The Persuasive Effect of Source Credibility: Tests of Cognitive Response

1978/03/01 by Brian Sternthal, Ruby Dholakia, Ruby Roy Dholakia +1 · 525 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Advertising #Business #Cognition #Cognitive psychology #Communication in Education and Healthcare #Computer science #Credibility #Data mining #Information processing #Misinformation and Its Impacts #Persuasion #Persuasive communication #Political science #Psychology #Public Relations and Crisis Communication #Relation (database) #Social psychology #Source credibility

paper · doi:10.1086/208704

published in Journal of Consumer Research 4(4), 252 (Oxford University Press)

openalex publication_date 1978/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Two experiments are reported identifying the circumstances in which high credibility either facilitates, inhibits, or has no effect on the communicator's persuasiveness in relation to a less credible source. These data provide support for the cognitive response view of information processing and suggest the importance of message recipient's initial opinion as a determinant of persuasion.

Cited by

• Who is the Celebrity Endorser? Cultural Foundations of the Endorsement Process
• A Knowledge-Based System for Advertising Design
• Believing and Sharing Information by Fake Sources: An Experiment
• Why Us?! How Members of Minority Groups React to Public Health Advertisements Featuring Their Own Group
• Fifty years of celebrity endorser research: Support for a comprehensive celebrity endorsement strategy framework

Related

• The Persuasiveness of Source Credibility: A Critical Review of Five Decades' Evidence
• Source factors in persuasion: A self-validation approach
• When Do Sources Persuade? The Effect of Source Credibility on Opinion Change
• Testing the mediating role of cognitive responses in the elaboration likelihood model
• The Influence of Source Credibility on Communication Effectiveness