Sincere

"Sincere" means to be trustworthy, honest, truthful, open, candid: to be a person of integrity and good moral character.

Ideally, all three qualities (being expert, sincere, and benevolent) should be really genuine. Yet, Aristotle described that persuasion is still effective if there is only the appearance of these qualities.

So it's possible for a persuader to be pretending or lying, to be a fake or a phony, and still be very effective.

Maybe it shouldn't be that way. However, as Aristotle described it, realistically, that's the way things are.

In person-to-person communication, we often have some cues, some feelings we pick up, to sense whether a person is trustworthy or not. Many people blush, stammer, or avert their eyes when they lie.

On television, any suspicious or inappropriate nonverbals can be edited out.

In person, we often know another's past reputation; on TV, we seldom do. Thus, it's much more difficult to know if someone (an ad, a product) on television is really honest and genuinely sincere. They may be.

There are thousands of legitimate companies making good and useful products. In the past, in small and simple societies, honest merchants established trust with their customers on a long term, personal basis. Business transactions today are much more complex. Because the scope and variety of products we use, the whole production process is often distant and obscure from the millions of consumers.

Yet, honest sellers still have the problem of attracting customers and of assuring them that the products are good. So there is a legitimate need for corporate sellers to create a sense of confidence, to project a good image. There are many honest people, many good products, and many mutually shared benefits.

But, problems do occur. Deception is possible.

Political leaders and business leaders often bemoan the "credibility gap" today, the fact that people are becoming more skeptical of information sent to them by these leaders. But, such growing distrust of the professional persuaders may well be a very reasonable response: reducing the degree of blind-faith acceptance of incoming messages may well be a survival behavior countering the increased potential for deception.