A panel of 178 university students used the Leathers Personal Credibility Scale to rate Governor Bill Clinton before and after a television interview and ten weeks later before and after a televised debate. The findings show a significant difference in personal credibility among the test scores and new scale findings emerge from the data.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BaileyK. D. (1987) Methods of social research. (3rd ed.) New York: Free Press.
2.
BarberJ. D. (1980) The puke of politics: Electing presidents in the media age. New York: Norton.
3.
BarberJ. D. (1992) The presidential character: Predicting performance in the White House. (4th ed.) Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
4.
GallupG.Jr. (1987) The impact of presidential debates on the vote and turnout. In SwerdlowJ. L. (Ed.), Presidential debates, 1988 and beyond. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Pp. 34–42.
5.
GardnerJ. W. (1990) On leadership. New York: Free Press.
6.
HargroveE. C. (1974) What manner of man? The crisis of the contemporary presidency. In BarberJ. D. (Ed.), Choosing the president. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Pp. 7–34.
7.
KesselJ. H. (1984) Presidential campaign politics. Homewood, IL: Dorsey.
8.
KrausS. (1988) Televised presidential debates and public policy. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
9.
KuppermanJ. L. (1991) Character. New York: Oxford Univer. Press.
10.
LeathersD. G. (1992) Successful nonverbal communication: Principles and applications. New York: Macmillan.
11.
McCroskeyJ. C. (1966) Scales for the measurement of ethos. Communication Monographs, 33, 65–72.
12.
McCroskeyJ. C.JensonT. A. (1975) Image of mass media news sources. Journal of Broadcasting, 19, 169–179.
13.
McCroskeyJ. C.YoungT. J. (1981) Ethos and credibility: The construct and its measurement after three decades. Central States Speech Journal, 32, 24–34.
14.
New York Times. (1992) Clinton defends his privacy and says the press intruded. CXLI (A14, 5–6, January 27).
15.
New York Times. (1992) Clinton faces questions about his past and spars with rival. CLXI (1:6, April 6).
16.
NieN. H.VerbaS.PetrocikJ. R. (1979) The changing American voter. (Enl. ed.) Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer. Press.
17.
NimmoD. (1978) Political communication and public opinion in America. Santa Monica, CA: Goodyear.
18.
O'KeefeD. J. (1990) Persuasion: Theory and practice. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
19.
PageB. I. (1978) Choices and echoes in presidential elections: Rational man and electoral democracy. Chicago, IL: Univer. of Chicago Press.
20.
PhilportJ. C.BalonR. E. (1975) Candidate image in broadcast debate. Journal of Broadcasting, 19, 181–193.
21.
PolsbyN. W.WildavskyA. (1976) Presidential elections: Strategies of American electoral politics. New York: Scribner.
22.
PowellF. C.WanzenriedJ. W. (1991) Perceptual changes in source credibility: Repeated tests using two candidates during a political campaign. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 73, 1107–1114.
23.
WanzenriedJ. W.PowellF. C.FranksL. J. (1989) Perceptions of political competency and the impact of a televised debate. Psychological Reports, 64, 825–826.
24.
WanzenriedJ. W.Smith-HowellD.PowellF. C. (1992) Source credibility and presidential campaigns: Governor Clinton and the allegation of marital infidelity. Psychological Reports, 70, 992–994.
25.
WayneS. J. (1988) The road to the White House: The politics of presidential elections. New York: St. Martin's.
26.
WildmanR. W.IIWildmanR. W. (1976) Note on application of the semantic differential to the electoral process. Psychological Reports, 38, 1185–1186.