ABSTRACT
A high proportion of the knowledge and attitudes that each of us possesses about our world was obtained from other people, and some persons who provide us with information have an easier time persuading us than others. The recognition that the persuasive impact of a communication can differ depending on the characteristics of its source stimulated some of the first carefully controlled experiments on the attitude change process (e.g., Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953; Hovland, Lumsdaine, & Sheffield, 1949). The goal of those early experi-, ments and much of the research on the persuasiveness of message sources during the next three decades was to identify specific characteristics of persuasive sources rather than to develop theoretical explanations for the phenomena.
