Sterling Terrell

recovering economist

What Is Emotional Appeal?

What Is Emotional Appeal?

What is emotional appeal?

Emotional appeal is an argument that appeals to your emotions.

It avoids sound arguments and facts and tries to get an emotional response.

But here is the thing.

Although an appeal to emotion is often done on purpose – it is often also the default.

For while you have probably never systematically studied economics, or healthcare, or guns – you probably still have strong emotional opinions about all three.

I believe that Eliot gets it exactly right here: In the absence of knowledge, emotions are used as a crutch.

In fact, tapping into emotions is one of the four simple persuasion tools.

Find all 31 persuasion tips here.

Again, this is no new thing. T. S. Eliot wrote almost a century ago about a phenomenon that he believed to be the product of the nineteenth century: “When there is so much to be known, when there are so many fields of knowledge in which the same words are used with different meanings, when everyone knows a little about a great many things, it becomes increasingly difficult for anyone to know whether he knows what he is talking about or not.” And in such circumstances—let me add emphasis to Eliot’s conclusion—“ when we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts.”

-Alan Jacobs, How To Think

Think Out Of The Box, Sometimes

Think Out Of The Box, Sometimes

To think out of the box is often to not follow the crowd.

This is tricky, of course, because the crowd is often correct.

The difference, I believe, is that although this is true, the leanings of the crowd should not be the deciding factor.

(Good luck seeing this tendency in yourself though.)

Here Jacobs points to the example of the puritans.

For we exhibit “puritanism” itself when we speak of the puritans.

And why?

It seems that the answer is because that everyone else does too.

Contrarians may naturally find this endeavor easier.

Remember here too – as depressing as it is – that people are not influenced by facts.

Facts matter, but facts do not change people’s minds.

Other factors play a larger role, unfortunately.

“it is a great example of our collective eagerness to disparage without knowledge or information about the thing disparaged, when the reward is the pleasure of sharing an attitude one knows is socially approved.” -Marilynne Robinson

-Alan Jacobs, How To Think

Sterling Terrell