So we began this conversation about persuasion with recent work by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. And then we went further back to kind of the bedrock work in psychology from Cialdini. But we can go back further yet to Aristotle's time and ancient rhetoric, because they give us a framework that is in some ways simpler than the more recent ones. And yet includes almost all of the same elements that the more recent research has emphasized. So we can look at it as here's another framework, or we can look at it as here's an umbrella concept framework for holding these other more recent ideas, and I think both are useful. So let's just take a moment and understand how Aristotle talked about rhetoric. There are three means of persuasion according to ancient rhetoric, logos, pathos and ethos. Logos is the logic of the idea. Pathos is the emotion of the audience and ethos is the character of the speaker. So you can see that these are focused on three different elements in the persuasive dynamic. One is the speaker of course, the origin of the idea. The second is the idea itself, which needs to be logical. And finally, the audience, the target of the persuasive message, the emphasis being on plying the emotions of the target audience. So these ideas map on to things we've been talking about. And many of our students around here, certainly in business schools, don't need that much help on the logos side. In fact, you might think that they are very strong with logos and kind of neglect the other two. This is typical. When people think about persuasive messages, they typically think first about the logic of the force of their idea. The research we've been talking about with Heath and Health and much of what we talk about with Cialdini, but especially with Heath and Heath, is focused on pathos. It's a reminder that what makes persuasive messages sticky, are the emotions they engender in other people. So much of what we've talked about emphasized logos and pathos. Ethos is kind of the neglected leg of Aristotle's framework. And it shows up a bit in both Heath and Heath and Chaldiny, but we don't hear people talk about it as much and people don't understand it as much. And they find it harder to execute. So I'm going to give you one example on the ethos side. This example comes from a speech that Ben Franklin gave at the Constitutional Convention. Very appropriate since we're in Philadelphia. The Constitutional Convention was here in Philadelphia and Ben Franklin founded the University of Pennsylvania back in the day. So he stood up to oppose a proposal that was made for salaries in some of the executive offices. And it's interesting to observe how we went about this. Now remember, Franklin was not only a brilliant mind and an inventor, and many, many other things, he was also a diplomat. He was known as being good with persuasion and rhetoric. This is how he begins his speech. He says, it is with reluctance that I rise to express a disapprobation of any one article of the plan, for which we are so much obliged to the honorable gentlemen who laid it before us. From it's good reading, I have borne a good will to it, and, in general, wished it success. In this particular of salaries to the executive branch, I happen to differ. And as my opinion may appear new and chimerical, it is only from a persuasion that is right, and from a sense of duty, that I hazard it. The Committee will judge of my reasons when they have heard them, and their judgment may possibly change mine. I think I see inconvenience in the appointment of salaries. I see none in refusing them, but on the contrary, great advantages. So what do you see him do there? What do you see Franklin do? The idea of ethos in rhetoric is that we have to convey our character through our speech. We can't get up there and just claim who we are. We have to show who we are in the way we go about trying to persuade other people. It seems that Franklin accomplishes a number of things in the way he begins his speech. One, he says that he's basically favorably inclined, so he's in some sense flattering the other side. He's letting them know that he's not opposed to them in principle. In fact, he's appreciative of them. He also is claiming in his words, disinterestedness. He's neutral on this. It's not out of some prejudice that he opposes these proposals. And then he also, at the end, does this very clever thing, which says look, judge my opinion, in fact maybe based on your reaction I might change my mind. He's not saying that he's so fixed, that he's a zealot here. That he's coming out from some kind of permanent position. But rather, this is my take, I'm reasonable, I'm open, this is my take. Now we don't know if any of these things are true. But he's not trying to, necessarily, accurately reflect his actual beliefs. What he's trying to do here, is be effective in persuasion and rhetoric. There's a difference between being right and being effective. Franklin here is trying to be effective and in doing so, he merely uses a nice example of ethos in persuasive speech. So, back to Aristotle, one of the ideas here is that the three part framework of rhetoric is a simpler way to carry forward these ideas about persuasion. I love the work by Heath and Heath and the folks that have worked on that afterwards. I love the work by Cialdini and all that that has produced. But sometimes that's a lot to keep on top of. Six principles from Cialdini, the success acronym from Heath and Heath, Aristotle gives us three. There are times and places when you really need to draw on all three of these. Sometimes you sit down for a very important message, a very important email. It's a good reminder. Aristotle gives us a good reminder. Where is my pathos in this message? Where is my ethos? How am I getting that across? In what way does my message have logos? It's a very simple framework. And in that framework, we can hang much of what we see from Cialdini and Heath and Heath. So for example, logos, the inherent logic of the idea. You see elements of consistency there, scarcity, social influence, simple, all falls under the logos rubric. What about pathos, the emotion of the audience? Well, specifically, Heath and Heath talk about emotions. They talk about story, surprise, concrete. All of those are elements of pathos. They're ways or paths towards pathos. And then finally ethos, the character of the speaker. We have seen Cialdini and Heath and Heath talk about this as well, especially Cialdini. Credibility, liking, similarity, authority. All of those are elements of ethos. So just suggesting this is kind of an easier framework for hanging many of these bigger ideas, the newer ideas, on the broader framework. Not least because the challenge with persuasion, again, isn't that you understand it as much as you remember it. And so you need to find a framework that is useful for you that you'll actually implement, that you'll use. The dean at The Yale School of Management gave an interview a few years ago talking about the role of Aristotle's rhetoric in her own messages. This is Sharon Oster who is an economist at Yale and she stepped in to take the dean's role for a few years between permanent appointments by other deans. I heard her talk about how often she would take Aristotle's framework to her speeches. So deans of business schools fly around the country giving updates about, flying around the world talking to alumni, giving updates on what's going on with the school. They give a lot of speeches. She found it useful to think in Aristotle's three part framework, ethos, pathos, logos. And then she talked about in an interview. She says, the question of how we teach the skills and values that people will need to create this kind of value-added leadership is a difficult one. It's one that all management schools really struggle with. Another framing we think about comes from Aristotle. A leader needs logos, pathos and ethos. You can layer that onto the issues we're discussing. We all as educators think about the logos part because we're in the business of training people in skills like analytics. I think we do some with ethos, ethics and values. But we actually do very little with pathos. And then Rick Levin who is Yale president at the time says, the passion. Oster says yes, how do you get people not only follow their own passion, but to create passion in others and lead them in that way? Aristotle gives us a great framework. I've found it useful. Many others have found it useful for a millennia. And here's a nice example from a leader in business education talking about how it has influenced her own use.
