Public Speaking

Include Pathos or Emotional Proofs (^219)
employing to ensure that food waste has positive
outcomes.
Leftover food such as chicken, vegetables, and
pasta is used in soup the following day. Unsold
sandwiches and fruit from the snack bar are
given away Friday nights in the dining hall.
The university donates about 150 meals to
Urban Services every Friday. Plant Services is
also working on a vermiculture (worm bins) to
compost salad leftovers.^12
These examples help students (who might feel
guilty for wasting so much food) feel more hopeful
by knowing that their wasteful habits are not entirely
destructive. Because she is not condemning their
behaviors, her listeners are not defensive, so they can
more easily examine their personal eating habits.

Appealing to Negative Emotions

People try to avoid unpleasant emotions such

as guilt, shame, hatred, fear, insecurity, anger, and

anxiety. However, fear, anger, and guilt can motivate

us to avoid real dangers—a fact that the campaign

against texting and driving uses effectively. Think of

a story you’ve heard or an ad you’ve seen that shows

crashed cars of teens who “just this once” drove

while texting. Don’t they make you want to prevent

the problem?

Analogies work well to arouse negative emotions. In this speech excerpt, Hillary

Clinton likened the Internet to the Berlin Wall as a way to arouse negative emotions

toward censorship and division by showing how they violate core values of free

expression and connection.

As I speak to you today, government censors somewhere are working furiously

to erase my words from the records of history. But history itself has already

condemned these tactics.... The Berlin Wall symbolized a world divided and

it defined an entire era. Today, ... the new iconic infrastructure is the Internet.

Instead of division, it stands for connection. But even as networks spread to nations

around the globe, virtual walls are cropping up in place of visible walls.

Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from

accessing portions of the world’s networks. They’ve expunged words, names, and

phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who

engage in non-violent political speech.^13

Appeals to negative emotions can be forceful, sometimes with disastrous results.

Consider how effectively hate groups appeal to listeners’ weaknesses, rages, fears, and

insecurities. In addition, it’s easy to overdo negative appeals, and excessive appeals to

guilt or fear may turn off an audience. A famous environmentalist’s negative appeals

made one listener “go numb.” He advised her to evaluate the psychological impact of

her appeals to fear and guilt and to present instead a “politics of vision” that connects

environmental goals to positive emotions—to what is “generous, joyous, freely given,

and noble” in the audience.^14

Both negative and positive emotions can be powerful motivators in

persuasive speeches.

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