A critique of factor analytic approaches to the study of credibility

Reservations are offered about three aspects of factor‐analytic studies of credibility: (I) scale selection and factor naming procedures; (2) statistical procedures; and (3) their conceptualization of credibility. Scales have seldom been selected by a pre‐sample of subjects, semantic differential scales have been used almost exclusively, and similar names have been applied to factors which contain different scales. Certain credibility factor structures have been used as if they were generalizable far beyond the raters, sources, and factoring procedures which generated them. Credibility ought to be conceptualized as a process involving (a) source‐message characteristics, (b) inferred attributes, (c) source functions in specific topic‐situations, (d) criteria for source acceptability, and (e) receiver responses.