ARISTOTLE’S PERSUASION MODEL

Logos, ethos, and pathos are important components of all writing, whether we are aware of

them or not. By learning to recognize logos, ethos, and pathos in the writing of others and in

our own, we can create texts that appeal to readers on many different levels. This handout

provides a brief overview of what logos, ethos, and pathos are and offers guiding questions for

recognizing and incorporating these appeals. Aristotle taught that a speaker’s ability to

persuade an audience is based on how well the speaker appeals to that audience in three

different areas: logos, ethos, and pathos. Considered together, these appeals form what later

rhetoricians have called the rhetorical triangle.

Logos appeals to reason. Logos can also be thought of as the text of the argument, as well as

how well a writer has argued his/her point.

Ethos appeals to the writer’s character. Ethos can also be thought of as the role of the writer in

the argument, and how credible his/her argument is.

Pathos appeals to the emotions and the sympathetic imagination, as well as to beliefs and

values.

Pathos can also be thought of as the role of the audience in the argument.

LOGOS
(Reason/Text)

ETHOS PATHOS
(Credibility/Writer) (Values, Beliefs/Audience)
The rhetorical triangle is typically represented by an equilateral triangle, suggesting that logos,

ethos, and pathos should be balanced within a text. However, which aspect(s) of the rhetorical

triangle you favour in your writing depends on both the audience and the purpose of that

writing.

THE NEWCOMB’S MODEL

Theodore m. Newcomb (July 24, 1903) in Rock Creek, at the North-Eastern tip of Ohio and he

was a great pioneer in the field of social psychology. Merely 50 years he worked for the

improvement of human motivation, perception and learning to shape the deep understanding

of social process. His works “Personality and Social Change” (1943), “Social Psychology”

(1950). He published a new social approach in field of communication which is called “ABX”

system (later it became Newcomb’s model) and it’s published in the name of “An Approach to

the Study of Communicative Acts (1953)”. He published another great work in the field of

social psychology called “The Acquaintance Process” (1961).

The New Comb’s model of communication was introduced by Theodore M Newcomb of the

University of Michigan in 1953. He gives different approach to the communication process.

The main purpose of this theory is to introduce the role of communication in a social

relationship (society) and to maintain social equilibrium within the social system. He does not

include the message as a separate entity in his diagram, implying it only by use of directional

arrows.

He concentrates on the social purpose of communication, showing all communication as a

means of sustaining relationships between people. Sometimes it’s called as an “ABX” model

of communication
The Newcomb’s model works in a triangular format or A-B-X system

A – Sender

B – Receiver

X – Matter of Concern

The relationship between A and B is like student and teacher, government and public or

newspaper and readers. Sender and Receiver may work in a same flow but the same time some

factor like “X” may affect their flow of relationship. “X” it may be third persons, issue, topic

or policy.

For Example:

Teachers introduce a new policy to increase the college timing from 6 hours to 8 hours.

A – Teachers B – Students X – Policy or issue

If both students and teachers are satisfied with this policy then the communication maintains

its equilibrium status between them. Otherwise, the flow of communication between “A” and
“B” becomes trouble in the social system. If “A” or “B” is not ready to accept the policy then

it will directly affect the social system and can’t maintain the equilibrium status. So, Teachers

“A” can convince students “B” as much as possible. Otherwise, they have to make some

adjustments in the Policy “X” and convince them towards the policy.

THE HOVLAND-YALE MODEL

Carl Hovland set up a research team at Yale University which looked into the nature of persuasion. During

his years at the university, he developed the Hovland-Yale Model. This model states that there several

factors that will affect how likely a change of attitude through persuasion is, after all behavioural change

cannot occur without attitude change also having taken place. The three most prominent factors are the

source, the message and the audience.

This has led psychologists to look at the science of persuasion to discover how to change attitudes with

the ultimate goal of changing behaviour.

Source

The Source Credibility theory states that people more likely to be persuaded when a source presents itself

as credible, for example Bochner and Insko found that people were more likely to trust a sleep expert than

a non-sleep expert, on matters surrounding sleep.

Message

The Hovland-Yale model says the content of the message is an important factor. O’Keefe’s meta-analysis

of research on one-sided and two-sided messages found that two-sided messages influence attitudes more

than one-sided messages, as long as the two sided argument was eventually gave a solid opinion. So an

argument is more effective if you show both sides of the argument, but then show why your opinion is

correct.
Audience

The audience strongly affects how likely someone is to be persuaded, for example McGuire found that

more intelligent audiences are more likely to be persuaded by valid arguments because they have a longer

attention span and can understand the arguments better.

The cultural differences of an audience can also affect how persuasive an argument can be. For example,

Wang et al found Americans prefer products that offered ‘separateness’ whereas Chinese prefer products

that offered ‘togetherness’. This suggests different cultures would be more influences by messages which

back up their opinions.

Evaluation of the Hovland-Yale Model

Grounding Breaking – this traditional approach to persuasion and attitude change was one the earliest

attempts to investigate the topic area, this acted as a catalyst, meaning that a lot of more research was done

into the area.

Real World Application – It dealt with attitude change in practical ways and, indeed, much of the

research is still relevant today and can be seen in advertising, speech writing and use by ‘spin doctors’

such as Alastair Campbell.

Research Findings – There has been a wealth of research into the Hovland-Yale model, a lot of which

criticises the model.

Doesn’t Explain How Persuasion Actually Happens – Perhaps the greatest weakness of the Hovland-

Yale approach is that it only really concentrates on the steps in the persuasion process, and doesn’t really

offer an explanation of how persuasion actually occurs.

Assumption That Understanding A Message Leads To Persuasion – The model assumes that attitude

change always derives from an understanding of a message. This is obviously an important factor and

probably the main reason behind persuasion and attitude change, but this does not guarantee that people
are persuaded. For example, the Elaboration Likelihood model shows that persuasion can still occur even

when a message is not fully understood or learned.

Methodological Issues – A lot of the research into persuasion and attitude measurement is faulty. For

example, one of the main methods used is self-reports such as questionnaires, these can be unreliable and

result in invalid date. Also standardised measurements scales, for example where participants have to rate

their level of agreement to a series of attitude statements, are often very subjective to each individual, again

leading to invalid data. This means that the theory the data is based upon must also be invalid to some

extent.