An appeal to emotion is one of the most common forms of persuasion found in the modern world. Epstein defines an appeal to emotion as something in an argument that says, "you should do or believe something because you feel a certain way." This type of persuasion is often used in advertising or by people in everyday conversation, an example being: "You should feel terrible for hurting that girl's feelings. Her grandfather died this week, and she's been very depressed. You should go apologize to her right now." In this example the appeal to emotion comes from convincing the other person that they should feel bad, causing them to apologize.
One of the more important subjects within the appeal to emotion is appealing to fear. This tactic is employed to scare the audience into doing a certain action, for example: "You shouldn't drive fast because it's snowing. My father died on these roads, they are very dangerous." This example uses the fear of death as reasoning to convince the listener to drive slower.
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