How To Convince People: The Modes Of Persuasion
My girlfriend came up to me today while I was working at the table in the kitchen and said,
“I want to read more.”
First of all, I was super excited to hear this. I’m very attracted to people who read, so how convenient that my girlfriend would express this desire! In her defense, she does already read quite a bit, but she’s also an over-achiever.
The conversation continued and the explanation she gave for why she wants to read more was not what I was expecting. She said,
“When I’m talking to people, I want to be able to contextualize the advice I am giving them in knowledge and experiences other than my own.”
When she said this, it reminded me of something I thought I had learned in either high school English or college philosophy …
Logos, Pathos, Ethos
So I googled “logos pathos ethos.” This is the first link I clicked on. It describes logos, pathos, and ethos as “modes of persuasion,” originally thought of by Aristotle.
And here is a quote from the original source, Rhetoric by Aristotle, written in 350 BC:
“Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker [ethos]; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind [pathos]; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself [logos].”
Basically, as best as I can understand from just 10 minutes of research on Google, here is the breakdown of the three modes of persuasion:
- Logos = logic, reason
- Pathos = emotions, sympathy
- Ethos = credibility, authority
Now, after that brief history lesson, let’s zoom back in on my girlfriend’s comment: she wants to read more in order to contextualize the advice she is giving during her conversations with others.
This sounds to me like ethos.
Can you increase your ethos simply by reading?
I would say so. In fact, how else would you gain credibility and authority other than by reading?
If we were to break down the three modes of persuasion into archetypes of the people with whom we usually talk, I think it would go something like this:
- Logos = know-it-all smarty-pants who is always ready with an answer or a solution (but, despite being annoying, they are useful to have around, because they are often right)
- Pathos = someone who will actually listen to what you have to say and empathize, instead of just steamrolling you with their own point of view and projecting their own experiences on your situation
- Ethos = the bookworm or avid media consumer who is constantly dropping references to literature, media, or some other source that you’ve never heard of (or someone accomplished enough to just speak from their own authority, like a professor)
Which one is the best?
I don’t think that’s the right question. I think the right question is: which one is the best in a given situation?
If we break that down even further … for any given conversation, there are probably different points in the conversation when one mode of persuasion is more effective than the other two.
But how can you tell?
I think we’ve just scratched the tip of the iceberg in this short post, but these are some of the other questions still on my mind:
- How does the media use fake “ethos” in clickbait titles and skim-read references?
- Are some people better at certain modes of persuasion than others? Are women better at pathos compared to men?
- If you wanted to get better at a specific mode of persuasion, how would you go about doing that?
Anyway, now you probably have more questions than answers, so I’ll leave you here 🙂
Sources:
YourDictionary. “Examples of Ethos, Logos, and Pathos.” Example Articles & Resources, examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-ethos-logos-and-pathos.html.
Aristotle. “Rhetoric by Aristotle, trans. W. Rhys Roberts”. The Internet Classics Archive.
