Pathos and Persuasion

I have learned a lot from the people over at Planet Money.

I've been listening to their podcast since the economic crisis struck in 2008, and the team has made me feel like I can hold my own in most friendly debates about economics.

This week they dipped into my territory a little bit with a podcast on the tools of persuasion when the incentives of economics are not at your disposal.

The podcast explores how to best get people to sign up as organ donors. In the doing, it becomes a discussion about the strengths, weaknesses, importance, and challenges involved in emotional appeals.

Writing teachers and rhetoricians talk a lot about different appeals in persuasion. Logical appeals (logos) and appeals to authority (ethos) get a lot of attention when we teach writing for academic purposes, and that makes sense. The professors my students will write for are not going to value emotional appeals (pathos).

But this week's podcast on Planet Money demonstrates just how important emotional appeals can be when asking people to make deeply personal decisions.

The podcast opens with how delicate and unpredictable emotional appeals can be by showing how focus groups respond to different organ donor campaign messages.

Then it starts to seem like emotional appeals might be a waste of time, because the numbers from organ donor campaigns are so easily beat when the request is shifted to a DMV clerk simply asking, "Would you like to be an organ donor?"

And in a final turn, the power of emotional appeals make a comeback. Because organ donation is not just a checked box. Your family has to sign off as well, and for that to happen they need to believe you really wanted to be an organ donor.

It's a great listen. I highly recommend it.