Literary Review
February 24, 2015
of the speaker. Ethos includes such things as body type, height, movement, clothes, reputation,
vocal quality, word choice, eye contact, sincerity, expertise, and charisma. Pathos refers to the
psychological state of the audience. The psychological or emotional state of the listener can
affect persuasion because "our judgment when we are pleased and friendly is not the same as
when we are pained or hostile. Logos is the substance of a message, or the logic presented to
provide proof to the listener. He claimed that the most effective persuasive attempts contain all
three concepts, making a steadfast base for victory. This manner of reasoning is what enables the
audience to find the message persuasive and convincing. In 2010, Cynthia King also wrote an
article explaining the work of Aristotle. King claimed that Aristotle believed that ethos was the
most powerful of the three persuasive mean. A scientific study has proven the power of
individual ethos. A study by Hovland and Weiss gave students messages that were identical in all
respects, except for their source. Sources perceived as highly credible yielded large opinion
changes in the students; while sources perceived as low credible produced small opinion
changes. All three of these articles explain the basics of persuasion. Each one has a slightly
different position to persuasion, which supports why further study and research can still be done.
Persuasion does take a set of skills and for it to be effective almost always needs to follow
certain guidelines. However, because there are exceptional cases and situations, persuasion is an
art, not a science.
In the 2014 article, Kwang Yeun Chun, Ji Hee Song, Hollenbeck, Candice, and Jong-Ho
Lee researched if contextual advertisements are effective. This article is important and useful
because the sample for my research question and the sample from this research are the same
demographic. This article suggests that because of the growing online market, advertisements
must become more contextualized to appeal to the audience. This article gives examples of how
the Theory of Priming effects the audience. The Theory of Priming states that media images
stimulate related thoughts in the minds of audience members. For example, if a person were to
see a cartoon character play a trick that inflicts pain or injury on another character, without
permanent consequences, it could make that person more likely to repeat the violent action in
real life. The results of the study showed that the audience prefers less complex contextual
advertisements online. Related to my research question, this means that college aged individuals
respond more favorably to advertisements that are straight forward and explain what exactly the
product is and to advertisements that dont have so much going on that it distracts them from the
product. In 1998, Eleonora Curlo and Robert Chamblee examined the process of advertising and
persuasion and how identifying brands played a role in credibility. This article studies
advertisement-based persuasion; it suggests that viewer identification of the brand being
advertised positively affects attitude toward the advertisement, which in turn enhances positive
brand attitudes. Curlo and Chamblee also state that identification of the advertiser is key in
advertisement processing. Advertisements that enabled identification of the brand appeared
credible, which contributed to enhancing their persuasive impact of Ethos. These two articles
explain what components in advertisements make viewers have a more favorable attitude
towards them. This is important to my research because it allows me to see what researchers
have deemed essential to have in an advertisement. Both of these article show the importance of
having credibility in the advertisement.
These articles draw attention to significant parts of the process of persuasion and certain
criteria necessary for advertisements to appeal to the viewers. Most of these articles claim that
the only part of the message that is important is its influence, the position it supports, and the
clarity of the claim. These articles do not explain how to be a successful persuader, but how
people are persuaded.
References
Brambilla, M., & Leach, C. W. (2014). On The Importance of Being Moral: The Distinctive Role
of Morality in Social Judgment. Social Cognition, 32(4), 397-408.
Curlo, E., & Chamblee, R. (1998). Ad processing and persuasion: The role of brand
identification. Psychology & Marketing, 15(3), 279-299.
Henning, S. (1967). Style, rhetoric and rhythm: A general summary of Aristotle's appeals.
Modern Language Journal, 51(2), 112.
King, C. L. (2010). Beyond Persuasion. Journal of Business Communication, 47(1), 69-78.
Kwang Yeun, C., Ji Hee, S., Hollenbeck, C. R., & Jong-Ho, L. (2014). Are contextual
advertisements effective?. International Journal of Advertising, 33(2), 351-371.
doi:10.2501/IJA-33-2-351-371
Poggi, I. (2005). The goals of persuasion. Pragmatics & Cognition, 13(2), 297-336.