Intro to Pathos
Pathos is one of the three main rhetorical techniques that people use when they are trying to persuade others to see their point of view. Pathos appeals to emotions and specifically focuses on the how emotions can be a useful tool to a rhetorician. Pathos surrounds us every single day but not many people know what it is called. Whenever you see a sad commercial, or a funny poster, people have designed the product to get a certain emotion from you and hopefully they have made it memorable enough that you will remember whatever it is trying to say.
When one is using pathos he must think about what the majority of people with find emotional. Pathos is based on the assumption that people share similar kinds of emotional responses to events (Crowley 174). Emotions can help move people to action more quickly, if someone is frightened the person is going to try to ensure in the quickest way possible, that they are no longer in danger and have nothing to be fearful about. This is why so many rhetoricians use pathos as a way to get people to action.
Persuading an audience can be quite a difficult task but it is shown that some emotions are “more intensely felt if people nearby are experiencing them as well,” (Crowley 177). That is why if people in a large group are frightened, you might be frightened simply because everyone else is feeling it. Many organizations around the world use fear to help persuade their audience to join in their volunteer organization or to donate money to help their cause.
Knowing your audience is one of the keys to using pathos successfully. Knowing your audience helps a rhetorician using pathos to prepare what emotion they want their audience to feel and which would get the desired response from them. You would probably need to use different emotions for a group of young teenagers than you would on a group of educated businessmen of a different culture. Different groups will find different emotions more effective, depending of what the rhetorician is trying to persuade. Pathos has been used for hundreds of years and people are still working very hard on the best way to perfect it since groups and causes keep changing.
When one is using pathos he must think about what the majority of people with find emotional. Pathos is based on the assumption that people share similar kinds of emotional responses to events (Crowley 174). Emotions can help move people to action more quickly, if someone is frightened the person is going to try to ensure in the quickest way possible, that they are no longer in danger and have nothing to be fearful about. This is why so many rhetoricians use pathos as a way to get people to action.
Persuading an audience can be quite a difficult task but it is shown that some emotions are “more intensely felt if people nearby are experiencing them as well,” (Crowley 177). That is why if people in a large group are frightened, you might be frightened simply because everyone else is feeling it. Many organizations around the world use fear to help persuade their audience to join in their volunteer organization or to donate money to help their cause.
Knowing your audience is one of the keys to using pathos successfully. Knowing your audience helps a rhetorician using pathos to prepare what emotion they want their audience to feel and which would get the desired response from them. You would probably need to use different emotions for a group of young teenagers than you would on a group of educated businessmen of a different culture. Different groups will find different emotions more effective, depending of what the rhetorician is trying to persuade. Pathos has been used for hundreds of years and people are still working very hard on the best way to perfect it since groups and causes keep changing.