{"id":15965,"date":"2013-08-12T21:08:43","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T21:08:43","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-08-31T19:09:43","modified_gmt":"2013-08-31T19:09:43","slug":"Persuasion-Ethos-Logos-and-Pathos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=15965","title":{"rendered":"Persuasion: Ethos, Logos, and Pathos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ethos, Logos<\/em>, and Pathos<\/em> are not Alexandre Dumas\u2019s Three Musketeers [Athos, Porthos, and Aramis], but rather the Latin for, approximately, character, logic, and emotion, three elements long identified as crucial for successful persuasive communication, important in our business and personal lives.<\/p>\n

First, I must give credit where credit is due. I recently finished reading a fascinating and informative book: The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty, and Lead Effectively<\/em><\/strong>, by Helio Fred Garcia, available in a Kindle ebook edition and hardcover through amazon.com. The lessons and examples are priceless, though I picked up the Kindle ebook for a song. I wish I could have read it when I was a debater in college.<\/p>\n

To be persuasive, you must be credible. This is ethos.<\/strong> You must seem to know the topic you are addressing and to be committed to telling the truth about it. If you are attractive, in looks and personality, that helps. Dress appropriately. You seem likely to know the topic if you have the right credentials, including training, experience, and achievements. You seem likely to tell the truth if you have a history of honesty and no obvious reason to lie. If you are an interested, rather than disinterested party\u2026if you will gain something by what you are \u201cselling\u201d\u2026then you should admit that up front and hope that the power of your presentation will over-ride the tendency for your audience to doubt you.<\/p>\n

Evidence and logic, the tools of rationality, help persuade others. \u201cLogic\u201d derives from logos. <\/strong>You can start from principles that your audience shares with you and proceed to show, by \u201cdeduction,\u201d that they support your case. Some people will find this highly persuasive. Another approach involves \u201cinduction,\u201d giving examples, evidence, leading to the conclusion you are offering. Often we try to do this with analogies, indicating that this is like that. The problem arises that no two situations are truly identical, so your audience may not find the comparisons compelling. <\/p>\n

I have listed pathos, emotion, third because I am a retired scientist and I think that authority and reason should predominate, but psychologists tell us that emotional connection, empathy, must come first if we are to persuade others in daily life.<\/strong> We are ineffective if we approach them from \u201ca mood apart.\u201d We need to \u201cfeel their pain\u201d or seem to, \u201crejoice with them\u201d if we can\u2026. In his book, Garcia gives the example of the BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward who, at the time of the major BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico from the oil rig Deepwater Horizon, said, \u201c\u2026there\u2019s no one who wants this thing over more than I do. You know, I\u2019d like my life back.\u201d Hayward was widely criticized for seeming to be more concerned about his discomfort than the suffering of the Gulf Cost victims of that monumental oil spill. Here, displaying the wrong emotion doomed Hayward, and six weeks after this, he was removed from his CEO position.<\/strong><\/p>\n

To be persuasive, employ all three: ethos, be the kind of person who deserves to be believed; logos, present evidence and logic to justify your position; and most importantly, pathos, connect emotionally with your audience\u2026be empathetic. You can do that, right?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr. Cooper is a retired scientist, now a writer, author and writing coach. His first book, Ting and I: A Memoir of Love, Courage and Devotion<\/em>, was published by Outskirts Press in 2011 and is available from Outskirts Press, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble, in paperback and ebook formats, as are his co-authored memoirs The Shield of Gold<\/em> and Ava Gardner\u2018s Daughter?<\/em> and the one he edited, High Shoes and Bloomers.<\/em> His writer-coaching web site is http:\/\/writeyourbookwithme.com. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ethos, Logos, and Pathos are not Alexandre Dumas\u2019s Three Musketeers [Athos, Porthos, and Aramis], but rather the Latin for, approximately,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2663,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"michaelly","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/957a72dc0c08f14979f0d258f5a5d70644519bea0e589bfbc83999b24053b763?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Ethos, Logos, and Pathos are not Alexandre Dumas\u2019s Three Musketeers [Athos, Porthos, and Aramis], but rather the Latin for, approximately,","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":148,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":4,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"michaelly","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=2663"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/957a72dc0c08f14979f0d258f5a5d70644519bea0e589bfbc83999b24053b763?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}