Credibility

About: Credibility is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 13730 publications have been published within this topic receiving 331944 citations. The topic is also known as: believability & plausibility.

Trust in online advice

Abstract: Many people are now influenced by the information and advice they find on the Internet, much of it of dubious quality. This article describes two studies concerned with those factors capable of influencing people's response to online advice. The first study is a qualitative account of a group of house-hunters attempting to find worthwhile information online. The second study describes a survey of more than 2,500 people who had actively sought advice over the Internet. A framework for understanding trust in online advice is proposed in which first impressions are distinguished from more detailed evaluations. Good web design can influence the first process, but three key factors--source credibility, personalization, and predictability--are shown to predict whether people actually follow the advice given.

Persuasion by Cheap Talk

Abstract: We consider the credibility, persuasiveness, and informativeness of multidimensional cheap talk by an expert to a decision maker. We find that an expert with state-independent preferences can always make credible comparative statements that trade off the expert's incentive to exaggerate on each dimension. Such communication benefits the expert -- cheap talk is "persuasive" -- if her preferences are quasiconvex. Communication benefits a decision maker by allowing for a more informed decision, but strategic interactions between multiple decision makers can reverse this gain. We apply these results to topics including media bias, advertising, product recommendations, voting, and auction disclosure.

Preserving professional credibility: grounded theory study of medical trainees’ requests for clinical support

Abstract: Objective To develop a conceptual framework of the influences on medical trainees’ decisions regarding requests for clinical support from a supervisor. Design Phase 1: members of teaching teams in internal and emergency medicine were observed during regular clinical activities (216 hours) and subsequently completed brief interviews. Phase 2: 36 in depth interviews were conducted using videotaped vignettes to probe tacit influences on decisions to request support. Data collection and analysis used grounded theory methods. Setting Three teaching hospitals in an urban setting in Canada. Participants 124 members of teaching teams on general internal medicine wards and in the emergency department, comprising 31 attending physicians, 57 junior and senior residents, 28 medical students, and eight nurses. Purposeful sampling to saturation was conducted. Results Trainees’ decisions about whether or not to seek clinical support were influenced by three issues: the clinical question (clinical importance, scope of practice), supervisor factors (availability, approachability), and trainee factors (skill, desire for independence, evaluation). Trainees perceived that requesting frequent/inappropriate support threatened their credibility and used rhetorical strategies to preserve credibility. These strategies included building a case for the importance of requests, saving requests for opportune moments, making a plan before requesting support, and targeting requests to specific team members. Conclusions Trainees consider not only clinical implications but also professional credibility when requesting support from clinical supervisors. Exposing the complexity of this process provides the opportunity to make changes to training programmes to promote timely supervision and provides a framework for further exploration of the impact of clinical training on quality of care of patients.

Exploring Online News Credibility: The Relative Influence of Traditional and Technological Factors

Abstract: This study investigates a range of traditional and technological factors that contribute to credibility perceptions for three categories of online news sources. These sources include mainstream (usatoday.com, nytimes.com), independent (thedrudgereport.com, axisoflogic.com), and index-type (news.google.com, yahoo.news.com) websites. While traditional dimensions of credibility remain influential, results suggest that the hypertextuality of index-type online news sources is of particular importance. Multimediality and interactivity did not influence credibility perceptions. These results support the perspective that online media differ based on credibility and users' perceptions are in part based on the technological affordances of media. A major contribution of this research lies in the empirical demonstration of the relationships between technological characteristics of various online news sources and subsequent credibility assessments. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.