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Pathos Examples and Worksheets

Pathos is a rhetorical device that appeals to the audience's emotions in order to evoke sympathy, empathy, or other emotional responses.

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Pathos, which means “suffering” or “experience,” appeals to the audience’s emotions and ideas and provokes sensations they already have. The term “pathos” is most frequently employed in rhetoric, which includes literature, cinema, and other narrative arts. Pathos is one of the three modalities of persuasion, along with ethos and logos.

See the fact file below for more information about Pathos, or download the comprehensive worksheet pack, which contains over 11 worksheets and can be used in the classroom or homeschooling environment.

Methods

  • An emotional appeal may be achieved in various methods, including using a metaphor or tale as a hook; passion in delivering the speech or writing, as assessed by the audience; and personal anecdote.
  • Appealing to an ideal may also be addressed in various ways, such as understanding the rationale for their viewpoint, avoiding personal assaults on a person or audience, and using the ideal’s traits to reinforce the message.
  • Pathos favors “loaded” phrases that elicit an emotional response. Examples might include “victim” in a variety of settings. Pathos is sometimes defined as a “guilt trip” since the speaker attempts to make someone in the audience or the entire audience feel terrible about something. “Oh, you don’t have to visit me, but I truly miss you and haven’t seen you in so long,” for example.

Philosophy

  • Pathos refers to “soul complaints” in Stoicism. Pathos is an interior occurrence (i.e., in one’s soul) characterized by an incorrect response to external sensations. Stoics associate this notion of pathos and the belief that all pathos must be eradicated (to attain the condition of apatheia) with a specific description of the nature of the soul, psychological functioning, and human activity. One crucial component of that perspective is that surrendering to pathos is a rational misstep – an intellectual blunder.
  • Epicureanism understood and placed pathos in much more informal ways and settings, putting it in pleasure and researching it in practically every aspect of happiness, evaluating emotional specificity that an individual may experience or must suffer to enjoy that pathos.

Rhetoric

Pathos: Aristotle’s Text

  • Aristotle describes three artistic methods of persuasion in Rhetoric: “awakening emotion (pathos) in the audience to induce them to make the desired judgment.” He explains in the first chapter how “men change their opinion regarding their judgment, and as such, emotions have specific causes and effects.”
  • By stating that “to understand the emotions—that is, to name and describe them, to know their causes and how they are excited,” Aristotle lists pathos as one of the three fundamental modes of proof. Aristotle further contends that, besides pathos, the speaker must also employ good ethos to establish credibility.
  • What certain emotions are helpful to a speaker is described by Aristotle. Aristotle concentrated on who, toward whom, and why, saying, “Knowing one or even two of these principles is insufficient; until we know all three, we will be unable to raise fury in anyone, and the same is true for the other emotions.” He also classifies the emotions with one another so that they may balance one another out. For instance, one may combine grief with joy.
  • According to Aristotle, the third of this triad is the ultimate purpose of pathos. Similarly, Aristotle discusses the value of distinct persuasive emotions as well as the combined power of these emotions on the audience. Antoine Braet re-examined Aristotle’s text, focusing on the speaker’s purpose of influencing the listener. According to Braet, there are three viewpoints on every emotion a speaker is attempting to elicit from the audience: the audience’s condition, motivation, and motive.
  • Moreover, Aristotle examines pleasure and pain in connection to the behaviors these two emotions elicit in an audience member. Feelings, according to Aristotle, differ from person to person. As a result, he emphasizes the significance of knowing unique social contexts to properly employ pathos as a persuasive technique. Aristotle cites the introduction and conclusion as the two most critical locations in any compelling argument for an emotional appeal.

Pathos before Aristotle

  • Even before Aristotle’s Rhetoric, the notion of emotional appeal existed in rhetoric. George A. Kennedy, a well-known contemporary historian, notes the use of emotional appeals in the newly established democratic court system around 400 BC in his work, The Art of Persuasion in Greece.
  • Gorgias, a Sophist who came before Aristotle, was also concerned with the orator’s emotional appeal. Gorgias thought the orator could use emotional appeal to capture and lead the audience in their desired direction. In the Encomium of Helen, Gorgias claims that a soul can experience certain emotions because words like sadness and pity are used, and some words serve as “bringers of joy and takers of suffering.
  • Additionally, according to Gorgias, the experience of being emotionally persuaded is comparable to that of being drugged: “[f]or just as different drugs draw off different touches of humor from the body, and some end disease and others to life, so too of discourses: some give pain, others delight, others terrify, others rouse the hearers to courage, and yet others by a certain vile persuasion drug and trick to the soul.”
  • Plato also explored rhetoric’s use of emotional appeal. Because Plato and other Sophists existed before Aristotle, they created the framework for him to conceptualize the idea of pathos. Plato examines the contrast between pleasure and suffering in the world of pathos in his dialogue with Gorgias through a (perhaps fictitious) conversation between Gorgias and Socrates.
  • In Plato’s dialogue between several classical rhetors, the significance of rhetoric is emphasized, and the men respond with pathos. Although Plato’s exploration of emotions in Phaedrus is more detailed, he must explain how emotions govern an audience. Gorgias discourages the use of pathos in persuasion in favor of ethos.
  • According to Plato, emotions may be harmful when communicating. He argues that emotional appeal in speech should be used to attain a purpose rather than being the main topic of conversation.

Contemporary Pathos

  • One of the earliest rhetoricians to use scientific data to support his idea of emotional appeal was George Campbell, a pioneer of the Scottish Enlightenment. Campbell drew significantly from the book Observations on Man by doctor David Hartley. The book proposed that action results from impressions by fusing neuroscience and emotions.
  • According to Hartley, passions made up of cognitive impulses and appeals based on situations cause people to behave in specific ways. According to Campbell, the effectiveness of an emotional appeal has a significant impact on persuasion and belief.
  • Campbell also made the case that the audience’s imagination and will are just as crucial to emotional persuasion as the audience’s fundamental comprehension of an argument. By building on the theories of earlier rhetoricians, Campbell developed a modern understanding of pathos that considers the psychological component of emotional appeal.

Pathos in Politics

  • Pathos also plays a role in politics, particularly speech and audience persuasion. According to Mshvenieradze, “Audience is a collective topic of speakers on which an orator attempts to affect my arguments, and pathos is intimately related to an audience.”
  • The method in which one appeals to the reader is comparable to how one appeals to a voting audience, as Aristotle teaches how to use pathos successfully in rhetoric. Politics and politicians tend to be more combative in their writing and speaking. In Book II of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, he says that understanding people’s emotions enables one to act with words rather than writing alone, gaining the trust and credibility of others.
  • As Aristotle’s theories spread, several other schools of thought, like the Epicureans and Stoics, adopted various forms of political use that included aspects of pathos.

Pathos in Advertising

  • Due to the massive marketing businesses conduct nowadays, advertising is highly competitive. As it appeals to the emotional aspect of the customer, pathos has grown in popularity as a tactic for marketing. Pathos is an excellent tool for influencing customers to purchase products and services since research demonstrates that emotion affects how individuals perceive information and make decisions.
  • In the current digital era, “designers must go beyond aesthetics and industrial feasibility to integrate the aspect of ’emotional awareness.'” Businesses today incorporate references to contemporary pop culture in their advertisements and frequently work to elicit a response from the audience. In other words, more is needed for businesses to have attractive promotions; they may also need to employ additional design strategies to convince and win over customers to purchase their products.
  • Large food businesses like President’s Choice’s “Eat Together” campaign (2017) and Coca-“Open-happiness” Cola’s campaign serve as examples of this style of advertising (2009). The SPCA advertisements with images of stray dogs and depressing music are among the most recognized instances of pathos in advertising.

Pathos in Research

  • Pathos can also be employed in reputable medical journals, research, and other academic writing. The objective is to engage readers’ emotions while upholding the essential standards of the medical discourse community. Writers can do this by employing specific terminology to generate a feeling from the reader.
  • God’s terms are frequently utilized in rhetorical arguments. By concentrating on factual and scientific information and avoiding personal opinions, authors must continue to uphold the level of writing within the medical community.

Pathos in Art

  • Most artwork falls under the category of pathos. Throughout history, artists have employed pathos in their work by using colors, form, and texture to elicit emotions in their audience.
  • Political cartoons are only one example of how artists use pathos to persuade or bring global concerns centered on the government to light. The drawings are frequently blown out of proportion and highly exaggerated, yet this adds to the raw sensation the artist attempts to inspire in the spectator.

Pathos Worksheets

This bundle contains 5 ready-to-use pathos worksheets that are perfect for testing students’ knowledge and understanding of what pathos is and how it can be used. You can use these pathos worksheets in the classroom with students, or with home-schooled children as well.

Frequently Asked Questions 

What is pathos?  

Pathos, which means “suffering” or “experience,” appeals to the audience’s emotions and ideas and provokes sensations they already have. The term “pathos” is most frequently employed in rhetoric, which includes literature, cinema, and other narrative arts. Pathos is one of the three modalities of persuasion, along with ethos and logos.

What is pathos in Stoicism?

Pathos refers to “soul complaints” in Stoicism. Pathos is an interior occurrence (i.e., in one’s soul) characterized by an incorrect response to external sensations. Stoics associate this notion of pathos and the belief that all pathos must be eradicated (to attain the condition of apatheia) with a specific description of the nature of the soul, psychological functioning, and human activity. One crucial component of that perspective is that surrendering to pathos is a rational misstep – an intellectual blunder.

How Aristotle identifies pathos?  

Aristotle lists pathos as one of the three fundamental modes of proof. Aristotle further contends that, besides pathos, the speaker must also employ good ethos to establish credibility.

Can pathos be used in advertising?  

Yes. Due to the massive marketing businesses conduct nowadays, advertising is highly competitive. As it appeals to the emotional aspect of the customer, pathos has grown in popularity as a tactic for marketing.

Give an example of pathos used in art. 

Political cartoons are only one example of how artists use pathos to persuade or bring global concerns centered on the government to light. The drawings are frequently blown out of proportion and highly exaggerated, yet this adds to the raw sensation the artist attempts to inspire in the spectator.

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Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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