Source Credibility

Source credibility
Source credibility, is about the source and spokesperson’s credibility. From previous literature, source expertise and trustworthiness are crucial to be transmitted from a credible source. The spokesperson’s credibility has the following characteristics: to possess relevant expertise on the information topic, and to be trusted to transmit objective opinions (Hussein, 2012).
Other studies state that the source’s expertise is the level of convincing. Convincing means that the communication source should have “knowledge, experience and skills”. The credible source is perceived more trustworthy as the trustworthiness determines source’s credibility. A trustworthy source is perceived by others to be “honest, credible and dependable”
On the peripheral processing route, the motivation is low and attitudes are formed by arguments’ cues which are influenced by previous positive or negative cues. Also, according to the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) under conditions of low elaboration the information from a credible source would have a more positive effect on the acceptance (Hussein, 2012; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). However, ELM theory used to predict attitude is criticized. Critics appear due to different styles for information processing. The ELM theory does not include differences for classifying object cues as e.g. credibility, order of presentation and argument strength. Someone can be motivated to process information centrally, and another person can process information peripherally. For creating effective persuasive messages is important to classify object cues by the credibility source. Also emotion was found important for changing attitudes. In cognition the emotion can play a role to form long lasting attitude change. This is another area that ELM lacks on, the role of emotion to be included in persuasion, through the direct route and how it will influence the intention (Hussein, 2012)