[NT] How do you feel about emotional appeal as a persuasive method?

[Galaxy Gazer]

I don't know if this is an NT thing or just a personal thing, but I can't stand the use of emotional appeal. I don't even know why; I guess it just seems manipulative.

I remember watching documentaries in high school about inequality, poverty, etc. Of course I care about these issues, but when they're presented in a way that's specifically designed to make you feel bad, I become very unsympathetic. It becomes much worse if someone claims that it will "make us think," because the idea isn't to get us to think. The idea is to persuade us using a purely emotional method.

Because I'm terrible at explaining things, I'll use an example.

If I see a homeless person on the street, I'm going to feel empathy and/or sympathy for them and there's about a 90% chance I'll either give them money or food. If I'm watching a documentary on homelessness and why we should all care about it, complete with sad background music and lots of tearful interviews, it just pisses me off. I think I dislike the idea of being told how I should feel.

Can anyone relate?

 

[Coriolis]

I don't know if this is an NT thing or just a personal thing, but I can't stand the use of emotional appeal. I don't even know why; I guess it just seems manipulative.

I remember watching documentaries in high school about inequality, poverty, etc. Of course I care about these issues, but when they're presented in a way that's specifically designed to make you feel bad, I become very unsympathetic. It becomes much worse if someone claims that it will "make us think," because the idea isn't to get us to think. The idea is to persuade us using a purely emotional method.

Because I'm terrible at explaining things, I'll use an example.

If I see a homeless person on the street, I'm going to feel empathy and/or sympathy for them and there's about a 90% chance I'll either give them money or food. If I'm watching a documentary on homelessness and why we should all care about it, complete with sad background music and lots of tearful interviews, it just pisses me off. I think I dislike the idea of being told how I should feel.

Can anyone relate?

Yes, and I agree. I have no respect for emotional appeals, except occasionally in personal situations (e.g. a friend asks me to go along with something just to humor him). To me, that is a lazy appeal. It is what people do when they are unable or unwilling to present their case using facts and reason. It also comes across as manipulative. I know, sadly, that many people are susceptible to emotional appeals, so in this sense I acknowledge their effectiveness in certain cases. But I personally would use something like this only as a last resort in a dire situation, i.e. when I was willing to resort to manipulation.

 

[Amargith]

Weird.

To me there is a way to do this right and one to do this so, so wrong.

The moment that most effort goes into the construction of the emotional appeal with strategising for maximum impact, how to jerk the most tears and how to get as many celebrities as possible on board, I'm out and roll my eyes.

However, I very much respond and rely on emotional messaging that is authentic, from the heart and utterly genuine in its message. It may have been strategised for maximum effect, but that part was done to support the genuine story, the actual message and is only a supporting tool - kind of like a writer who learns who to maximise their audience's investment into their amazing story. Without that amazing story though, it's just empty packaging.

This is no different.

The story is what matters. The message is what matters. And that needs to be impeccable, raw, genuine, integral and true for it to provoke a genuine emotional response in the audience - for it to tap into their empathy.

If it gets overwritten, too structured or overly promoted, it feels fake instantly because it has lost sight of what is truly important.

It especially has that effect when people are told what to do and not shown what the situation is so they can reach that conclusion themselves.


The first rule of good writing = show, don't tell

Break it, and lose your audience forever.

 

[Virtual ghost]

I don't know if this is an NT thing or just a personal thing, but I can't stand the use of emotional appeal. I don't even know why; I guess it just seems manipulative.

Can anyone relate?

Story of my life.

 

[EcK]

If what you seek is truth rather than comfort: it sucks


Because everyone has feelings, it doesn't make it reliable or correct.
Any argument should be something you can back up with facts and logic, feelings are too self-referential.

Emotional appeals often work because they leverage existing bias. But the very thing about arguments is that, to be constructive, it should move beyond bias.

 

[ceecee]

It takes virtually no effort to make the emotional appeal so if that's all you have in your persuasion game, it's not going to work. If I get a passive-aggressive, how I should feel message in that emotional appeal, not only will it not work, I will likely never pay attention to another word you say.

 

[Evo]

I admire when people put on a performance, and for me, emotional appeal falls into that category.

 

[/DG/]

Not an NT, but I've also always disliked emotional appeals. It seems to be one of the reasons my ethics class makes me internally eyeroll a lot. I have to pretend to care.

 

[Tilt]

As an NF, I can't stand them.

 

[Hawthorne]

people dislike it overt yet still succumb to the subtle.

neutrally effective. effectively neutral.

 

[Poki]

Emotions are one part of a big picture. I usually judgebthe emotional appeal with the topic and come up with a conclusion. May end up not caring, or may end up caring alot. Sometimes I end up, it's their stupid ass that put them in that situation. Depends on person, situation, etc.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

It takes virtually no effort to make the emotional appeal so if that's all you have in your persuasion game, it's not going to work. If I get a passive-aggressive, how I should feel message in that emotional appeal, not only will it not work, I will likely never pay attention to another word you say.

I agree with this, and feel slightly compelled to add the caveat that there's a difference between someone's tone being polluted with it (inadvertently, because they didn't take the time or don't know how to sterilize what they're saying) and someone intentionally (whilst likely unconsciously) applying pressure in this regard in hopes it'll have appeal. The latter is the kind of thing that shuts off my empathy, and I'll actually have to start ignoring the person because it causes such a nasty visceral reaction in me. But the former- sometimes it's just clumsiness and not realizing that *emotion* is bleeding through; it's not done to have an effect, so much as it happens because the person just isn't being careful about the effect their tone might have.

It's kind of like having someone pass you some change from their pocket with clusters of lint in it: I'm not going to reject the coins just because they're mixed with lint, but I won't accept the lint as coin.

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

When I was younger, I disliked it immensely. I think this is inferior Fe territory.

Now, I weigh the sentiment behind it...

Why is this person utilizing this method? Manipulation? Frustration? What is behind it? It's an extra thought process and that is more work for me. I prefer it that you give me the facts then let me decide how I feel about it. That is my preferred method of operation but life doesn't give you things the way you want it.

Just because it is an emotional appeal doesn't mean it should be discarded for that reason alone. It usually invites me to look up information on my own. Play detective about the situation.

Feelings are subjective but you can play with facts to suit your objective. So they both can be twisted. I just see it as a comfort level with how people prefer being approached to think about a topic.

 

[Ghost of the dead horse]

^OP, I feel just the same. Over the years I've learned to roll eyes over this kind of appeal instead of getting angry.

There's exception to this rule though. If I've found out some kind of emotional response is what I want, I lower my barriers and let the content affect me. I have a utilitarian view towards emotions. If it directs my unconscious or involuntary actions towards something I've planned, I'm ok.

It could be done other way as well: mentally blocking the intellectual content of some message and just allowing the emotion to kick in. I've done this to some extent in the past, but I couldn't live with all the things I felt for. For me, thinking and knowledge is my sustenance, and emotion is the flavor. So yeah, I accept feelings if they are valid. Believe it or not, I sometimes watch sad movies and cry. There's a story of injustice, I feel for the characters, and I cry. I wouldn't cry tho if the movie made a bad case of "injustice", i.e. if the laws of justice and injustice presented in the movie wouldn't appeal to me on a factual, logical basis. But yeah, if some presentation goes along my lines of thought, I become accepting of it's emotional appeals as well.

 

[Santosha]

I think most isfp's are really put-off by any kind of emotional reaction that doesn't occur spontaneously or organically. So I would reject it outright, based on the obvious attempt to manipulate my feelings. But then, I began to realize that just because someone chooses to arrive at their view emotionally, and drag me into it, doesn't mean the position itself has no reason or value. I may even hold values and feelings for it, but I am shutting them down because of the attempt to control or direct them.

So the bottom line is, I realized that in reacting against it I was still allowing it to influence me.

 

[Galaxy Gazer]

Sounds like we might as well go ahead and call this the anti-Fe thread. I knew there was a reason I don't like the majority of SFJs. Fe combined with Si is just......

 

[great_bay]

Emotional appeal can be effectively. However, emotional appeal can't be used constantly or else it will turn people off similar like OP's reaction. Emotional appeal has be used scarcely.

 

[Coriolis]

The story is what matters. The message is what matters. And that needs to be impeccable, raw, genuine, integral and true for it to provoke a genuine emotional response in the audience - for it to tap into their empathy.

If it gets overwritten, too structured or overly promoted, it feels fake instantly because it has lost sight of what is truly important.

It especially has that effect when people are told what to do and not shown what the situation is so they can reach that conclusion themselves.


The first rule of good writing = show, don't tell

Break it, and lose your audience forever.

Show me the wrong thing without giving me the information I need to make a rational decision, and you will lose me until you clean up your act. Yes, I can see pictures or videos of how hard life is for people in refugee camps, for instance, but if the pitch is for me to contribute to some charity trying to help them, I want to know things like: how pervasive and longstanding is the problem? What other approaches are being taken to address it? What is the approach being pitched here? How do they know it will be effective, based on logistics, local laws and customs, even the attitude of the intended beneficiaries. I imagine such information would be very hard to show vs. tell.

 

[á´…eparted]

If someone tries to pull an emotional people in a time or situation where it's not appropriate or valid, I will either just turn off and ignore it/them, or tell them to cut it out and stop.

 

[Yama]

I don't like having it shoved in my face. A small degree of emotional appeal is necessary to spark mobilization for and interest in a movement and a drive to acquire change, but I see it often goes way overboard. It gets too sappy & crappy and implodes itself. Backfires and accomplishes the opposite of what it wants. Not worth it.