Research on organizational orientations has determined that workers can be categorized into three groups on the basis of their trait orientations toward working in organizations: "upward mobiles," "indifferents," and "ambivalents." Because workers' organizational orientation is predictive of their success, we reasoned that students' orientation…

Argues that "goodwill," the third of Aristotle's three elements of ethos, is ignored by many contemporary researchers because of misanalysis and/or misinterpretation of data. Reports empirical research indicating the existence of the goodwill dimension as part of the structure of the ethos/source credibility construct, and provides a…

Finds strong positive main effects for teacher immediacy and strong negative effects for teacher misbehavior on all three dimensions of credibility (competence, trustworthiness, and caring/goodwill). Finds, however, that with low teacher immediacy, both "nonmisbehavior" and misbehavior produced perceptions of low credibility; whereas…

Examines the effect of varying the quality of evidence in a persuasive message. Concludes that, while good evidence may not be necessary to persuasive communication, poor evidence is detrimental. (PD)

This study investigated the effect of teacher misbehavior on student affect for the teacher and teacher credibility. Participants completed an Affect Toward Teacher Scale and a Source Credibility Scale in reference to one of four experimental conditions. The first two research questions examined the effect of misbehaviors on student affect for the…

Suggests a method of measuring the impact of women's views on US public opinion. Social, political and educational issues are emphasized. (MH)

This study reports a portion of a series of investigations designed to determine to what extent credibility scales can be generalized. The investigation data was collected in six phases, representing six subject populations. All of the subjects were either college students or non-student adults. Subjects were asked to respond to one of four…

Reviews research involving the definition and measurement of the source credibility construct and reports on a new study. Argues that future factor analytic studies of source credibility would serve no useful purpose, that the historical definitions of the construct should be retained, and that satisfactory measures already exist. (PD)