Appeal to Vanity

3). Pick one concept from the assigned reading this week, not already discussed, that you found useful or interesting and discuss it.

In chapter 10, I learned a lot about the different types of appeals to emotion; however, I found that the one that interested me the most was the appeal to vanity.  The appeal to vanity occurs when we try to convince people to believe or do something because we’ve made them feel good about themselves. This normally occurs when we try to sway the person to believe our argument because we’ve given them some sort of compliment. I think that this appeal to emotion stood out to me the most because when I was in high school I would use the appeal to vanity on numerous occasions when I wanted to hangout with my boyfriend on school nights. I knew that my mom wasn’t really kin on the idea of letting me hangout with my boyfriend on school nights, but I would come up with an argument to flatter her into letting me invite him over.

For example: I would start out my argument by saying that I was doing very well in all my classes and I finished all my homework for that night. Afterwards I would listen to my mom talk and compliment her on her accomplishments for the day or maybe the outfit that she was wearing. Meanwhile, I had the thought in the back of my mind that if she liked what I was telling her, she’d cut me a break and let me hangout with my boyfriend. It worked every time. I was appealing to vanity by setting up the argument that I was a good student and because I was doing well in school, I should be allowed to hangout with my boyfriend. By adding compliments into the mix, I made her feel good about herself, which put her in a happier mood and ultimately swayed her into letting me hangout with my boyfriend on a school night.  I still use this type of appeal to vanity with her today, and she never suspects it haha.