Source Credibility and Persuasion: the Role of Message Position in Self-Validation

Highly credible communicators have been found to elicit greater confidence and attitudes that are based more on recipients' thoughts (i.e.,self-validation) compared with non-credible sources. however,source credibility may produce different effects on thought confidence and persuasion depending on the position of an advocacy. when messages are proattitudinal,credible sources should initiate self-validation because recipients may be motivated to confirm (bolster) their existing views. conversely,when appeals are counterattitudinal,recipients may be motivated to defend their opinions and disconfirm information. in these contexts,greater self-validation may emerge when a communicator lacks rather than possesses credibility. when a message was counterattitudinal and contained weak arguments,evidence of self-validation was found with low source credibility (studies 1 and 2) and among participants high in defense motivation (study 2). in response to strong,proattitudinal arguments,findings were consistent with high credibility producing self-validation when bolstering motivation was high (study 3). © 2014 by the society for personality and social psychology,inc.