If audience members have little or no regard for the speaker, they will not respond positively to persuasive appeals; attitude change in your audience is related to the audience’s positive perception of you, the speaker, on a personal level (McCroskey & Teven, 1999; Priester & Petty, 1995). Aristotle believed that speechmaking should emphasize the quality and impact of ideas, but he recognized that issues like a speaker’s competence, character/trustworthiness, and goodwill also play an important role in how well the audience listens to and accepts the message. He referred to this effect of the speaker as ethos, the speaker’s credibility.

Exactly which elements of a persuasive appeal are based on ethos or credibility? The first element is competence, or knowledge and experience with the subject matter. You can evoke this quality by preparing the speech at all stages (from research to delivery) by demonstrating personal acquaintance with the topic, by revealing familiarity with the work of experts on your topic, and by ensuring that your speech is well organized. The second aspect of credibility is character or trustworthiness, or the degree to which a speaker seems unbiased and fair. A speaker may have a great deal of knowledge, but if you think that he or she is trying to deceive you, then you may still not find that speaker credible. A third element of credibility is communicating goodwill, the degree to which an audience perceives the speaker caring for them and having their best interests at heart (Teven & McCroskey, 1997). To show goodwill, you must remember that one of your responsibilities is to help your audience make informed choices. By giving listeners all the information they need to make a decision, as well as addressing their needs and expectations relative to the speech, you show that you have their best interests at heart.

Research does indicate additional ways in which a speaker can utilize ethos. For example, audiences tend to be more easily persuaded by speakers who they perceive as being similar to them in background, attitudes, interests, and goals, a concept known as homophily (Wrench, McCroskey, & Richmond, 2008); research also reveals that we trust (and are more easily persuaded by) speakers we like (Teven, 2008). However, if a speaker is similar to us and very likeable but unprepared, uninformed, or disorganized (that is, not competent), we probably won’t find him or her to be particularly credible. And, as Frymier and Nadler (2013) explain, when liking and credibility come into conflict (for example, when we like a source with low credibility), credibility outweighs liking and we’re unlikely to be moved by the speaker’s message.

Finally, audiences tend to respond to a speaker’s physical attractiveness, which, if evaluated positively, helps a speaker seem more likeable and more credible (Cialdini, 2008; Yoon, Kim, & Kim, 1998) and can positively impact attitude and behavior change (Berscheid, Dion, Walster, & Walster, 1971; Chaiken, 1979; O’Keefe, 2002; Widgery, 1974). For example, studies in advertising and marketing find that physically attractive models are more effective at selling products than their less attractive counterparts, and the positive effect of attractiveness on persuasion seems to be greater when models are female and the audience is male (Baker & Churchill, 1977; Teven & Winters, 2007). Attractiveness does not always lead to persuasion, but it does seem to matter more if receivers have low involvement or rely on peripheral processing (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).