How Pathos Affects Us
Pathos means emotional reasoning and it was first coined by Greek Philosopher Aristotle. Emotion is the easiest way to win someone’s heart. When we think emotionally, our logical reasoning gets low. When we watch movies or read a storybook, we sometimes get emotionally attached because the author wants us to. As a result, that story influences our lives and we evolve our logic surrounding it.
For example, Shahrukh Khan makes a romantic movie where he sacrifices his love and dies of a heart attack at the end. This makes us emotional and we fall in love with the actor out of sympathy; whichever movie he creates feels great because of the emotional attachment he created.
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| Clips from the movie "Kal Ho Na Ho (2003)" |
Likewise, we are unconsciously allowing pathos to control us and feel great about it. Big organizations use pathos to control our behavior. When Grameenphone made a TV commercial “Shwapno Jaabe Bari”, during Eid, it was a great hit. Why? Because during Eid, people connect to their families or go to their villages which is a driving emotional factor. Pathos is the most effective way to hold your audience or customers or viewers, whatever medium it is.
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Establishing a connection with people requires pathos. This is why companies always try to connect their service or product with their customers with the help of pathos. Similarly, another group of people does the same thing. They are politicians. Politicians rely on the support of the common people. People need to trust a politician in order to support them and there is no better way to create trust than using pathos. When Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman gave the historical speech on March 7th of 1971, he addressed the mass people as his brothers. He prepared a whole nation for war just by his speech. He portrayed the issues, the discrimination, and the unfairness conducted by the West Pakistani government. People trusted him so much that they went on to prepare for war leaving families behind.
Historical Speech of 7th March by Bangabandhu
However, many politicians nowadays use the essence of Bangabandhu’s speech and the memory of his remorseful death to create an emotional atmosphere for their electoral benefit. They dress like him, talk like him, use his speech elements and bring up past activities done by him which are totally unnecessary. It is so frequently done that the idea has become distorted. Even then, people support these politicians because of an emotional corner pushing them.
A common theme we got used to during the covid-19 pandemic was the vaccination program campaigns. We heard that if we protect ourselves, we can protect others. Vaccinating and maintaining social distance can save a lot of lives. These phrases were created so that the health authorities could aware the mass people of the necessity of vaccines.
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| Covid-19 Vaccine Campaign |
Another engaging campaign that uses Pathos is anti-smoking adverts. Whenever we come across a cigarette packet, we see photos of black lungs, a disease-stricken person, or breathing problems. This is to remind smokers that it is harmful. Throughout the years, people developed consciousness over smoking. Many of them quit, but most of them are careful while smoking in front of people. These campaigns worked by triggering the caring emotion of people. During the 60s and 70s, cigarettes were advertised positively. Now, it has changed and most people know that it is harmful.
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| Warning sign on a Gold Flake Cigarette Packet |
Not all pathos is sad or happy emotions. Some may contain sex appeal. There are Condom commercials that use pornography models and sensual content in their adverts to provoke the audience. Until that, it is acceptable. But hypersexualizing women every now and then have become a trend in order to get more male audience. Sexualizing food is one of them. It is easy to get confused about whether to look at the food and the woman. Moreover, it subconsciously portrays women in men’s heads as consumable objects.
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| Sunny Leone posing for a Manforce condom ad |
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| Katrina Kaif in a Slice mango drink ad |
Using Pathos can mold the mindset of a society which is why it is needed to use pathos carefully and constructively. We need to stop the bad practice of using pathos in unsuitable circumstances. Triggering positive emotions can be more effective in the long run than negative emotions for overnight fame.