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Yale Approach |
The Yale Approach - Overview
Speaker
Message:
- Message
Organization
- Message Content
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Yale Approach
Glossary
References
Self-test
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Speaker
The source, or the person (or group) who is presenting a
message, can influence its persuasiveness. This concept is
frequently referred to as “speaker credibility,” although
of course it applies to the credibility of writers as well.
Researchers who employed the Yale approach might not have
extended their ideas to television or movies, but we can
consider producers, directors, and actors/actresses to be
kinds of sources. Although sources have a variety of
characteristics that have been studied (for example,
attractiveness and similarity), the two most important aspects
of sources in the Yale research are expertise and
trustworthiness (see, e.g.,
McGinnies & Ward,
1980;
Wiener
& Mowen, 1986). It makes sense that we should be more
likely to accept (be persuaded by) the words of experts than
of those who are clueless. Similarly, if we do not trust the
source of a message, we almost certainly will not be persuaded
by that person. The research evidence shows that expert
sources are usually more persuasive than non-experts, and that
trustworthy sources are more likely to change an audience’s
attitudes than untrustworthy persuaders. Messages with expert
and/or trustworthy sources might influence several steps of
the process of persuasion. For example, we might pay more
attention to experts or those whom we trust, or we might
ignore those whom we do not trust or who we feel are
uninformed. We might be more likely to retain ideas from a
reputable source than a disreputable source. However,
expertise and trustworthiness probably help most with
yielding: We are more likely to accept a message when we
respect and trust the source -- and we are unlikely to yield
to a message when we don’t respect or trust the source.
It is important to realize that what matters the most in
credibility is the audience’s perceptions of the
source. That is, the most important factor in persuasion is
not whether the speaker really is an expert or trustworthy,
but whether the audience thinks the source is an expert or
trustworthy. If the audience thinks the source is an expert
and/or trustworthy, it is more likely that the audience will
be persuaded by that source. On the other hand, if the
audience believes that the source knows nothing about the
topic or can’t be trusted, it is unlikely that the audience
will be persuaded by messages from that source. Of course, if
a persuader really is an expert (or really is trustworthy), it
should be easy to convince the audience that they should defer
to that source. Note that this emphasis on the audience’s
perceptions of the source also means that some members of the
audience might believe a speaker is credible while others in
the same audience could think that speaker is not credible. A
persuader ought to try to find out what the audience thinks
about him or her as the source, and if some or all of the
audience thinks poorly of the source, the persuader should try
to improve their opinion (at the beginning of the message).
The cognitive response model (Elaboration Likelihood
Model),
discussed in another tutorial, offers more insights into how
sources influence persuasion.
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