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Natali Cabrera

Professor Beadle

Enlgish 115

September 23 , 2019

The Use of Rhetorical Devices

Do you ever ask yourself, “Am I happy with my life right now”? The article “How Happy

Are You and Why?” by Sonja Lyubomirsky ​presents​ the most effective argument with the use of

ethos, pathos and logos. ​Compared​ to the other articles, “What Suffering Does” by David Brooks

discusses​, the ​differences​ between happiness and suffering. David goes in depth with the feeling

of suffering and how it affects people. This article demonstrated the rhetorical element of pathos

because the article reflected a lot of emotions. Also the article, “Living With Less. A Lot Less.”,

by Graham Hill, argues that less really can be more. Graham Hill uses his own experience of

how his life is better off with less items. Although, all the articles use the rhetorical devices;

ethos, pathos, and logos. Sonja Lyubomirsky, the author of the article, “How Happy Are You

and Why?” uses her own profession ​as​ credibility, studies and research about the happiness of

people.(179) She did research such as; a happiness scale, interviews, twin studies and genetic

studies. Which demonstrates that Lyubomirsky’s article is the most effective argument​ because

she has more examples of ethos, pathos and logos.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, uses ethos ​more​ as a strategy unlike other authors (David Brooks and

Graham Hill) to prove her advance knowledge in school in which makes herself credible and
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reliable. ​Lyubomirsky​ is a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside. She

earned her Ph.D in social psychology from Stanford University in 1994. She is also the author of

more than eighty articles and book chapters.(179) The author Sonja Lyubomirsky made a study

of twins named Audrey and Helen, to determine the connections of how happy they can both be

as identical twins compared to fraternal twins.(188) The twin study showed, that Audrey’s

happiness is great but Helen’s level of happiness was at Audrey’s level today, ten years ago.

Meaning that this study was effective because researchers determined the level of happiness

using twins since they both experience the same childhood. Looking at the article ,“Living with

Less. A Lot Less.”, by Graham Hill, also uses pathos, and logos to demonstrate his experience of

being an owner of many things such as houses and electronic devices. ​However, he does not use

it effectively like Lyubomirsky. ​Hill mentions, “And because the place was so big, I felt

obligated to get roommates-who required more time, more energy, to manage. I still had the

Seattle house, so I found myself worrying about two homes.”(309). Graham Hill was worried

about his homes and brought a lot of responsibilities.​ In comparison with Lyubomirsky, Hill only

uses his life experience which illustrates more of pathos instead of ethos. Unlike Lyubomirsky

she conducted some research and her work is more credible.

Lyubomirsky uses pathos by hosting an emotional interview that consisted of three

happy participants and breaking down the elements and strategies of their emotions to

comprehend why some people are happy and others are not. The author interviewed a thirty-four

year old woman named Angela. In the interview Angela mentions that she grew up with an

abusive mother. “Angela was growing up in Southern California, her mother was emotionally

and physically abusive to her, and her father did nothing to intervene.”.(180) Angela is now a
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mother herself despite having a rough childhood as a daughter, she transformed her fears and

became the happiest and proud mother to her daughter. Meaning, Angela had a rough childhood

maybe she didn’t want that for her daughter so she became more positive. Sonja Lyubomirsky,

also interviewed Randy where he shares a rough childhood like Angela. When Randy was

younger he lost two people due to suicide, one being his father and the other his best friend.

Randy mentions in his interview, “When Randy was in fifth grade, his mother left his father and

moved the family out of state and away from everyone he knew in order that she could live with

her boyfriend, Roy”.(181). Through all the hardships and memories, Randy still remains to stay

positive and being one of the happiest people and he also loves to make everyone around him

happy. Lastly, Lyubomirsky interviewed an individual named Shannon however she had a great

childhood ​unlike​ Angela and Randy. Shannon grew up and she is not so happy . Her transition to

college was really stressful for her. In the interview Sonja mentioned that “Shannon seemed to

turn everything into a crisis”(182). Overall the interview with Shannon resulted in her being

lonely and possibly turning into an eating habit diagnosis. ​These examples create pathos because

the interviewees talked about their personal life and their own experiences

“How Happy Are You and Why?” uses logos by the author having studies relating to charts

and surveys for people to determine how happy a person is. Sonja Lyubomirsky conducts

another research which was a happiness column. Where people answer questions of how happy

they are. For example, one of the questions is, “Compare with most of my peers, I consider

myself:” and there is a scale of numbers from 1-7, 1 being less happy and 7 being more

happy.(183) Sonja made this happiness column, so everyone can determine how happy you are

as a person. She also makes graphs of different ages and how happy people are. For example,
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“58.6% of 18 year olds claim to be happy and 54.1% of millennials claim to be happy” according

to Proper Insights and Analytics.(187) Overall, the happiness column and the graph, both show

the rhetorical strategy of logos to argue and provide a stronger evidence for readers to learn more

about the studies of happiness Sonja Lyubomirsky has done.

The following articles, “What Suffering Does” by David Brooks and “Living With Less.

A Lot Less.”, by Graham Hill both use the rhetorical strategies, ethos, pathos and logos.

However they are not as effective as the article “How Happy Are You and Why?” by Sonja

Lyubomirsky. The article, “What Suffering Does” by David Brooks discusses about the

experience of suffering and what it feels like to suffer. “Recovering from suffering is not like

recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out

different.”(Brooks 287) This demonstrates the rhetorical strategy of pathos because Brooks goes

into further depth into his emotions. Compared to Sonja Lyubomirsky’s article the other articles

don’t have as much information as Lyubomirsky’s article.

Finally, Sonja has the best article “How Happy Are You and Why?” using the three

rhetorical strategies which are logos, pathos and ethos. Her article is the most detailed compared

to ​Hill’s​ and ​Brook’s​ articles because she did a lot more in depth studies such as the graphs,

interviews, twin study, the happiness column and more. She has strong credibility because she

wrote many books and articles including “How Happy Are You and Why?”. Although, there are

other credible authors like David Brooks and Graham Hill that used the rhetorical strategies of

ethos, pathos and logos. However, as I mentioned before, Lyubomirsky used more evidence and

information to further support the use of the three rhetorical strategies.

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Works Cited

Brooks, David. “What Suffering Does” Pursuing Happiness, edited by

Matthew Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski; Bedford St.Martins, 2016, pp 284-287

Hill, Graham. “Living With Less. A lot Less” Pursuing Happiness, edited by

Matthew Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski; Bedford St.Martins, 2016, pp 308-313

Lyubomirsky,Sonja.”How Happy Are You and Why?” Pursuing Happiness, edited by

Matthew Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski; Bedford St.Martins, 2016 pp.179-197.