Effects of ego-involvement conditions on attitude change to high and low credibility communicators.

In a 2 X 2 X 2 design, male high school students received from a high or low credibility source a communication that was either plausible or implausi-ble, and that was given under high- or low-ego-involvement conditions. Re-sults indicated greater attitude change in low-ego-involvement-high-source-credibility conditions than in the other three combinations of source credi-bility and ego involvement. These latter three combinations did not differ significantly from each other. Results supported the theory that source credi-bility is a set influencing communication acceptance-rejection primarily under low-ego-involvement conditions. Extension of the theory to social conformity experiments is discussed. That high credibility sources elicit more attitude change than do low credibility sources is one of the most consistent findings in the attitude-change literature. In spite of this consistency, or perhaps because of this con-sistency, little attempt has been made to de-velop an explanation of source-credibility ef-fects. Most attitude research is run under somewhat low-ego-involvement conditions, and for these conditions it is hypothesized that source credibility does not effect attention to, or comprehension of, the communication but rather operates as an evaluative set influ-encing the subjects acceptance or rejection of the content of the communication. With high source credibility the subject is generally ac-cepting the content of the communication and does not evaluate it critically nor generate counterarguments. With low source credibility there is a tendency to reject the content, to feel that the arguments are biased or incom-plete, and probably there is some generation of counterarguments. If source credibility is operating as a set as described above under low-ego-involving con-ditions, then by creating conditions in which