Pathos

Your word choices have a powerful impact on your audience, as words have different meanings for different people (Chapter 3). Let’s say you’re persuading your audience to adopt a healthy diet. Some people define healthy as low fat and high fiber, whereas others perceive healthy as an organic, vegan diet. To make sure your audience is on the same page, define how you are using the term.

Another means of persuasion is appealing to the listeners’ emotions. The term Aristotle used for this is pathos. It requires creating a certain disposition in the audience, often through emotionally charged language and description. For example, consider this statement: “The sight of fishermen slashing and slicing baby seals should send chills through even the numbest and most stoic fur-wearers on earth.” Makes your skin crawl, doesn’t it?

Although emotion can be a powerful means of moving an audience, emotional appeals may be not effective if used in isolation—particularly if the emotion you arouse is fear (Rothman, Salovey, Turvey, & Fishkin, 1993; Sutton, 1982). In fact, fear appeals are typically only effective if the speaker can get the audience to see that the threat is serious, that it is likely to happen to them, and that there is a specific action they can take to avoid the threat (Boster & Mongeau, 1984; Maddux & Rogers, 1983).

Pathos is typically most effective when used alongside logos and ethos, which offer ways of dealing with and addressing the emotions. For example, consider the Montana Meth Project (2013), “a large-scale prevention program aimed at reducing Meth use through public service messaging, public policy, and community outreach” in the state of Montana. The organization’s ads are indeed emotional, graphic, and frightening, playing into viewers’ love of family and friends, fear of poor health and degenerating appearance, and sense of shame and horror. A particularly moving print ad depicts an unconscious young woman in an emergency room. It reads, “No one ever thinks they’ll wake up here. Meth will change that” (Montana Meth Project, 2013). But the logical appeal is also sound—teenagers who become addicted to methamphetamines will destroy themselves and their loved ones—and the ring of truth enhances the persuasiveness of the emotional appeal. The project’s follow-up research shows that the campaign has had overwhelmingly positive results: Teen meth use in Montana has declined by 63 percent, adult meth use has declined by 72 percent, and meth-related crime has decreased by 62 percent since the beginning of the campaign (Montana Meth Project, 2013).