10.4.3 Pathos (Emotional Appeals)

When you attempt to rouse people’s anger or sympathies in a persuasive effort, you are using emotional appeals. Such direct emotional appeals, however, are less effective in technical or business writing, since these styles attempt to be more measured or objective. Effective pathos in this situation would instead appeal to common motivations, goals, and values. Arguing that a certain course of action would save the company money, for instance, would appeal to what the audience wants. For another example, picture a company that really values long-term sustainability. Arguing that a certain course of action would reduce a company’s carbon footprint would appeal to the company’s values, and therefore, probably to the values of their clients.

Appealing to emotion is also important in persuasive speaking. Emotions are psychological and physical reactions, such as fear or anger, to stimuli that we experience as a feeling. Our feelings or emotions directly impact our own point of view and readiness to communicate, but also influence how, why, and when we say things. Emotions influence how you say what you say, how you hear, and what you hear. Emotions can move your audience to change or act in certain ways.

Humor, guilt, and fear are the three common emotional appeals (Frymier, 2021). Be cautious of overusing emotional appeals or manipulating emotions in presentations—it is unethical, and you may encounter emotional resistance from your audience. Emotional resistance involves getting tired, often to the point of rejection, of hearing messages that attempt to elicit an emotional response. Emotional appeals can reduce the audience’s ability to receive messages.

Professor Frymier in Persuasion: Integrating theory, research, and practice (2021) summarizes research regarding the three common emotional appeals. When using humor in persuasive messages, we must remember three things: not to offend our audience; the humor should be relevant and help audience process the message rather than get distracted by it; and elements of logos and ethos should be used along with humor (p. 93).

If we use guilt appeals, moderate levels are more persuasive than high levels. In addition, because guilt appeals make people feel bad, we must consider the ethics of using such appeals (Frymier, 2021, p. 94). Finally, if we include fear appeals that typically tell audience how vulnerable they are to a threat (susceptibility) and the negative consequences of not following our recommendation (severity), we must also build into the message the idea that the audience have the ability to adopt our suggestion (self-efficacy) and our recommendation will mitigate the threat (response efficacy) (Frymier, 2021, p. 104).

It is also important to consider how the use of emotional appeals in a speech could impact you personally. Some emotional appeals may be difficult to share during a presentation and to an audience (even if you know some/all the audience). Never use a personal story, or even a story of someone you do not know if the inclusion of that story causes you to become overemotional. While it’s important to discuss relevant and sometimes emotionally difficult topics, you need to assess your own relationship to the message.

Becoming overemotional in a presentation can impact your speaker ethos and credibility and your effectiveness. If you become upset during your presentation or are overemotional, it may suggest the need to rewrite the message because you may not be ready to discuss the issue you have selected or share the emotional appeal you wanted to include. Similarly, it is important to keep in mind the visual supports that you include in the presentation and how they might impact you or the audience. If they stir too much emotion, are very upsetting to you and/or your audience in any way or are graphic, it is best to find other visuals to include to help make your point.

Now that we have discussed types of appeals, watch the video below to get ideas on how to integrate logos, pathos, and ethos in your presentation.

This section is adapted from the following sources:

“Informative and Persuasive Presentations” in Communication@Work – Simple Book Publishing by Jordan Smith available licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

“Logos, Ethos, Pathos” in Howdy or Hello? Technical and Professional Communication – Simple Book Publishing Copyright © 2022 by Matt McKinney, Kalani Pattison, Sarah LeMire, Kathy Anders, and Nicole Hagstrom-Schmidt licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial–ShareAlike 4.0 International License