Friday, April 16, 2010
Appeal to Emotion
Appeal to emotion is probably the most often used by every organization that asks for donations to help the needy. While this technique is not an unethical thing to do, it is definitely a fallacy when trying to make an argument correctly. Appeal to emotion offers no evidence but uses appeal similar to fear, pity, or spite. The appeal of emotion that strikes me mostly is probably the appeal to fear. I sometimes catch on TV a car insurance commercial that always shows someone getting into a terrible car accident. Without the proper insurance the person’s car was severely damaged and her day was ruined by a car that rolled down the street and hit her parked car. It shows the lady terrified that her car had been hit. The commercial then proceeds to show how things would have been different if she was a customer of this particular car insurance, which had the effect of her not even missing a minute of her busy day due to the car accident. Companies and organizations effectively use appeal to emotion to get you into whatever they are selling or stand for. It is not necessarily a good way to argue but it does make you think twice about their product.
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I like your example about the car insurance advertisements. I never thought about those when reading through the text. I constantly see those OnStar commercials also which I think appeal to fear a lot, also. They show how without OnStar, your accident or problem may not get fixed. Yet, in reality, people have cell phones and usually are traveling in populated areas. While their system may be a good one, it is not necessary how they make it seem on commericals. Appeal to fear may work well, but is not a valid argument because there are no legitimate reasons to back it up. Too bad american public still falls for it everyday.
ReplyDeleteAs what MyClass Online said, your example about the car insurance hit the bull's eye. You see something from All State about a terrible fender bender or a car getting into a T-Bone and the emotion brings out why you should have car insurance. They go on when one guy has All State and the other guy has a generic insurance company but it guides to how All State is better through emotional precedence. Then you see the guy at the end go, "All State, are you in good hands?" This is pretty much showing how one can be taken care of with the thought of emotion.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post on appeal to emotion. You really did a great job explaining it. I think your example about the car insurance was definitely right on the money. I have seen many commercials about accidents that appear to be terrible and what the company hopes will happen is that your emotions get the best of you and you go right ahead and buy the insurance without even thinking about it because you are afraid of gettin in one of those bad car accidents. So again, overall i think you did a very good job on this post and you made this topic more interestig and eassier to understand
ReplyDeleteI liked your example about ca insurance companies. It it wrong that they do that, and I am strongly against companies using appeal to fear in their ads. As with appealing to any kind of emotion, companies should be sensitive in the way they go about doing it. I feel like many companies are doing it to the point where they are almost trying to profit off of other peoples misfortunes. A recent example of this in my life is a Haiti benefit ad that I have seen. Although the money goes to a good cause, sometimes the images the advertisers choose to use are a bit too extreme and try to shock the viewer into donating money.
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