It is only fallacious when the emotions that are elicited are irrelevant to evaluating the truth of the conclusion and serve to distract from rational consideration of relevant premises or information.
Appeals to emotion are intended to cause the recipient of the information to experience feelings such as fear, pity, or joy, with the end goal of convincing the person that the statements being presented by the fallacious argument are true or false, respectively.
[4] Seneca similarly warned that "Reason herself, to whom the reins of power have been entrusted, remains mistress only so long as she is kept apart from the passions.
However, Campbell warned of the malleability of emotion and the consequent risk in terms of suggestibility: Propaganda theorist Edward Bernays asserted confidently that "in certain cases we can effect some change in public opinion with a fair degree of accuracy by operating a certain mechanism, just as a motorist can regulate the speed of his car by manipulating the flow of gasoline.
[10] Indeed, some contemporary authors have attributed the popularity of the most destructive political forces in modern history to the ability of their propagandists to enchant (rather than convince) publics and to oppose "the heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor" to "naked self interest" and individualism.
[14] Modern theorists have modified the tripartite theory to argue that an attitude "does not consist of these elements, but is instead a general evaluative summary of the information derived from these bases.
[19] Other people have argued that "when an emotion is aroused and experienced, it can involve a number of psychological processes that can then be used as a platform for promoting and securing influence and compliance".
is that, "[w]hen it comes to issues of emotional importance, convincing someone to change his or her existing beliefs appears to be a virtually hopeless undertaking.
[24] Other research shows that "emotional stimuli can influence judgment without a judge's awareness of having seen or felt anything (e.g., Bargh, 1997; Murphy & Zajonc, 1993).
"[25] Indeed, "recent studies have confirmed that affect does play a general role in attitude change, whether due to persuasive communication, or to cognitive dissonance processes (Petty et al., 2001)".
Fear has been found to force individuals "to break from routine and pay close attention to the external world," including persuasive messages.
Not unlike fear appeals, the literature suggests that guilt can enhance attainment of persuasive goals if evoked to a moderate degree.
[32] However, "unintentionally induced anger in response to supposed guilt and fear appeals has been shown to correlate negatively with attitudes".
The researchers' findings show there is a major relationship between moral judgment and empathic concern in particular, specifically feelings of warmth and compassion in response to someone in distress.
"[37] Dan Ariely notes that appeals that, through visual cues or otherwise, make us focus on specific, individual victims affect our attitudes and cause us to take action whereas, "when many people are involved, we don't.
Experiments have shown that appeals to hope are successful mainly with subjects who self-report as being predisposed to experiencing fear.