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Appeal to emotion or ''argumentum ad passiones'' (meaning the same in Latin) is an
informal fallacy Informal fallacies are a type of incorrect argument in natural language. The source of the error is not just due to the ''form'' of the argument, as is the case for formal fallacies, but can also be due to their ''content'' and ''context''. Fallac ...
characterized by the manipulation of the recipient's emotions in order to win an argument, especially in the absence of
fact A fact is a datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance, which, if accepted as true and proven true, allows a logical conclusion to be reached on a true–false evaluation. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scient ...
ual
evidence Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field. In epistemology, evidenc ...
. This kind of appeal to emotion is a type of
red herring A red herring is a figurative expression referring to a logical fallacy in which a clue or piece of information is or is intended to be misleading, or distracting from the actual question. Red herring may also refer to: Animals * Red herring (fish ...
and encompasses several logical fallacies, including
appeal to consequences Appeal to consequences, also known as ''argumentum ad consequentiam'' (Latin for "argument to the consequence"), is an argument that concludes a hypothesis (typically a belief) to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desir ...
,
appeal to fear An appeal to fear (also called ''argumentum ad metum'' or ''argumentum in terrorem'') is a fallacy in which a person attempts to create support for an idea by attempting to increase fear towards an alternative. An appeal to fear is related to the ...
, appeal to flattery, appeal to pity,
appeal to ridicule Appeal to ridicule (also called appeal to mockery, ''ad absurdo'', or the horse laugh) is an informal fallacy which presents an opponent's argument as absurd, ridiculous, or humorous, and therefore not worthy of serious consideration. Appeal to r ...
, appeal to spite, and
wishful thinking Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs based on what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than on evidence, rationality, or reality. It is a product of resolving conflicts between belief and desire. Methodologies to examine wishful think ...
. The appeal to emotion is only fallacious when the emotions that are elicited are irrelevant to evaluating the truth of the conclusion and serve to distract from rational consideration of relevant premises or information. For instance, if a student says "If I fail this paper I will lose my scholarship. It's not plagiarized." the emotions elicited by the first statement are not relevant to establishing whether the paper was plagiarized. Also, "Look at the suffering children. We must do more for refugees." is fallacious, because the suffering of the children and our emotional perception of the badness of suffering is not relevant to the conclusion. To be sure, the proper role for emotion in moral reasoning is a contested issue in ethics, but the charge of "appeal to emotion" often cannot be made without begging the question against theories of moral cognition that reserve a role for emotion in moral reasoning. Appeals to emotion are intended to draw inward feelings such as fear, pity, and joy from the recipient of the information with the end goal of convincing them that the statements being presented in the
fallacious A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning, or "wrong moves," in the construction of an argument which may appear stronger than it really is if the fallacy is not spotted. The term in the Western intellectual tradition was intr ...
argument are true or false, respectively.


Classical times

The power of emotions to influence judgment, including political attitudes, has been recognized since classical antiquity. Aristotle, in his treatise ''
Rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate partic ...
'', described emotional arousal as critical to persuasion, "The orator persuades by means of his hearers, when they are roused to emotion by his speech; for the judgments we deliver are not the same when we are influenced by joy or sorrow, love or hate." Aristotle warned that emotions may give rise to beliefs where none existed, or change existing beliefs, and may enhance or decrease the strength with which a belief is held. Seneca similarly warned that "Reason herself, to whom the reins of power have been entrusted, remains mistress only so long as she is kept apart from the passions."' Centuries later. French scientist and philosopher,
Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal ( , , ; ; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest m ...
wrote that "People ..arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of
proof Proof most often refers to: * Proof (truth), argument or sufficient evidence for the truth of a proposition * Alcohol proof, a measure of an alcoholic drink's strength Proof may also refer to: Mathematics and formal logic * Formal proof, a co ...
, but on the basis of what they find attractive."
Baruch Spinoza Baruch (de) Spinoza (born Bento de Espinosa; later as an author and a correspondent ''Benedictus de Spinoza'', anglicized to ''Benedict de Spinoza''; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, b ...
characterized emotions as having the power to "make the mind inclined to think one thing rather than another." Disagreeing with Seneca the Younger that emotion destroys reason, the 18th century Scottish philosopher George Campbell argued, instead, that emotions were allies of reason, and that they aid in the assimilation of knowledge. However, Campbell warned of the malleability of emotion and the consequent risk in terms of suggestibility: ::
motions In physics, motion is the phenomenon in which an object changes its position with respect to time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed and frame of reference to an observer and meas ...
are not supplanters of reason, or even rivals in her sway; they are her handmaids, by whose ministry she is enabled to usher truth into the heart, and procure it to favorable reception. As handmaids, they are liable to be seduced by sophistry in the garb of reason, and sometimes are made ignorantly to lend their aid in the introduction of falsehood. Drawing on the
social psychology Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the re ...
of his day, propaganda theorist
Edward Bernays Edward Louis Bernays ( , ; November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an American theorist, considered a pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, and referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". His best-known ca ...
confidently asserted that "in certain cases we can effect some change in public opinion with a fair degree of accuracy by operating a certain mechanism, just as a motorist can regulate the speed of his car by manipulating the flow of gasoline." Bernays advised that to change the attitudes of the masses, a propagandist should target its "impulses, habits and emotions" and make "emotional currents" work to achieve the goal. Indeed, some contemporary writers have attributed the popularity of the most destructive political forces in modern history—from Nazism to Jihadism—to the ability of their leaders to enchant (rather than convince) publics and to oppose "the heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor" to the "naked self interest" and the icy, individualistic rationalism of modern liberalism. Similarly,
Drew Westen Drew Westen is professor in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia; the founder of Westen Strategies, LLC, a strategic messaging consulting firm to nonprofits and political organizations; and a writer ...
, professor of psychology psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University, drawing on current psychiatric and psychological research to demonstrate the power of emotions in affecting political cognition and preferences, wrote that, "when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins." Westen, an advisor to Democratic political campaigns, believes that evolution has equipped people to process information via emotions and that people respond to emotional cues more than to rational arguments. Accordingly, Westen believes that emotion lies at the center of effective persuasion and that appeals to emotion will always beat appeals to reason: ::A central aspect of the art of political persuasion is creating, solidifying, and activating networks that create primarily positive feelings toward your candidate or party and negative feelings toward the opponent … ::You can slog it for those few millimeters of cerebral turf that process facts, figures and policy statements. Or you can … target different emotional states with messages designed to maximize their appeal.


Modern theories

A social psychology theory posits that attitudes have three components — affect,
cognition Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, though ...
and
behavior Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as we ...
. The cognitive dimension refers "to beliefs that one holds about the attitude object, and behavior has been used to describe overt actions and responses to the attitude object." Affect, meanwhile, describes "the positive and negative feelings that one holds toward an attitude object", that is, the emotional dimension of an attitude. Modern theorists have modified the tripartite theory to argue that an attitude "does not consist of these elements, but is instead a general evaluative summary of the information derived from these bases." Political scientist George Marcus (writing with Russell Neuman and Michael Mackuen) identifies two mental systems through which reason and emotion interact in managing and processing political stimuli: ::First, the disposition system "provides people with an understanding, an emotional report card, about actions that are already in their repertoire of habits." That is, the first system is that which monitors the casual processing of political information through habit, through which most of our information processing is done.George Marcus, Russell Neuman and Michael Mackuen, Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment, University of Chicago Press, 2000, p.10. The second system, the surveillance system, "acts to scan the environment for novelty and sudden intrusion of
threat A threat is a communication of intent to inflict harm or loss on another person. Intimidation is a tactic used between conflicting parties to make the other timid or psychologically insecure for coercion or control. The act of intimidation for co ...
." In other words, the second system monitors the environment for any signs of threat. If a threat is found, that system takes people out of habitual, casual processing and puts them in a state of alertness and receptivity to new information: ::"what is interesting about this second emotional system is that the onset of increased anxiety stops ongoing activity and orients attention to the threatening appearance so that learning can take place. ..when the system detects unexpected of threatening stimuli, however, it evokes increased anxiety, it interrupts ongoing activity, and it shifts attention away from the previous focus and toward the intrusive stimuli." Marcus further argues that "emotional engagement will motivate people toward making more deeply reasoned decisions about politics than those who remain dispassionate." Other thinkers have argued that "when an emotion is aroused and experienced, it can involve a number of psychological processes that can then be used as a platform for promoting and securing influence and compliance." Regardless, it would stand to reason, then, that affecting a subject's emotional state, in conjunction with a political message, could affect that subject's attitudes. In modern philosophy, there are two core appeals to emotion. One is the appeal to force (known as
ad baculum ''Argumentum ad baculum'' (Latin for "argument to the cudgel" or "appeal to the stick") is the fallacy committed when one makes an appeal to force to bring about the acceptance of a conclusion.John Woods: ''Argumentum ad baculum.'' In: ''Argume ...
) the other is the appeal to sympathy, known as ad misericordiam. These are only considered fallacies when used in doxastic systems.


Research

Accepted wisdom is that, " en it comes to issues of emotional importance, convincing someone to change his or her existing beliefs appears to be a virtually hopeless undertaking." And yet, manipulating emotions may hold the key to shaping attitudes: ::" e use of emotions to instill beliefs is prevalent in political propaganda. Depicting individuals, groups, or issues from an emotional perspective, or as actors in emotional events, evokes emotion. It thereby slips the belief that the emotion is about into the listener's mind. Presumably, it slips the beliefs into the listener's mind more easily, smoothly and unquestioned than would happen when the information alone was transmitted." Though it is still an underdeveloped area of research, a number of scholars are demonstrating that manipulating emotions surrounding a persuasive message does affect that message's effectiveness. It has been shown, for example, that people tend to adjust their beliefs to fit their emotions, since feelings are treated by people as evidence, and when feelings match beliefs, that is seen as validation of the underlying beliefs. Other research shows that "emotional stimuli can influence judgment without a judge's awareness of having seen or felt anything (e.g., Bargh, 1997; Murphy & Zajonc, 1993)." Indeed, "recent studies have confirmed that affect does play a general role in attitude change, whether due to persuasive communication, or to cognitive dissonance processes (Petty et al., 2001)." Psychologists Petty & Cacioppo found that there are two ways of processing persuasive messages: (1) to focus on the content and quality of the message (central processing), or (2) to focus instead on external cues (such as the source of the message) and to disregard its content (peripheral processing). "When participants use the central/systematic route of responding to message content, they tend to be persuaded more by strong arguments, and less by weak arguments. However, the strength of the argument matters less when the peripheral route is chosen. In that case, other "peripheral" factors, such as the credibility of the source of the message or the intention of the communicator become important in the persuasive process." Petty and Cacioppo suggest that negative affect should lead to more central processing and positive affect to more peripheral processing. That is, "In happy moods, people tend to be persuaded equally by strong and weak arguments, whereas in sad moods, people are persuaded only by strong arguments and reject weak arguments." Said otherwise, positive moods increase the reliance on positive beliefs, whereas negative moods encourage the updating of beliefs in the light of new, significant data. Drawing on the work of Marcus, political scientist Tom Brader says that, "by appealing to specific emotions, ommunicatorscan change the way citizens respond to political messages."


Influence of emotion on persuasion


Negative emotions


Fear and anxiety

The only widely studied emotion, with respect to persuasion, is
fear Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear i ...
. Fear has been found to force individuals "to break from routine and pay close attention to the external world," including persuasive messages. Moreover, fear has been found to encourage political engagement: ::"people are demonstrably more likely to engage in the political realm when they are anxious about the candidates. Uneasiness about the available political choices leads people to pay closer attention to the political environment. ..people learn more about the candidates (that is they acquire new and accurate knowledge) when they are anxious but not when they are enthusiastic about those candidates who dominate the political field." More generally, "fear is associated with both attitude and behavior change."Robin L. Nabi, "Discrete Emotions and Persuasion," in "Persuasion and the Structure of Affect", The Persuasion Handbook, Sage Publishing, p.292. However, "four variables that may interact to influence processing depth of a fear-inducing message: (a) type of fear (chronic vs. acute), (b) expectation of a message containing reassuring information, (c) type of behavior advocated (e.g., disease detection vs. health promotion), and (d) issue familiarity."


Guilt

Guilt is the emotion that arises when an individual breaks an internalized moral, ethical or religious rule. Guilt's effect on persuasion has been only cursorily studied. Not unlike fear appeals, the literature suggests that guilt can enhance attainment of persuasive goals if evoked at moderate levels. However, messages designed to evoke high levels of guilt may instead arouse high levels of anger that may impede persuasive success.


Anger

Anger Anger, also known as wrath or rage, is an intense emotional state involving a strong uncomfortable and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat. A person experiencing anger will often experience physical effects, su ...
's effect on persuasion has also seldom been studied. A couple of studies, however, "suggest that a positive relationship exists between anger and attitude change." Specifically, researchers found that "anger evoked in response to issues of juvenile crime and domestic terrorism correlated with acceptance of legislative initiatives proposed to address those issues."Robin L. Nabi, "Discrete Emotions and Persuasion," in "Persuasion and the Structure of Affect", The Persuasion Handbook, Sage Publishing, p.293. Not unlike fear, anger was associated with close (central) information processing including of persuasive messages. At the same time, "unintentionally induced anger in response to supposed guilt and fear appeals has been shown to correlate negatively with attitudes." The persuasive uses of anger have also been studied in political campaigns, since anger can be strategically evoked by politicians to increase the motivation and engagement of their supporters, although the historian Nicole Hemmer has noted that the potential for an American candidate to use anger effectively is highly contingent on their identity.


Sadness

Sadness Sadness is an emotional pain associated with, or characterized by, feelings of disadvantage, loss, despair, grief, helplessness, disappointment and sorrow. An individual experiencing sadness may become quiet or lethargic, and withdraw thems ...
arousal has been associated with attitude change in the context of
AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ma ...
,
illicit drugs The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent the recreational use of certain intoxicating substances. While some drugs are illegal to possess, many governments regulate the ...
, and
juvenile crime Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority. In the United States of America, a juvenile delinquent is a person ...
.Robin L. Nabi, "Discrete Emotions and Persuasion," in "Persuasion and the Structure of Affect", The Persuasion Handbook, Sage Publishing, p.294.


Disgust

Disgust Disgust (Middle French: ''desgouster'', from Latin ''gustus'', "taste") is an emotional response of rejection or revulsion to something potentially contagious or something considered offensive, distasteful, or unpleasant. In '' The Expression ...
arousal, in the context of messages opposing animal experimentation, is correlated negatively with attitude change. This is consistent with the view that disgust leads to a rejection of its source.


Positive emotions


Empathy and compassion

A number of recent studies support the role of
compassion Compassion motivates people to go out of their way to relieve the physical, mental or emotional pains of others and themselves. Compassion is often regarded as being sensitive to the emotional aspects of the suffering of others. When based on n ...
in skewing moral judgment. The researchers' findings show there is a key relationship between moral judgment and
empathic Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, cog ...
concern in particular, specifically feelings of warmth and compassion in response to someone in distress. Images of suffering children are the ideal triggers of this instinctive compassion. Once triggered, compassion leads individuals to favor the few they see suffering over the many who they know to be suffering but in the abstract: "People who feel similar to another person in need have been shown to experience more empathic compassion for that person than do those not manipulated to feel similar to another."
Dan Ariely Dan Ariely ( he, דן אריאלי; born April 29, 1967) is an Israeli-American professor and author. He serves as a James B. Duke Professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. Ariely is the founder of the research insti ...
notes that appeals that, through visual cues or otherwise, make us focus on specific, individual victims affect our attitudes and lead us to take action whereas, "when many people are involved, we don't. A cold calculation does not increase our concern for large problems; instead, it suppresses our compassion." ::"In many ways, it is very sad that the only effective way to get people to respond to suffering is through an emotional appeal, rather than through an objective reading of massive need. The upside is that when our emotions are awakened, we can be tremendously caring. Once we attach an individual face to suffering, we're much more willing to help, and we go far beyond what economists would expect from rational, selfish, maximizing agents." Empathy also influences our prosocial behaviors. Prosocial behaviors are actions that focus on helping others. Take charity for example, we are much more likely to donate to a cause when we personally know someone who is struggling with that illness. The empathy and compassion that we feel towards that person is what pushes us to donate. An empathy study was conducted by Fowler, Law, and Gaesser. The goal of this study was to determine how the empathy we feel varies throughout different people in our lives. Participants were asked to make a list of one hundred people. The people at the top if the list were parents, family, loved ones, ect. Towards the bottom of the list were strangers. Participants were then asked to imagine these people in various scenarios and describe the level of empathy that they had towards each person. Results showed that the closer a person was the more empathy they felt, and for those at the bottom of the list there was not much empathy felt in comparison.


Pride

"Little studied in the social influence context, the one clearly identifiable study of
pride Pride is defined by Merriam-Webster as "reasonable self-esteem" or "confidence and satisfaction in oneself". A healthy amount of pride is good, however, pride sometimes is used interchangeably with "conceit" or "arrogance" (among other words) wh ...
and persuasion considered the role of culture in response to
advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
, finding that members of a collectivist culture (China) responded more favorably to a pride-based appeal, whereas members of an individualist culture (the United States) responded more favorably to an empathy-based appeal."


Relief

Some researchers have argued that anxiety which is followed by relief leads to greater compliance to a request than fear, because the relief causes a temporary state of disorientation, leaving individuals vulnerable to suggestion.Robin L. Nabi, "Discrete Emotions and Persuasion," in "Persuasion and the Structure of Affect", The Persuasion Handbook, Sage Publishing, p.297. The suggestion is that relief-based persuasion is a function of less careful information processing.


Hope

Experiments have shown that
hope Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large. As a verb, its definitions include: "expect with confidence" and "to cherish ...
appeals are successful mainly with subjects who self-report as being predisposed to experiencing fear. While hope is often seen and understood as an abstract concept, Adrienne Martin proves otherwise in their book How We Hope. In this book it is explained how hope is a two-part emotion. First, we feel hope, then we experience it. For example, when we have a desired goal, we hope that we can reach it, but that hope is what motivates us as individuals to work towards that goal. Hope also changes how we see and perceive others. Martin explains how once we can relate to someone, we are then placing some level of hope in them. Hope for success, change or growth.


Examples

*
Think of the children "Think of the children" (also "What about the children?") is a cliché that evolved into a rhetorical tactic. In the literal sense, it refers to children's rights (as in discussions of child labor). In debate, however, it is a plea for pity th ...
* '' Reductio ad Hitlerum''


See also

*
Political campaign A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracy, democracies, political campaigns often refer to election, electoral campaigns, by which representatives a ...
*
Bread and circuses "Bread and circuses" (or bread and games; from Latin: ''panem et circenses'') is a metonymic phrase referring to superficial appeasement. It is attributed to Juvenal, a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century CE, and is used c ...
*
Fake news Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue.Schlesinger, Robert (April 14, 2017)"Fake news in reality ...
*
Post-truth politics Post-truth politics (also called post-factual politics and post-reality politics) is a political culture where true/false, honesty/lying have become a focal concern of public life and are viewed by popular commentators and academic researchers a ...
*''
Argumentum ad lazarum ''Argumentum ad lazarum'' or appeal to poverty is the informal fallacy of thinking a conclusion is correct solely because the speaker is poor, or it is incorrect because the speaker is rich. It is named after Lazarus, a beggar in a New Testament ...
''


References

{{Authority control Propaganda techniques