credibility gap

The discrepancy between the lofty promises that a person makes and the resulting action or situation. The politician suffered a credibility gap regarding his claims about the economy's improvement because his constituents were still unable to find work. For two weeks straight, our contractor has promised to come finish our job, and we still haven't seen him. The credibility gap is definitely growing—along with our annoyance. If you overpromise in the interview and under-deliver in the job, you're definitely going to face a credibility gap.

Distrust of a public statement or position, as in The current credibility gap at City Hall is the result of miscommunication between the mayor's office and the press . This term originated about 1960 in connection with the American public's disinclination to believe government statements about the Vietnam War. It soon was extended to individuals and corporations as well as government agencies to express a lack of confidence in the truth of their statements, or perception of a discrepancy between words and actions.

Lack of belief in a statement or policy. This phrase came into being in 1965 during the Vietnam War, when the American public became aware of differences between what the government said and what actually happened. After the war it was extended to discrepancies between the words and actions of both individuals and corporations. Some believe this term was spawned by the missile gap invoked during the 1960 presidential campaign, when John F. Kennedy charged that U.S. missile production was lagging behind the Soviet Union’s. Soon after the election the charge was dismissed as false. Since then, according to William Safire, “missile gap” has been used to mean exaggerated and misleading claims.