trustworthiness are known to influence beliefs (Metzger et al., 2010; Pornpitakpan, 2004; Wilson and Sherrell, 1993).”

“The influence of source credibility on message evaluation has been well documented in the literature (Chaiken & Maheswaran, 1994; Jones, Sinclair, & Courneya, 2003; Sussman & Siegal, 2003; Eisend, 2004; Pornpitakpan, 2004; Tormala & Petty, 2004; Eisend, 2010).”

“Although decades of research have pointed to the important role of source credibility in persuasion (Pornpitakpan 2004), we know little about the role of sources in moderating the effectiveness of inoculation messages (Compton et al.”

“For a thorough review of source credibility and its applications, refer to Pornpitakpan (2004).”

“According to the accessibility– diagnosticity model, company-independent sources such as word-of-mouth are more credible and therefore more diagnostic than company-dependent sources such as advertising (Pornpitakpan, 2004; Van Hoye & Lievens, 2007).”

“In the presence of trust, they are more likely to have a favorable attitude (Ajzen and Fishbein 1977; Pornpitakpan 2004) towards purchasing ecolabeled products sponsored by these entities, and therefore have fewer reasons to seek additional information to determine whether or not these sponsors’ ecolabels conform to s…”

“Similarly, sources with high credibility are more persuasive than low-credibility sources (Pornpitakpan 2004).”

“One of the aspects suggested to influence perceived credibility is message or information quality (Pornpitakpan, 2004; Slater and Rouner, 1996).”

“Other researchers [24] [27] posit that the peripheral factor – source credibility – may also have a moderating rather than a direct effect on the causal relationship between the informational factors and the information credibility; this view is consistent with the attribution inference [8] [9]…”

“The majority of studies on source credibility examine attitudes ather than behavioral change (Pornpitakpan, 2004).”

“…recipients’ attitudes and behaviors, independent of the message content that is broadcasted by the sender (e.g., Chaiken and Maheswaran 1994, Chang 2004, Cohen 2003, Forman et al. 2008, Kang and Herr 2006, Menon and Blount 2003, Pornpitakpan 2004, Simpson et al. 2000, v. Wangenheim and Bayón 2004).”

“…link between category knowledge and product information processing (e.g., Mehta, Hoegg, and Chakravarti 2011; Park and Lessig 1981), the question of whether and when category knowledge influences consumers’ use of source information has received little attention (Pornpitakpan 2004, p. 269).”

“While a large literature has shown that people preferentially believe information from trusted sources [for a review, see ( 52 )], this work has usually focused on information shared by people who are more or less trusted.”

“A large body of research examines how people choose what and whom to believe in such situations, situations where speakers are competing to influence public perceptions (53, 54).”

“In a review of several decades of research on source credibility, Pornpitakpan (2004) has suggested that two factors are commonly identified as the main dimensions of source credibility: expertise and trustworthiness.”

“Messengers or message sources have long been studied and empirically established as a significant factor influencing persuasion outcomes (Pornpitakpan, 2004).”

“Second, the literature highlights the impact of a source’s trustworthiness on persuasion and information evaluation (see Wilson & Sherrell 1993; Pornpitakpan 2004, for reviews).”

“…attributes embedded in messages also influence audience perceptions and evaluations of speakers and their messages (Bradac et al., 1979; Miller et al., 2007; Pornpitakpan, 2004) and, thus, the persuasiveness of their communication (Eagly & Chaiken, 1998; Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953; Wood, 2000).”

“Newcomers may be seen as knowing less about the organization and as less qualified because they have not had time to demonstrate their capability (Pornpitakpan, 2004).”

“…of the deceptive information provided in the false feedback studies, over imagination alone, is consistent with research on persuasive communications that the degree of change in attitudes and opinions is greater, the more credible or trustworthy the source of information (Pornpitakpan, 2004).”

“, 2015; Kernis & Sun, 1994; Kong, 2015), we asked respondents to provide source credibility ratings (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2006; Pornpitakpan, 2004) of the “experts” from whom they were receiving advice (patent attorneys or the CFO).”