erity. Dynamism is a person's energy and confidence in communicating. Nonverbal communication is vital to competence, trustworthiness, and dynamism because these qualities are rarely stated directly. People rarely say, "I am competent" or "I am trustworthy."
The most noticeable nonverbal behavior that affects credibility is eye behavior and eye contact. Like the old saying, "Eyes are your window to the world," eyes can be the window to credibility. Many studies have been done on eye behaviors and their effect on communication and credibility. The first general finding on eye contact is that the maintenance of gaze while communicating is beneficial to credibility establishment, and, conversely, averting eye contact is detrimental to credibility establishment (Hemsley and Doob, 1978). Eye contact studies on credibility have produced information about the effect of eye contact on the three components of credibility. In tests where these three components were isolated, eye behaviors had little effect on dynamism. The competence and trustworthiness categories, however, produced a significant link. When volunteers were asked to rate competence of communicators with low eye contact and with high eye contact, the competence ratings were significantly higher for the subjects who exhibited high eye contact with the audience (Beebe, 1974). The same test produced significant differences in the trustworthiness ratings of those with low eye contact and high eye contact.
Surveys have shown that low eye contact is one of the behaviors most detrimental to trustworthiness. Other strange eye behaviors, such as shifting eyes, looking down at notes for extended periods, and blinking excessively, have been shown to lower credibility ratings (Leathers, 1986). The most important eye behavior in increasing credibility is the maintenance of eye contact while communicating. Eye behaviors can be controlled by a communicator, but the establ...