Effects of ego-involvement conditions on attitude change to high and low credibility communicators.

In a 2 X 2 X 2 design, male high school students received from a high or low credibility source a communication that was either plausible or implausible, and that was given under highor low-ego-involvement conditions. Results indicated greater attitude change in low-ego-involvement-high-sourcecredibility conditions than in the other three combinations of source credibility and ego involvement. These latter three combinations did not differ significantly from each other. Results supported the theory that source credibility is a "set" influencing communication acceptance-rejection primarily under low-ego-involvement conditions. Extension of the theory to social conformity experiments is discussed.