Advanced search
Publication Cover
Communication Monographs Volume 66, 1999 - Issue 1
Submit an article Journal homepage
5,828
Views
669
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

Goodwill: A reexamination of the construct and its measurement

James C. McCroskey Professor of Communication Studies, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 26506–6293
&
Jason J. Teven Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Northwest Missouri State University
Pages 90-103 | Published online: 02 Jun 2009
 
Sample our Communication Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, 2013 & 2014 volumes FREE to you for 14 days

Abstract

As a result of the controversy over the dimensionality of the ethos/source credibility construct and the associated plethora of empirical studies in the 1960s and 1970s, Aristotle's dimension of “goodwill” has been dismissed by many contemporary theorists and researchers. It is argued that this occurred as a result of errors made in the earlier empirical research and that “goodwill” can be measured, contrary to earlier claims, and should be restored to its former status in rhetorical communication theory. Empirical research is reported indicating the existence of the goodwill dimension as part of the structure of the ethos/source credibility construct and a measure of that dimension is provided with evidence for its reliability and validity.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Order Reprints Request Corporate Permissions

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

Request Academic Permissions

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.

Related Research Data

The Social Pragmatics of Communication with Social Robots: Effects of Robot Message Design Logic in a Regulative Context
Source: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
The effects of teacher self‐disclosure via Facebook on teacher credibility
Source: Informa UK Limited
Through the Years: An Examination of Instructor Age and Misbehavior on Perceived Teacher Credibility
Source: Informa UK Limited
Agency Cues in Online Comments: Exploring Their Relationship with Anonymity and Frequency of Helpful Posts
Source: Informa UK Limited
The relationship between behavioural integrity, competence, goodwill, trustworthiness, and motivating language of a principal
Source: Informa UK Limited
The character of scientists in the Nobel Prize speeches.
Source: SAGE Publications
Teacher Technology Policies and Online Communication Apprehension as Predictors of Learner Empowerment
Source: Informa UK Limited
Image of mass media news sources
Source: Informa UK Limited
The relationship of perceived teacher caring with student learning and teacher evaluation
Source: Informa UK Limited
Motivating factors: perceptions of justice and their relationship with managerial and organizational trust
Source: Informa UK Limited
Relationships among students’ perceptions of native and non-native EFL teachers’ immediacy behaviours and credibility and students’ willingness to communicate in class
Source: Informa UK Limited
Image Repair Campaign Strategies Addressing Race: Paula Deen, Social Media, and Defiance
Source: Informa UK Limited
Psychological Reactance and Resistance Intention in the Classroom: Effects of Perceived Request Politeness and Legitimacy, Relationship Distance, and Teacher Credibility.
Source: Informa UK Limited
Scales for the measurement of ethos
Source: Informa UK Limited
Earning Influence by Communicating Respect: Facework's Contributions to Effective Instructional Feedback
Source: Informa UK Limited
Prioritizing public interest in public relations: Public interest relations:
Source: SAGE Publications
Grounding Twenty-first-Century Public Relations Praxis in Aristotelian Ethos
Source: Informa UK Limited
Is Coming Out in the Classroom Still an Occupational Hazard? A Replication of Russ, Simonds, and Hunt (2002)
Source: Informa UK Limited
"As Good as Your Word": Face-Threat Mitigation and the Use of Instructor Nonverbal Cues on Students' Perceptions of Digital Feedback.
Source: Informa UK Limited
Construction and Validation of an Exclusive Scale
Source: SAGE Publications
Empathy or perceived credibility? An empirical study on individual donation behavior in charitable crowdfunding
Source: Emerald
Primed Authenticity: How Priming Impacts Authenticity Perception of Social Media Influencers
Source: Taylor & Francis
The Effects of Instructor Credibility, Grade Incentives, and Framing of a Technology Policy on Students’ Intent to Comply and Motivation to Learn
Source: Informa UK Limited
Dimensions of communicator credibility: An oblique solution
Source: Informa UK Limited
How do Patients in a Medical Interview Perceive a Robot versus Human Physician
Source: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
The influence of structural and message features on Web site credibility
Source: Wiley
Effects of Humor on Intergroup Communication in Intractable Conflicts: Using Humor in an Intergroup Appeal Facilitates Stronger Agreement Between Groups and a Greater Willingness to Compromise
Source: Wiley
The roles of celebrity endorsers’ and consumers’ vegan identity in marketing communication about veganism
Source: Informa UK Limited
Superior–Subordinate Aggressive Communication Among Catholic Priests and Sisters in the United States:
Source: SAGE Publications
Ranking versus reputation: perception and effects of search result credibility
Source: Informa UK Limited
A Preliminary Study of Classroom Motivators and De-Motivators from a Motivation-Hygiene Perspective.
Source: Informa UK Limited
Lessons From the P6 Symposium and the 2012 Election Campaign
Source: SAGE Publications
Examining First- and Second-Order Factor Structures for News Credibility
Source: Informa UK Limited
Contributing factors to the use of health-related websites.
Source: Informa UK Limited
Understanding Work/Life Blending: Credibility Implications for Those Who Date at Work
Source: (:unav)
Ethos and credibility: The construct and its measurement after three decades
Source: Informa UK Limited
The impact of teacher immediacy and perceived caring on teacher competence and trustworthiness
Source: Informa UK Limited
Examining how image restoration strategy impacts perceptions of corporate social responsibility, organization‐public relationships, and source credibility
Source: Emerald
Why Won’t You Answer the Question? Mass-Mediated Deception Detection After Journalists’ Accusations of Politicians’ Evasion
Source: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Supportive communication from bystanders of cyberbullying: indirect effects and interactions between source and message characteristics
Source: Informa UK Limited
When is Disinformation (In)Credible? Experimental Findings on Message Characteristics and Individual Differences
Source: Informa UK Limited
Enhancing instructor credibility and immediacy in online multimedia designs
Source: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
The Influence of Medical Orientation on Perceived Physician Credibility
Source: Informa UK Limited
Says Who? An Experiment on Allegations of Corruption and Credibility of Sources
Source: SAGE Publications
Who or What to Believe: Trust and the Differential Persuasiveness of Human and Anthropomorphized Messengers
Source: SAGE Publications
How do you perceive this author? Understanding and modeling authors' communication quality in social media.
Source: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Attitudes About Black and Standard American English
Source: SAGE Publications
How Does a Radio Host’s Testimonial Influence Media Experiences? The Indirect Effect of Social Presence
Source: Informa UK Limited
Evaluations of Presence, Credibility, and Attraction
Source: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Dimensions of source credibility: A test for reproducibility
Source: Informa UK Limited
Verbal Venting in the Social Web: Effects of Anonymity and Group Norms on Aggressive Language Use in Online Comments
Source: SAGE Publishing
Scales for the measurement of ethos: Another attempt
Source: Informa UK Limited
Sleeper effect from below: Long-term effects of source credibility and user comments on the persuasiveness of news articles:
Source: SAGE Publications
Experts or Advocates: Shifting Roles of Central Sources Used by Journalists in News Stories?
Source: Informa UK Limited
Effects of Web News Attributions
Source: Wiley
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Source Credibility Theory Applied to Logo and Website Design for Heightened Credibility and Consumer Trust
Source: Informa UK Limited
Risky Business: Challenges in Vaccine Risk Communication
Source: American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
Scientific risk communication about controversial issues influences public perceptions of scientists' political orientations and credibility.
Source: The Royal Society
Motivating Language Intensity: A Study of Wyoming Superintendents Motivating Language Use as Perceived by Their Principals:
Source: SAGE Publications
Computer-Mediated Word-of-Mouth Communication: The Influence of Mixed Reviews on Student Perceptions of Instructors and Courses
Source: Informa UK Limited
Designing and Testing Credibility: The Case of a Serious Game on Nightlife Risks
Source: Springer International Publishing
Internal audit standard compliance, potentially competing duties, and external auditors' reliance decision
Source: Wiley
The effects of credibility cues on the selection of search engine results
Source: Wiley
Conflict in the Classroom: Considering the Effects of Partisan Difference on Political Education
Source: Informa UK Limited
Correction: Controversy matters: Impacts of topic and solution controversy on the perceived credibility of a scientist who advocates(PLoS ONE 12:11 (e0187511) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0187511)
Source: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Does Trust Matter? Analyzing the Impact of Trust on the Perceived Risk and Acceptance of Nuclear Power Energy
Source: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Perceptions of Health Care Professionals' Credibility as a Predictor of Patients' Satisfaction with their Medical Care and Physician
Source: Informa UK Limited
Teacher Power Mediates the Effects of Technology Policies on Teacher Credibility
Source: Informa UK Limited
Does Engagement in Advocacy Hurt the Credibility of Scientists? Results from a Randomized National Survey Experiment
Source: Taylor & Francis
All the President’s Tweets: Effects of Exposure to Trump’s “Fake News” Accusations on Perceptions of Journalists, News Stories, and Issue Evaluation
Source: Informa UK Limited
Liking the (Funny) Messenger: The Influence of News Parody Exposure, Mirth, and Predispositions on Media Trust
Source: Taylor & Francis
Use and perceived credibility of medication information sources for patients with a rare illness: differences by gender.
Source: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Speaking of character: Character strength references in movies and presidential nomination speeches
Source: Informa UK Limited
Student Evaluations of a (Rude) Spoken Dialogue System Insights from an Experimental Study
Source: Hindawi Limited
Finding Common Ground: Can Provider-Patient Race Concordance and Self-disclosure Bolster Patient Trust, Perceptions, and Intentions?
Source: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Using persuasive communication to co-create behavioural change – engaging with guests to save resources at tourist accommodation facilities
Source: Informa UK Limited
‘The bot predicted rain, grab an umbrella’: few perceived differences in communication quality of a weather Twitterbot versus professional and amateur meteorologists
Source: Informa UK Limited
The Factor Structure of Source Credibility Scales for Immediate Superiors in the Organizational Context.
Source: Informa UK Limited
Psychopathy and ratings of persuasiveness: Examining their relations in weaker and stronger contexts
Source: PsyArXiv
Impulsivity and Academic Cheating
Source: Informa UK Limited
I, teacher: using artificial intelligence (AI) and social robots in communication and instruction*
Source: Informa UK Limited
Effect of Diabetes Online Community Engagement on Health Indicators: Cross-Sectional Study.
Source: JMIR Publications Inc.
Web credibility assessment: Conceptualization, operationalization, variability, and models
Source: Wiley
Civility, credibility, and health information: The impact of uncivil comments and source credibility on attitudes about vaccines.
Source: SAGE Publications
The Relationships of Perceived Health Professionals’ Communication Traits and Credibility with Perceived Patient Confidentiality
Source: Informa UK Limited
Enhancing Student Perceptions of Fairness: The Relationship between Instructor Credibility and Classroom Justice
Source: Informa UK Limited
Commonality Analysis: A Method for Decomposing Explained Variance in Multiple Regression Analyses.
Source: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Negativity, Positivity, and Nonnormativity Effects
Source: SAGE Publications
Do Moral Communicators Make Better Listeners? Personality, Virtue and Receiver Apprehension as Predictors of Active Empathetic-Listening
Source: Informa UK Limited
Identity on Social Networks as a Cue: Identity, Retweets, and Credibility
Source: Informa UK Limited
Behavioral Indicators of Transformational Leadership in the College Classroom
Source: Informa UK Limited
Succulent Sins, Personalized Politics, and Mainstream Media's Tabloidization Temptation
Source: IGI Global
Student satisfaction in interactive engagement-based physics classes
Source: American Physical Society (APS)
Advisor–Advisee Communication Two: The Influence of Verbal Aggression and Humor Assessment on Advisee Perceptions of Advisor Credibility and Affective Learning This paper was presented at the 2004 National Communication Association Convention in Chicago, Illinois.
Source: Informa UK Limited
The Effect of Teacher Misbehaviors on Teacher Credibility and Affect for the Teacher
Source: Informa UK Limited
Expectations of technology use during meetings: An experimental test of manager policy, device use, and task-acknowledgment:
Source: SAGE Publications
The Impact of Anonymity on Perceptions of Source Credibility and Influence in Computer-Mediated Group Communication: A Test of Two Competing Hypotheses:
Source: SAGE Publications
Staying Alive: TV News Facebook Posts, Perceived Credibility, and Engagement Intent:
Source: SAGE Publications
The Uncertainty Reducing Capabilities of Primary Care Physicians’ Video Biographies for Choosing a New Doctor: Is a Video Worth More Than Two Hundred Words?
Source: Informa UK Limited
Tweeting Fast Matters, But Only if I Think About It: Information Updates on Social Media
Source: Informa UK Limited
The virtual maze: A behavioural tool for measuring trust:
Source: SAGE Publications
Social Media as Information Source: Recency of Updates and Credibility of Information
Source: Oxford University Press (OUP)
A summary of experimental research in ethos
Source: Informa UK Limited
Effects of Verbal Aggression and Party Identification Bias on Perceptions of Political Speakers
Source: SAGE Publications
Factors of source credibility
Source: Informa UK Limited
Scientific Uncertainty in News Coverage of Cancer Research: Effects of Hedging on Scientists' and Journalists' Credibility
Source: Oxford University Press (OUP)
The effects of similarity, parasocial identification, and source credibility in obesity public service announcements on diet and exercise self-efficacy.
Source: SAGE Publications

Linking provided by 

Related research

People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.

Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.

Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.