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GE2248 Understanding
Persuasion in Everyday Life
Lecture 3
Theories of Persuasion (Aristotle's Theory,
Elaboration Likelihood Model)
Successful Persuasion – Ethos, Pathos, Logos

• Aristotle identified three modes of persuasion used to

convince audiences
▫ Ethos, Pathos, and Logos (Greek words)

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Successful Persuasion – Ethos, Pathos, Logos

• Ethos
• Persuading the audience by using the character/credibility of the
speaker
• E.g. A woman talking about women problems is more likely to have
an effect on the audience than a male speaker  Women appears
to be more powerful in talking about abortion, no matter what their
stand is
• E.g. A teacher comes in the class and tells you ‘Tomorrow is a
holiday’ and no questions will be asked. But if your classmate says
so, you will investigate first. You will be more eager to listen to a
representative person in the field than to a newbie.

• Make use of your identity/reputation/trustworthiness to

enhance the persuasive power

http://www.pathosethoslogos.com/ 3
Successful Persuasion – Ethos, Pathos, Logos

• Logos
▫ Persuading the audience by using reason to justify the
speaker’s argument

▫ E.g. Polythene bags should be banned  give reasons as to

“why” like “polythene bags do not biodegrade and continues to
pollute the environment” or “facts” like “thousands of bags are
produced every week and are dumped somewhere after use”.

▫ Use evidences to support your arguments in order to make

them strong
▫ Be mindful of the logical fallacy, which can be attacked by the
audiences

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Successful Persuasion – Ethos, Pathos, Logos

• Pathos
▫ Persuading the audience by appealing to their emotions
▫ When facts are well proved, people may not be able to reject it,
BUT they ignore it.
▫ Stirring emotions in an audience is a way to get them involved in
the speech, and involvement can create more opportunities for
persuasion and action.

▫ Especially important when there is no immediate or obvious

pain/benefit in the discussed topic
▫ E.g. Ask people to give a vote in the Election of District Councilors
(區議員選舉)
  Citizen's responsibility?
  How the society will be when there is a poor/good District Councilor?

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Successful Persuasion – Ethos, Pathos, Logos

• Put in Practice! You receive a bill from your mobility

service provider and you find that the company
overcharges you. You want to money back.
• No persuasion technique: “Give me my money back!!”
• Applying the techniques of logos, ethos and pathos

Logos Phone log shows I didn’t use it that much

Pathos I need the money to help my sick mom

Ethos I have paid my bill on time for years

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Successful Persuasion – Ethos, Pathos, Logos

• Revisit the online romance scams, what have been

done by the scammers?
Logos

Pathos

Ethos

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Successful Persuasion – Ethos, Pathos, Logos
• Suppose you want to buy a new Apple notebook, you
are going to persuade your mother to sponsor you
money in the purchase.
• No persuasion technique: “I want to by an Apple notebook.
Please sponsor me, mum.”
• Applying the techniques of logos, ethos and pathos

Logos

Ethos

Pathos

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Successful Persuasion – Ethos, Pathos, Logos
Points to remember

• Speakers should strive to appeal to ethos, logos, and pathos

within a speech
• A speech built primarily on ethos  An audience may think that a
speaker is full of stories, which is not firmly rooted.
• A speech full of facts and statistics  Information overload.
• Speakers who rely primarily on appeals to pathos may be seen as
overly passionate, biased, or unable to see other viewpoints.

• In order to persuade your audiences, proper use of ethos, pathos

and logos is necessary, but do they carry the same weights in a
successful persuasion?

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Successful Persuasion
You plan to buy a house in the city. How do you choose
the house? How you do make the decision?

Take the advices from the real estate agent?

Conduct comprehensive research on the property market?

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 Successful Persuasion
You are going to buy a lunch. Which restaurant do you select? How do
you make the decision?

Take the advices from your friend Study and compare the restaurant’s menu
and background information carefully

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Successful Persuasion
You plan to do some investment in the stock market. How do you invest
your money? How do you make the decision?

Take the advices from the expert? Study the relevant information carefully?

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Successful Persuasion
• What is your conclusion?
▫ The sender or the message?

• It depends on the situation

▫ High involvement (important) decision
vs. Low involvement (unimportant) decision

▫ High involvement situation  high motivation to think about the messages

and topics  want to ensure a right decision is made
 Do you have the ability to understand/comprehend the messages and topics?
 If yes  Message quality is the key
 If no  Sender quality is the key

▫ Low involvement situation  low motivation to think about the messages and
topics (no matter you have the ability to understand/comprehend the
messages and topics)
 Sender quality is the key

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Persuasion Theory:
Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
“Two Routes” to Persuasion
 Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
• Authors: Richard Petty and John Cacioppo (1986)

• ELM
▫ Demonstrates that different types of persuasive messages are
processed through either the central or peripheral route and
explains how each route produces different strengths of
persuasion.

▫ Focuses attention on the number of thoughts

Central processing Peripheral processing

Many thoughts Few thoughts
Recap from the 2nd Lecture: Understanding your Audiences
Motivation + Ability

When the listener has both

Motivation (willingness) to
process a message
Ability to process (understand)
a message

The Central route to

persuasion

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Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
• The Central route to persuasion

▫ Thoughtful consideration of the arguments (ideas, content) in the

message

▫ Persuasion effectiveness will largely be determined by how

much sense the argument make to the audiences and whether or
not they think that it is a good idea

 Audiences look at the facts and critically analyzed what the persuader
said.

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Recap from the 2nd Lecture: Understanding your Audiences
Motivation + Ability

When the listener lacks the ability or

motivation (or both) to engage in the
thought on the message

The Peripheral route to

persuasion

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 Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
• The Peripheral route to persuasion
▫ The receiver does not expend the effort to think carefully about the
ideas in a message

▫ Decides whether to agree with the message on the basis of other

cues, such as the number of arguments in the message, the
source credibility or attractiveness, the prevailing view of a group
(group think / norms)

Pandora shows its

“popularity” by the queues 19
Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
Motivation Ability Route E.g.

√ √ Central • Travel
• Wedding banquet
√ X Peripheral • Bet on horse
racing
• Medical
treatments
X √ Peripheral • Buy stationeries

X X Peripheral • Being asked to

buy vegetables

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Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
Attention: The attitude changed under different routes to persuasion is
different

What is the implication?

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In Practice…

What if the audience uses the central route to process

information, but you do not have high quality arguments?

Time is a factor to influence the listener’s

response

If your arguments are not very logical/strong, then you need to find
ways to shorten the audience’s time in making decisions

 Create an environment that make people feel pressures and in

rush

 Law of Scarcity

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Law of Scarcity

3. Law of Scarcity
The more the scarcity of an item increases, the more the item increases in value,
the greater the urge to own it because people don’t want to miss out on
anything they could have had. The mental trigger of potential loss causes
anxiety in people that they act to prevent the loss

Limited supply,
Limited time, deadline competition
(No deadline, no action. (Property agent always tell
Many people don’t pay you that there is another
their bills until they have potential buyer
to.) considering the house you
just visited. )
Potential loss
(The property price keeps
rising. Delay in a purchase
decision may cause to a
higher cost of purchase.)

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Online Scam Review
Ethos
All the scam cases Hacking into victim’s account
are playing around and sending money requests to
his friends and family;
ethos, logos and Pretending to be the senior
management of a company or a
pathos. More representative of an official
organization
importantly,
creating urgency!

Pathos
Logos Addressing the
Getting troubles or friendship and love. How
requesting something bad it will be if the
simple victim doesn’t help

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