ABSTRACT
From Aristotle to McCroskey, credibility has been conceptualized as comprised of three components: competence, trustworthiness, and goodwill. The last dimension, goodwill, according to McCroskey and Teven (1999), has been neglected because . . . of misanalysis and/or misinterpretation of data in a wide variety of empirical studies. To remedy this omission, James McCroskey and Jason Teven developed a measure of ethos/credibility in an attempt to recapture the “lost dimensions” of the goodwill construct. Goodwill has been conceptualized as intent-toward-receiver (McCroskey & Young, 1981) and perceived caring (McCroskey, 1992; Teven & McCroskey, 1997). Competence has been defined as expertise and intelligence, while trustworthiness references qualities such as honesty and character. Scale items for the three dimensions were generated from prior studies (McCroskey, 1966; McCroskey & Young, 1981; Teven & McCroskey, 1997). The resulting measure is comprised of 18 items representing the three subscales mentioned above and employs a 7-point semantic differential response option format.
