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

[/DG/]

Just to piss everyone off lol.

 

[Yama]

[video]
Just to piss everyone off lol.

oh my god no why

 

[Amargith]

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.

Usually, that kind of detailed information is available at a website of a charity, though. The 'story' is to pull people in, pique interest and show them something that needs to be rectified and shows usually the head lines of what you're asking (Like, the situation here is dire and although we've started to make a difference by digging a well - shot of the well - we hope to add on A,B and C so the village can regain its footing - footage of where A,B and C would go with hopeful villages standing around wanting to work). It cannot be more than one sentence or you lose the audience, often, because things have to be convenient, easy to grasp in one moment and paint a picture that evokes their consideration. Pacing and simplicity are everything.

I too need more to actually donate, which is what websites (or talk shows/news outlets if you're going for a large scale PR campaign) are for. I was thinking more of 'awareness' videos, as that is what you do with emotional appeal. You raise awareness and you tap into empathy. It's planting the seed. Usually, that gets then followed up by one simple call to action (donate here to blabla) for those that need to just know that part to get engaged in the moment (most people choose convenience over more information), but you'll also find the website listed for more info - which is the following step that most people are just not invested enough in to see at this point because it takes actually researching something and investing their time, hence it often gets left out of the emotional appeal - but pointed to, in the good ones.

In conversational type situations where someone invokes emotional appeal, you'd be able to follow up on their appeal with those questions once the appeal is over and they'd be able to tell you this information instantly, if done properly, ime.

 

[Amargith]

Just to piss everyone off lol.

Review:

Too scripted, but unfortunately their message is all too true, though.

They kept it simple, with a simple call to action, factual -without going in too much detail that the average viewer could care less about, they didn't overplay the drama, so in that sense they very much stuck to the rules. It's just that her delivery was too stilted, and they went for the word 'love' and 'angel' for a forced play on words

 

[Luke O]

It has it's uses but it is used too much. Maybe because it works much more on people than we admit.

 

[Mole]

Literally trillions of dollars are spent on advertising every year because it works, and interestingly most of it is an appeal to our emotions.

This is absolutely deliberate and taken from the book called Propaganda (1928) by Edward Bernays.

Edward Bernays is the father of American and world advertising. He must be one of the most important Americans of the 20th century, yet he remains unknown. I think it is because we take advertising for granted in our daily lives, and we kid ourselves it doesn't affect us.

Advertising does appeal to our emotions and makes our industrial world go round.

Yet we prattle on about rationality, while the emotions go about their daily business of running society.

 

[Coriolis]

Review:

Too scripted, but unfortunately their message is all too true, though.

They kept it simple, with a simple call to action, factual -without going in too much detail that the average viewer could care less about, they didn't overplay the drama, so in that sense they very much stuck to the rules. It's just that her delivery was too stilted, and they went for the word 'love' and 'angel' for a forced play on words

See, this is the sort of advertisement that would simply make me change the channel, or hit the mute button. Pictures of animals don't really tell me anything. If it piqued my curiosity, I would indeed go online, but to research the broader problem of animal abuse, and to find out which charities are addressing it, especially in my area. I would then research them, and choose one to support, most likely not the one who made the ad.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

Literally trillions of dollars are spent on advertising every year because it works, and interestingly most of it is an appeal to our emotions.

This is absolutely deliberate and taken from the book called Propaganda (1928) by Edward Bernays.

Edward Bernays is the father of American and world advertising. He must be one of the most important Americans of the 20th century, yet he remains unknown. I think it is because we take advertising for granted in our daily lives, and we kid ourselves it doesn't affect us.

Advertising does appeal to our emotions and makes our industrial world go round.

Yet we prattle on about rationality, while the emotions go about their daily business of running society.

Bernays was Freud's nephew. Bernays and company originally worked to sell WWI to the public, because few Americans wanted to fight in a European War over a few scraps of land.

After the war, Bernays helped develop the ad industry. Here is a piece on how he got women to smoke. Torches_of_Freedom

You are entirely right that almost every single ad is an emotional argument, often hitting those that think they are above it squarely so they don't see it.

Almost every political issue has an emotional core.

I laughed watching one YouTube talking about how conservatives are not emotionally driven, ignoring that such issues as patriotism, independence and freedom, loyalty, courage, law and order, free trade, freedom, free spech, religion, etc, have emotional components

The colors used are keying emotions. Lol, most fast food places in America use red or orange contrasted with yellow or white. Does anyone believe that is an accident?

So, if almost every argument has an emotional component, being unaware of that leaves one vulnerable to easy manipulation.....

 

[geedoenfj]

I agree on that, if I see a bias report or documentary or even a movie (or even when someone talks about their problem) which I feel like trying to hard to provoke my emotions than to convince me with facts and details, it just shuts the whole idea off, and I feel they do that because they're hiding facts that they don't want me to know, I don't believe it, I don't buy it, I want to skip the drama in anyway possible..

 

[htb]

Granted, I'm not very good at making them, but I find them subject to unravel in someone's mind the moment they start thinking or their emotional state on the matter changes — compare that to a strong, evidential argument that you might chafe against and challenge but ultimately accept as true.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Its one of the reasons I'm a conservative. We don't rely on appeals to emotion to nearly the same extent.

 

[á´…eparted]

Its one of the reasons I'm a conservative. We don't rely on appeals to emotion to nearly the same extent.

Wrong. It's just different on what is appealed.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Wrong. It's just different on what is appealed.

Who you trying to convince, me or you?

 

[SearchingforPeace]

Who you trying to convince, me or you?

Look at conservative positions and you will see emotion laden concepts:

Life--- wow, a very loaded word
Liberty--- damn, huge emotional word
Justice-- another
"Free" enterprise-- "free" is an extremely powerful emotionally laden word
"Free" trade-- that free word again
Law and order--two very emotional words. Anyone against it must be for anarchy and chaos, it would seem
Patriotism- "love of country" is there a more emotional word than "love"
Pro-life --- wow, makes its opponents into deathmongers

I most leftists ideas are similar, just different values....

I could go on. Again, as I pointed out yesterday, there are very few positions that don't have an emotional component. It is this exact reason that Republicans pushed to frame the estate tax as the death tax. It is much easier to push for repeal of a death tax than an "estate" tax, which symbolizes wealth and aristocracy.

Everything comes down to values. This is why it is so difficult to discuss these things, because it is often logic vs emotions and both sides are often emotional but view themselves as logical. The more clearly one is aware of their emotional positions, the better one is at actually discussing political issues and successfully having such discussions.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Look at conservative positions and you will see emotion laden concepts:

Life--- wow, a very loaded word
Liberty--- damn, huge emotional word
Justice-- another
"Free" enterprise-- "free" is an extremely powerful emotionally laden word
"Free" trade-- that free word again
Law and order--two very emotional words. Anyone against it must be for anarchy and chaos, it would seem
Patriotism- "love of country" is there a more emotional word than "love"
Pro-life --- wow, makes its opponents into deathmongers

I most leftists ideas are similar, just different values....

I could go on. Again, as I pointed out yesterday, there are very few positions that don't have an emotional component. It is this exact reason that Republicans pushed to frame the estate tax as the death tax. It is much easier to push for repeal of a death tax than an "estate" tax, which symbolizes wealth and aristocracy.

Everything comes down to values. This is why it is so difficult to discuss these things, because it is often logic vs emotions and both sides are often emotional but view themselves as logical. The more clearly one is aware of their emotional positions, the better one is at actually discussing political issues and successfully having such discussions.

I wont waste my words here. Believe what you will.

 

[geedoenfj]

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.

I think provoking emotions is tricky business, I relate to them as a painting, if you use a certain color it would look amazing if you add a little more or a little less or a little to another place it would look off and not interesting, if you manage to find the balance in your colors then and only then it will catch the sight..
I remember reading for Victor Hugo whose works -of course- are products of romanticism movement like "Les Misérables" and "Notre-Dame de Paris" which relies upon emotional narrative of the story, and I cried after finishing them for about 15 minutes (I checked my clock for that), I read Le Misérables twice to see if the surprise factor had anything to do with the emotional reaction, but I eventually went through another 15 minutes of crying, you feel like someone is manipulating your emotions but yet you fall in love with that..
Also when the movie "The Passion of the Christ" which put you through the deepest pains a human being can experience, I know people who are not Christians and watched it and were crying through out the movie, I think no one was complaining that it was too emotional and not convincing..
So yes I think if someone managed to use the tool of emotions wisely, they can make a huge effection on audience and makes a masterpiece of all times..

 

[foxonstilts]

If it works, it works. I usually don't bother trying to convince people of things because there isn't a point and people rarely change their minds. If I'm in the situation where I am actually right and it's worthwhile to get someone to see my side of things, then yeah, I'll use emotional or social manipulation.

 

[á´…eparted]

Who you trying to convince, me or you?

Research disagrees with you: When it comes to politics, you're not as rational as you think | University of California

Fact of the matter is, no side is free of illogic. It's you that's pushing the ideology here, not me.

 

[á´…eparted]

If it works, it works. I usually don't bother trying to convince people of things because there isn't a point and people rarely change their minds. If I'm in the situation where I am actually right and it's worthwhile to get someone to see my side of things, then yeah, I'll use emotional or social manipulation.

I loathe that this has to be done sometimes, and I honestly can't bring myself to do it (intentionally anyway). It's why I can't make any impact on anti-vacciner's when I come across them. There's even been research published that said if you want to convince them, you CAN'T use logic, you have to be intentionally emotionally applealing to a great extent, or even manipulative. I just... I can't do it. I don't have the patience, and it's too violating of my internal code. I'd rather use force if logic won't work.

 

[foxonstilts]

I loathe that this has to be done sometimes, and I honestly can't bring myself to do it (intentionally anyway). It's why I can't make any impact on anti-vacciner's when I come across them. There's even been research published that said if you want to convince them, you CAN'T use logic, you have to be intentionally emotionally applealing to a great extent, or even manipulative. I just... I can't do it. I don't have the patience, and it's too violating of my internal code. I'd rather use force if logic won't work.

The problem is that with anti-vaxxers none of that works. :\ I respect people who engage them and try to knock some sense into their heads, but when I run into them in the wild, I just disengage completely and cut off that contact. I've never seen someone actually change their mind on that subject.