fear persuasive essay

Fear Appeals

An approach used to change our attitudes and behaviors..

Posted September 18, 2018 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

• What Is Fear?
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How can people’s attitudes and behavior be changed? One emotion that often affects attitudes and behavior is fear . Fear can be such a powerful tool that campaigns have been developed focusing on “fear appeals.” Fear appeals are messages that try to persuade people about the potential harm that may happen to them if they do not accept the messages’ recommendations (Tannenbaum et al., 2015).

Fear appeals have three major components: the message, the audience, and the recommended behavior. There are many messages that convey important information about potential harm; however, if the message is to have any effect, it should address issues that instill critical amounts of fear and be targeted to those who are the most susceptible to the risk. For example,

• A message addressing the harmfulness of driving while drunk may have no effect on those who do not drive or drink alcohol
• Breast cancer messages are typically directed toward women who have a larger personal risk of bodily harm than men (although men may be impacted by their concern for female loved ones)

The third component — recommended behavior — is important because it gives instruction on what to do to avert or reduce the risk of harm. Simply frightening people without giving them an effective way to avoid or deal with the situation is not a very influential means for behavioral motivation .

Undoubtedly, most of us have been exposed to fear appeal campaigns regarding health issues, politics , and traffic and driving safety. For example,

• Public service announcements on the lethal dangers of young people going to college without having received a meningitis vaccination
• Billboards indicating the harmfulness of sexually transmitted diseases and promoting “safe sex practices”
• Videos of terrible accidents due to texting while driving

Fear appeals are also used in educational settings. In order to motivate students to perform well academically, teachers and counselors will emphasize the importance of exams, papers, and classroom participation. The message is conveyed clearly that if students want to achieve their goals (e.g., getting a good job; gaining entry into college, or graduate/medical/law school), they cannot risk poor or sometimes even average grades.

There is some difference in opinion as to whether “fear appeals” are productive or counterproductive. For example, if the message is so extreme, instead of being influenced by it, the audience could ignore the information altogether. In essence, the fear depicted in the message is so great that rather than deal with it, people stop listening, viewing, or reading it. In such situations, they might also criticize the nature of the message and then use self-justification for not modifying their attitudes and behavior; especially, if they discuss the fear appeals with others (Goldenbeld, Twisk, & Houwing, 2007).

There is also the possibility that arousing fear could result in a defensive response or “risk denial ;” particularly, among those who are most susceptible to the threat (Ruiter, Kessels, Peters, & Kok, 2014). For example, after viewing fear appeal messages on drinking and driving, some people who drink and drive may respond by claiming that their drinking does not affect their driving skills, and thus the message does not apply to them.

Fear alone does not change behavior. We may learn that certain behaviors we engage in are potentially harmful and have now become fearful; yet, we still engage in the harmful behaviors (Tannenbaum et al., 2015). For example, we may learn that taking too much over-the-counter pain medication can cause liver damage; nevertheless, we continue to take more than we should when the pain is great.

Many studies on the effectiveness of fear appeals have been conducted. Generally, the findings reveal that fear appeals do work; however, more specific results were also discovered (Tannenbaum et al, 2015).

• There is a maximum effective value of fear. Once a moderate amount of fear is conveyed, there is no further benefit in adding more fear.
• Fear messages that let the audience know they can perform the recommended behavior or that the behavior will have a positive result are more effective than fear appeal messages without mention of recommended actions.
• Fear appeals that recommend one-time behaviors are more effective than appeals that recommend repeated behaviors.
• Fear appeals are more effective for women because women tend to be more “prevention-focused” than men.

Clearly, fear appeals do not only provoke fear reactions. There can be feelings of disgust, anger , anxiety , or guilt . These emotions may also have an effect on behavioral changes .

Fear appeals are a form of persuasive communication. Understanding the personalities of the audience (e.g., the typical characteristics and traits of women in comparison to men, or of adolescents versus young or middle-aged people, or of those who are health conscious versus those who are not) will help in designing a campaign that is better directed toward the targeted individuals. Care, however, should be taken not to stigmatize or exhibit bias regarding the audience; doing so could possibly backfire. That is, the message might not only be rejected by the audience, but the behavior that the message intended to change could become further entrenched.

The practice of fear appeals has its warranted critics; especially, if applied unethically. If fear is used to motivate attitudinal and behavioral change, it should be used judiciously. Moreover, it might be best directed toward individuals who are known and for whom the recommendations apply appropriately, rather than an ambiguous population.

Goldenbeld, C., Twisk, D., & Houwing, S. (2008). Effects of persuasive communication and group discussions on acceptability of anti-speeding policies for male and female drivers. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 11, 207-220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2007.11.001

Ruiter, R. A., Kessels, L. T, E., Peters, G. Y., & Kok, G. (2014). Sixty years of fear appeal research: Current state of the evidence. International Journal of Psychology, 49, 63–70. DOI: 10.1002/ijop.12042

Tannenbaum, M. B., Hepler, J., Zimmerman, R. S., Saul, L., Jacobs, S., Wilson, K., & Albarracin, D. (2015). Appealing to fear: A Meta-Analysis of fear appeal effectiveness and theories. Psychological Bulletin, 141, 1178–1204. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039729

Shoba Sreenivasan, Ph.D., and Linda E. Weinberger, Ph.D. , are psychology professors at the Keck School of Medicine at USC.

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114 Fear Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Fear is a powerful emotion that can have a significant impact on our lives. It can hold us back from pursuing our dreams, trying new things, or taking risks. However, fear can also be a powerful motivator, pushing us to overcome obstacles and achieve our goals.

In this article, we will explore 114 fear essay topic ideas and examples that you can use to explore how fear influences our lives and behaviors.

• The role of fear in decision-making
• How fear can hinder personal growth
• Overcoming the fear of failure
• The fear of rejection and its impact on relationships
• Fear of the unknown: how to navigate uncertainty
• How fear of success can hold you back
• Fear of public speaking and ways to overcome it
• The fear of change and how to embrace it
• The fear of being judged by others
• The fear of death and how it shapes our lives
• Fear of failure in academic settings
• Overcoming the fear of making mistakes
• How fear of the future can paralyze us
• Fear of losing control and ways to manage it
• The fear of being vulnerable and its impact on relationships
• Overcoming the fear of rejection in dating
• Fear of failure in entrepreneurship
• The fear of success and how it can sabotage your goals
• Fear of confrontation and ways to handle conflict
• Fear of being alone and how to overcome it
• The fear of being judged on social media
• Fear of the dark and its impact on mental health
• Overcoming the fear of failure in sports
• The fear of being embarrassed in public
• Fear of failure in the workplace
• The fear of failure in creative endeavors
• Overcoming the fear of failure in relationships
• Fear of failure in parenting
• The fear of missing out (FOMO) and its impact on decision-making
• Fear of rejection in job interviews
• The fear of being vulnerable in friendships
• Fear of failure in starting a new business
• Overcoming the fear of failure in academic settings
• Fear of change in personal relationships
• The fear of being alone in old age
• Fear of rejection in the dating world
• Fear of the unknown in travel
• Overcoming the fear of public speaking in professional settings
• Fear of failure in pursuing your passion
• The fear of being vulnerable in therapy
• Fear of rejection in social situations
• Fear of failure in pursuing your dreams
• Overcoming the fear of rejection in creative pursuits
• Fear of change in career transitions
• The fear of being vulnerable in romantic relationships
• Fear of rejection in networking events
• Fear of failure in starting a new project
• Overcoming the fear of failure in academic pursuits
• Fear of change in personal habits
• The fear of being vulnerable in family relationships
• Fear of rejection in online dating
• Fear of failure in starting a new hobby
• Overcoming the fear of rejection in artistic pursuits
• Fear of change in lifestyle choices
• The fear of being vulnerable in self-expression
• Fear of rejection in job applications
• Fear of failure in pursuing new experiences
• Overcoming the fear of rejection in social settings
• Fear of change in personal beliefs
• The fear of being vulnerable in public speaking
• Fear of rejection in professional settings
• Fear of failure in pursuing personal growth
• Overcoming the fear of rejection in academic settings
• The fear of being vulnerable in leadership roles
• Fear of rejection in creative endeavors
• Fear of failure in starting a new venture
• Overcoming the fear of rejection in romantic relationships
• Fear of change in career advancement
• The fear of being vulnerable in group settings
• Fear of rejection in artistic pursuits
• Fear of failure in pursuing your passions
• Overcoming the fear of rejection in job interviews
• Fear of change in personal goals
• The fear of being vulnerable in social situations
• Fear of failure in starting a new career
• Overcoming the fear of rejection in academic pursuits
• Fear of change in personal challenges
• The fear of being vulnerable in professional settings
• Fear of rejection in social relationships
• Fear of change in personal development
• The fear of being vulnerable in personal growth
• Fear of failure in starting

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How to Write a Persuasive Essay: Tips and Tricks

Allison Bressmer

Most composition classes you’ll take will teach the art of persuasive writing. That’s a good thing.

Knowing where you stand on issues and knowing how to argue for or against something is a skill that will serve you well both inside and outside of the classroom.

Persuasion is the art of using logic to prompt audiences to change their mind or take action , and is generally seen as accomplishing that goal by appealing to emotions and feelings.

A persuasive essay is one that attempts to get a reader to agree with your perspective.

Ready for some tips on how to produce a well-written, well-rounded, well-structured persuasive essay? Just say yes. I don’t want to have to write another essay to convince you!

How Do I Write a Persuasive Essay?

What are some good topics for a persuasive essay, how do i identify an audience for my persuasive essay, how do you create an effective persuasive essay, how should i edit my persuasive essay.

Your persuasive essay needs to have the three components required of any essay: the introduction , body , and conclusion .

That is essay structure. However, there is flexibility in that structure.

There is no rule (unless the assignment has specific rules) for how many paragraphs any of those sections need.

Although the components should be proportional; the body paragraphs will comprise most of your persuasive essay.

How Do I Start a Persuasive Essay?

As with any essay introduction, this paragraph is where you grab your audience’s attention, provide context for the topic of discussion, and present your thesis statement.

TIP 1: Some writers find it easier to write their introductions last. As long as you have your working thesis, this is a perfectly acceptable approach. From that thesis, you can plan your body paragraphs and then go back and write your introduction.

TIP 2: Avoid “announcing” your thesis. Don’t include statements like this:

• “In my essay I will show why extinct animals should (not) be regenerated.”
• “The purpose of my essay is to argue that extinct animals should (not) be regenerated.”

Announcements take away from the originality, authority, and sophistication of your writing.

Instead, write a convincing thesis statement that answers the question "so what?" Why is the topic important, what do you think about it, and why do you think that? Be specific.

How Many Paragraphs Should a Persuasive Essay Have?

This body of your persuasive essay is the section in which you develop the arguments that support your thesis. Consider these questions as you plan this section of your essay:

• What arguments support your thesis?
• What is the best order for your arguments?
• What evidence do you have?
• Will you address the opposing argument to your own?
• How can you conclude convincingly?

TIP: Brainstorm and do your research before you decide which arguments you’ll focus on in your discussion. Make a list of possibilities and go with the ones that are strongest, that you can discuss with the most confidence, and that help you balance your rhetorical triangle .

What Should I Put in the Conclusion of a Persuasive Essay?

The conclusion is your “mic-drop” moment. Think about how you can leave your audience with a strong final comment.

And while a conclusion often re-emphasizes the main points of a discussion, it shouldn’t simply repeat them.

TIP 1: Be careful not to introduce a new argument in the conclusion—there’s no time to develop it now that you’ve reached the end of your discussion!

TIP 2 : As with your thesis, avoid announcing your conclusion. Don’t start your conclusion with “in conclusion” or “to conclude” or “to end my essay” type statements. Your audience should be able to see that you are bringing the discussion to a close without those overused, less sophisticated signals.

If your instructor has assigned you a topic, then you’ve already got your issue; you’ll just have to determine where you stand on the issue. Where you stand on your topic is your position on that topic.

Your position will ultimately become the thesis of your persuasive essay: the statement the rest of the essay argues for and supports, intending to convince your audience to consider your point of view.

If you have to choose your own topic, use these guidelines to help you make your selection:

• Choose an issue you truly care about
• Choose an issue that is actually debatable

Simple “tastes” (likes and dislikes) can’t really be argued. No matter how many ways someone tries to convince me that milk chocolate rules, I just won’t agree.

It’s dark chocolate or nothing as far as my tastes are concerned.

Similarly, you can’t convince a person to “like” one film more than another in an essay.

You could argue that one movie has superior qualities than another: cinematography, acting, directing, etc. but you can’t convince a person that the film really appeals to them.

Once you’ve selected your issue, determine your position just as you would for an assigned topic. That position will ultimately become your thesis.

Until you’ve finalized your work, consider your thesis a “working thesis.”

This means that your statement represents your position, but you might change its phrasing or structure for that final version.

When you’re writing an essay for a class, it can seem strange to identify an audience—isn’t the audience the instructor?

Your instructor will read and evaluate your essay, and may be part of your greater audience, but you shouldn’t just write for your teacher.

Think about who your intended audience is.

For an argument essay, think of your audience as the people who disagree with you—the people who need convincing.

That population could be quite broad, for example, if you’re arguing a political issue, or narrow, if you’re trying to convince your parents to extend your curfew.

Once you’ve got a sense of your audience, it’s time to consult with Aristotle. Aristotle’s teaching on persuasion has shaped communication since about 330 BC. Apparently, it works.

Aristotle taught that in order to convince an audience of something, the communicator needs to balance the three elements of the rhetorical triangle to achieve the best results.

Those three elements are ethos , logos , and pathos .

Ethos relates to credibility and trustworthiness. How can you, as the writer, demonstrate your credibility as a source of information to your audience?

How will you show them you are worthy of their trust?

• You show you’ve done your research: you understand the issue, both sides
• You show respect for the opposing side: if you disrespect your audience, they won’t respect you or your ideas

Logos relates to logic. How will you convince your audience that your arguments and ideas are reasonable?

You provide facts or other supporting evidence to support your claims.

That evidence may take the form of studies or expert input or reasonable examples or a combination of all of those things, depending on the specific requirements of your assignment.

Remember: if you use someone else’s ideas or words in your essay, you need to give them credit.

ProWritingAid's Plagiarism Checker checks your work against over a billion web-pages, published works, and academic papers so you can be sure of its originality.

Find out more about ProWritingAid’s Plagiarism checks.

Pathos relates to emotion. Audiences are people and people are emotional beings. We respond to emotional prompts. How will you engage your audience with your arguments on an emotional level?

• You make strategic word choices : words have denotations (dictionary meanings) and also connotations, or emotional values. Use words whose connotations will help prompt the feelings you want your audience to experience.
• You use emotionally engaging examples to support your claims or make a point, prompting your audience to be moved by your discussion.

Be mindful as you lean into elements of the triangle. Too much pathos and your audience might end up feeling manipulated, roll their eyes and move on.

An “all logos” approach will leave your essay dry and without a sense of voice; it will probably bore your audience rather than make them care.

Once you’ve got your essay planned, start writing! Don’t worry about perfection, just get your ideas out of your head and off your list and into a rough essay format.

After you’ve written your draft, evaluate your work. What works and what doesn’t? For help with evaluating and revising your work, check out this ProWritingAid post on manuscript revision .

After you’ve evaluated your draft, revise it. Repeat that process as many times as you need to make your work the best it can be.

When you’re satisfied with the content and structure of the essay, take it through the editing process .

Grammatical or sentence-level errors can distract your audience or even detract from the ethos—the authority—of your work.

You don’t have to edit alone! ProWritingAid’s Realtime Report will find errors and make suggestions for improvements.

You can even use it on emails to your professors:

Try ProWritingAid with a free account.

How Can I Improve My Persuasion Skills?

You can develop your powers of persuasion every day just by observing what’s around you.

• How is that advertisement working to convince you to buy a product?
• How is a political candidate arguing for you to vote for them?
• How do you “argue” with friends about what to do over the weekend, or convince your boss to give you a raise?
• How are your parents working to convince you to follow a certain academic or career path?

As you observe these arguments in action, evaluate them. Why are they effective or why do they fail?

How could an argument be strengthened with more (or less) emphasis on ethos, logos, and pathos?

Every argument is an opportunity to learn! Observe them, evaluate them, and use them to perfect your own powers of persuasion.

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Allison Bressmer is a professor of freshman composition and critical reading at a community college and a freelance writer. If she isn’t writing or teaching, you’ll likely find her reading a book or listening to a podcast while happily sipping a semi-sweet iced tea or happy-houring with friends. She lives in New York with her family. Connect at linkedin.com/in/allisonbressmer.

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Appealing to fear: A Meta-Analysis of Fear Appeal Effectiveness and Theories

Melanie b. tannenbaum.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Justin Hepler

University of Nevada, Reno

Rick S. Zimmerman

University of Missouri – St. Louis

Lindsey Saul

Virginia Commonwealth University

Samantha Jacobs

Kristina wilson, dolores albarracin.

Fear appeals are a polarizing issue, with proponents confident in their efficacy and opponents confident that they backfire. We present the results of a comprehensive meta-analysis investigating fear appeals’ effectiveness for influencing attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. We tested predictions from a large number of theories, the majority of which have never been tested meta-analytically until now. Studies were included if they contained a treatment group exposed to a fear appeal, a valid comparison group, a manipulation of depicted fear, a measure of attitudes, intentions, or behaviors concerning the targeted risk or recommended solution, and adequate statistics to calculate effect sizes. The meta-analysis included 127 papers (9% unpublished) yielding 248 independent samples (N Total = 27,372) collected from diverse populations. Results showed a positive effect of fear appeals on attitudes, intentions, and behaviors, with the average effect on a composite index being random-effects d ¯ = 0.29. Moderation analyses based on prominent fear appeal theories showed that the effectiveness of fear appeals increased when the message included efficacy statements, depicted high susceptibility and severity, recommended one-time only (vs. repeated) behaviors, and targeted audiences that included a larger percentage of female message recipients. Overall, we conclude that (a) fear appeals are effective at positively influencing attitude, intentions, and behaviors, (b) there are very few circumstances under which they are not effective, and (c) there are no identified circumstances under which they backfire and lead to undesirable outcomes.

Fear appeals are persuasive messages that attempt to arouse fear by emphasizing the potential danger and harm that will befall individuals if they do not adopt the messages’ recommendations ( Dillard, 1996 ; Maddux & Rogers, 1983 ). Although these messages are often used in political, public health, and advertising campaigns in the hopes of reducing risky attitudes, intentions, or behaviors, their use is often a polarizing issue. Whereas some practitioners are confident in the power of fear appeals to persuade audiences (e.g., CDC, 2014 ; Xu et al., 2015 ), others are adamant that such messages are counterproductive (e.g., Drug Free Action Alliance, 2013 ; Ruiter et al., 2014 ). The fear appeal literature reflects this disagreement, and empirical studies, literature reviews, and meta-analyses conducted over the past six decades have offered a diverse array of perspectives on the topic. Although some meta-analytic examinations have found positive effects of fear appeals on some outcomes ( Witte & Allen, 2000 ), others have found null effects ( de Hoog et al., 2007 ) or even negative effects ( Peters et al., 2012 ). In the current paper, we present the results of a comprehensive meta-analysis of fear appeal research with two goals in mind. Our first goal was to compile the largest available meta-analytic database of fear appeal research and estimate average effects. Our second goal was to test a variety of theoretical predictions, many of which have never been examined meta-analytically, and to organize them within a framework that takes into account characteristics of a fear appeal’s message, recommended behavior, and audience.

Existing theories about fear appeals have focused on either the content of the message , the nature of the behavior recommended by the communication, or the characteristics of the audience receiving the message. However, all three of these aspects (message, behavior, and audience) are important and were considered in the framework that guided this review. This integrative framework gave our meta-analysis a broader scope beyond past analyses of fear appeals. Specifically, each prior meta-analysis has only tested theories relevant to the message portion of our framework, and thus was only able to address a limited set of questions pertaining to fear appeal effectiveness (for a description of prior meta-analyses, see Table 1 ) ( Boster & Mongeau, 1984 ; de Hoog et al., 2007 ; Earl & Albarracin, 2007 ; Floyd et al., 2000 ; Milne et al., 2000 ; Peters et al., 2012 ; Sutton, 1982 ; Witte & Allen, 2000 ). By adopting this more holistic view of fear appeals, we connected existing models that are generally treated as separate and examined novel hypotheses about fear appeal effectiveness that have previously gone untested. Further, the current meta-analysis used a substantially larger meta-analytic database than prior analyses, thus providing us with more precision to test relevant hypotheses.

Theories and hypotheses tested.

Note: LM = Linear Model. CM = Curvilinear Model. ES = Efficacy Statements. SM = Stage Model. RSAT = Robertson’s Single Action Theory. PT = Prospect Theory. TMT = Terror Management Theory. RFT = Regulatory Focus Theory. TM = Transtheoretical Model. SEE = Self-esteem enhancing. SEH = Self-esteem hindering.

The Content of Fear Appeals

Six prominent theories make predictions about the impact of message characteristics on fear appeal effectiveness 1 : The linear model of fear appeals (e.g., Witte & Allen, 2000 ), the curvilinear model of fear appeals (e.g., Hovland et al., 1953 ), the health belief model ( Rosenstock, 1966 ; Becker, 1974 ; Becker et al., 1977 ; Becker et al., 1978 ; Rosenstock, 1974 ), the parallel process model ( Leventhal, 1970 ), the extended parallel process model ( Witte, 1992 ; Witte, 1998 ), and the stage model ( de Hoog et al., 2007 ). These theories concern the level of depicted fear within messages, the use (or omission) of efficacy statements within messages, and the level of depicted susceptibility and/or severity within messages.

Amount of depicted fear

Perhaps the most central aspect of a fear appeal message is the amount of fear it is intended to arouse in message recipients. We will refer to this as depicted fear to emphasize that it reflects a property of the message’s content, rather than the subjective state of fear that message recipients experience. 2 Two competing theories make predictions about amount of depicted fear, which we will refer to as the linear model (e.g., Witte & Allen, 2000 ) and the curvilinear model ( Hovland et al., 1953 ; Janis, 1967 ; Janis & Feshbach, 1953 ; McGuire, 1968 ; McGuire, 1969 ). Both theoretical perspectives conceptualize depicted fear as a source of motivation, such that exposure to depicted fear increases motivation to adopt the message’s recommendations ( Hovland et al., 1953 ; Witte & Allen, 2000 ). Further, both models predict that low levels of depicted fear will be relatively less motivating and thus less effective than moderate levels of fear. However, the linear model predicts that depicted fear has a positive and monotonic influences on attitudes, intentions, and behaviors, such that high depicted fear is more effective than moderate depicted fear (e.g., Witte & Allen, 2000 ). In contrast, the curvilinear model predicts that high depicted fear elicits defensive avoidance, a reaction in which message recipients disengage from the message, avoid further exposure to the message, and/or derogate the message because it is too frightening ( Higbee, 1969 ; Hovland et al., 1953 ; Janis, 1967 ; 1968 ; Janis & Feshbach, 1953 ; Janis & Leventhal, 1968 ; McGuire, 1968 ; 1969 ; Millman, 1968 ). Consequently, the curvilinear theory predicts that high levels of depicted fear should be less effective than moderate levels of depicted fear.

The linear and curvilinear models have been tested in prior meta-analyses, and the linear model has consistently been supported by existing data, whereas the curvilinear model has not (e.g., Witte & Allen, 2000 ). One drawback to prior investigations of the linear and curvilinear models is that the analyses included comparisons from studies that used two levels of depicted fear, even though it is difficult to equate levels of depicted fear across different studies – what may qualify as moderate depicted fear in one study may qualify as low depicted fear in a different study. Thus, an appropriate test of the linear and curvilinear models requires depicted fear to be manipulated with at least three levels within the same study to ensure that moderate depicted fear is operationalized as an intermediate level between extremes. We therefore tested the linear and curvilinear models in the current meta-analysis by comparing the effects of high versus moderate depicted fear, using only studies that manipulated depicted fear across several levels. The linear model predicts that high depicted fear will be more effective than moderate depicted fear, whereas the curvilinear model predicts that high depicted fear will be less effective than moderate depicted fear.

Efficacy statements

According to the health belief model (HBM; Rosenstock, 1966 ; Becker, 1974 ; Becker et al., 1977 ; Becker et al., 1978 ; Rosenstock, 1974 ), the stage model (e.g., de Hoog et al., 2007 ), the parallel process model (PPM; Leventhal, 1970 ), and the extended parallel process model (EPPM; Witte, 1992 ; Witte, 1998 ), fear appeals “work only when accompanied by… efficacy messages” ( Witte & Allen, 2000 , p.606). An efficacy message is a statement that assures message recipients that they are capable of performing the fear appeal’s recommended actions (self-efficacy) and/or that performing the recommended actions will result in desirable consequences (response-efficacy). The HBM, stage model, PPM, and EPPM suggest that when message recipients are presented with a threat (i.e., depicted fear), resulting feelings of vulnerability lead them to evaluate whether or not adopting the message’s recommendations will protect them from the threat-related negative consequences. If recipients decide that adopting the recommended action(s) will protect them, the fear appeal should be more effective. As efficacy statements provide this assurance, fear appeal messages that include statements about self- or response-efficacy should be more effective than fear appeal messages that include neither ( de Hoog et al., 2007 ; Witte & Allen, 2000 ).

There are two forms of the efficacy statement hypothesis. The strong hypothesis is that fear appeals without efficacy statements will produce negative effects (i.e., will backfire). The weak hypothesis is that fear appeals without efficacy statements will produce weaker (i.e., less positive or null) effects relative to fear appeals with efficacy statements. Three meta-analyses have tested whether the inclusion of efficacy statements in fear appeals leads to increased effectiveness, and all found support for the weak hypothesis ( de Hoog et al., 2007 ; Mongeau, 1998 ; Witte & Allen, 2000 ). However, those studies were conducted using less comprehensive meta-analytic databases, and thus the current synthesis can provide a more thorough assessment of the strong and weak hypotheses.

Depicted susceptibility and severity

According to the stage model ( de Hoog et al., 2007 ), the effectiveness of fear appeals should depend on their levels of depicted susceptibility and severity. A message high in depicted susceptibility emphasizes the message recipient’s personal risk for negative consequences (e.g., “One of fourteen women is destined to develop breast cancer during her life. So every woman may get breast cancer. You also run that risk!”; Siero et al., 1984 ), whereas a message low in depicted susceptibility does not personalize risk (e.g., “One of fourteen women is destined to develop breast cancer during her life.”; Siero et al., 1984 ). A message high in depicted severity describes the negative consequences of not taking action (e.g., “Breast cancer is a serious disease of which many women die, contrary to, for example, cancer of the uterus, where 90% to 95% recover.”; Siero et al., 1984 ), whereas a message low in depicted severity portrays manageable consequences (e.g., “If breast cancer is detected at an early stage it can be cured in a number of cases, contrary to, for example, lung cancer where 90% die of it.”; Siero et al., 1984 ). According to this model, high depicted severity (but not susceptibility) should improve attitudes, whereas high depicted susceptibility (but not severity) should improve intentions and behaviors. Consequently, only the combination of high-depicted susceptibility and severity should improve attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. A previous meta-analysis found mixed results concerning these predictions ( de Hoog et al., 2007 ). Specifically, messages with high depicted severity positively influenced attitudes, intentions, and behaviors, whereas messages with high depicted susceptibility positively influenced intentions and behaviors but not attitudes. We tested these hypotheses on our more comprehensive database.

Three prominent theories make predictions about the impact of the recommended behaviors on fear appeal effectiveness: Robertson’s single action theory ( Robertson, 1975 ; Rothman, Martino, Bedell, Detweiler, & Salovey, 1999 ), prospect theory ( Rothman et al., 1999 ; Rothman & Salovey, 1997 ; Tversky & Kahneman, 1981 ) and terror management theory ( Goldenberg & Arndt, 2008 ; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999 ; Shehryar & Hunt, 2005 ; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991 ). These theories concern whether the recommended behavior is a one-time or recurring activity, involves detection or prevention/promotion, occurs immediately or after a delay, can enhance self-esteem, and is intended to replace a self-esteem enhancing behavior.

One-time versus repeated behaviors

According to Robertson (1975 ; also see Rothman et al., 1999 ), persuasive messages should be more successful when they recommend one-time behaviors (e.g., getting vaccinated) compared to behaviors that must be repeated over an extended period of time (e.g., exercising). As it takes less effort to do something once than many times, people are likely to be more compliant when a single behavior is recommended. Using this principle, we compared the effectiveness of fear appeals recommending one-time versus repeated behaviors.

Detection versus prevention/promotion behaviors

According to prospect theory, negative outcomes can be categorized as incurring a loss or foregoing a gain, and losses tend to be more psychologically impactful than foregone gains of objectively equal magnitude ( Tversky & Kahneman, 1981 ). Several researchers have extended the logic of prospect theory to fear appeals, hypothesizing that fear appeals should be more effective when recommending detection behaviors relative to prevention/promotion behaviors ( Rothman, Martino, Bedell, Detweiler, & Salovey, 1999 ; Rothman & Salovey, 1997 ). Detection behaviors are enacted to obtain information about potential risk factors or existing health issues (e.g., being screened for cancer), and thus engaging in a detection behavior increases risk for incurring a loss (e.g., acquiring the unwanted and undesirable information that one has cancer). In contrast, prevention/promotion behaviors are enacted to obtain desirable outcomes (e.g., exercising to lose weight or avoid weight gain), and thus engaging in prevention/promotion behaviors does not increase risk for incurring a loss (e.g., exercising will only bring one closer to the desired outcome of losing weight or avoiding weight gain, so there is no potential for loss by engaging in exercise). Fear appeals are loss-framed messages because they emphasize negative consequences, and loss-framed information makes people more willing than usual to take risks ( Meyerowitz & Chaiken, 1987 ; van’t Riet et al., 2014 ). Therefore, although fear appeals should be effective for both detection and prevention/promotion behaviors, they should be particularly effective for detection behaviors because the loss-framed nature of the message should make people more willing than usual to take on the risk of the detection behavior ( Meyerowitz & Chaiken, 1987 ; Rothman, Martino, Bedell, Detweiler, & Salovey, 1999 ; Rothman & Salovey, 1997 ; van’t Riet et al., 2014 ).

Mentioning death, self-esteem relevance, and time delays

Many fear appeals explicitly mention death (89 of the 248 studies in our meta-analysis), and terror management theory (TMT) makes three predictions about this factor. According to TMT, when people are reminded of their mortality by being exposed to the concept of death, they often become motivated to buffer their self-esteem to reduce mortality related anxiety ( Goldenberg & Arndt, 2008 ; Pyszczynski et al., 1999 ; Shehryar & Hunt, 2005 ; Solomon et al., 1991 ). Some fear appeals recommend behaviors that can enhance self-esteem (e.g., dieting, which can improve body image; Goldenberg & Arndt, 2008 ), whereas others attempt to persuade people to stop engaging in behaviors that enhance self-esteem (e.g., tanning, which can also improve body image; Janssen et al., 2013 ). When fear appeals mention death, message recipients should increase commitment to behaviors that enhance self-esteem, regardless of whether the fear appeals encourage or discourage those behaviors. Consequently, fear appeals recommending self-esteem enhancing behaviors (e.g., dieting) should be more effective when they mention death than when they do not. In contrast, fear appeals recommending the cessation of behaviors that enhance self-esteem (e.g., tanning abstinence) should be less effective when they mention death than when they do not.

TMT also posits that reminders of death activate two types of defensive responses: Short-term proximal defenses and long-term distal defenses. Proximal defenses involve refuting information to avoid considering one’s death, whereas distal defenses involve buffering one’s self-esteem and pursuing long-term goals (e.g., a healthy lifestyle; Goldenberg & Arndt, 2008 ). Consequently, fear appeals that mention death should be more effective if there is a delay between fear appeal exposure and occurrence of the outcome, rather than if outcomes occur immediately after exposure when proximal defenses are still active (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1990; Shehryar & Hunt, 2005 ). 3

Two prominent theories make predictions about the impact of the audience on fear appeal effectiveness: Regulatory fit theory ( Higgins, Pierro, & Kruglanski, 2008 ; Kurman & Hui, 2011 ; Lockwood, Marshall, & Sadler, 2005 ) and the transtheoretical model ( Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983 ; Prochaska et al., 1992 ; Prochaska & Velicer, 1997 ). These predictions concern whether the message’s audience is primarily female (versus male), from a collectivist culture (versus an individualistic culture), and already attempting to change risk behaviors (versus not).

Gender and culture

According to regulatory fit theory, people can be promotion or prevention focused, placing greater value on either the pursuit of positive outcomes or on the avoidance of negative outcomes, respectively ( Higgins et al., 2008 ; Kurman & Hui, 2011 ; Lockwood et al., 2005 ). Message frames that match the promotion versus prevention tendencies of the audience are more persuasive ( Cesario, Higgins, & Scholar, 2008 ), and fear appeals are definitionally prevention-framed messages because they emphasize what one should do to avoid negative outcomes. Consequently, prevention-focused populations should be more persuaded by fear appeals relative to promotion-focused populations. Cultural research in the area of regulatory focus has found that women tend to be more prevention focused than men, and members of collectivist groups tend to be more prevention focused than members of individualist ones ( Kurman & Hui, 2011 ; Lockwood, Marshall, & Sadler, 2005 ). Therefore, fear appeals should be particularly effective for female (versus male) and collectivist (versus individualist) audiences.

Early versus late stages of change

According to the transtheoretical model, people engaging in risky behaviors can be classified as belonging to an early stage (the model’s precontemplation, contemplation, and preparation stages) or a late stage (the model’s action and maintenance stages) in the change process ( Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983 ; Prochaska et al., 1992 ; Prochaska & Velicer, 1997 ). According to the early-effectiveness hypothesis, fear appeals should be more effective for individuals in the early (vs. late) stages because the former require motivational appeals to understand that a threat exists and to increase commitment to adopting desirable behaviors and/or abandoning undesirable behaviors. In contrast, late stage individuals are already committed to behavior change and do not require such motivational appeals ( DiClemente et al., 1991 ; Nabi et al., 2008 ; Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983 ; Prochaska et al., 1992 ). The late-effectiveness hypothesis competes with the early one, and predicts that success at behavior change is associated with increases in self- and response efficacy ( Cho & Salmon, 2000 ). As a result, exposure to a fear appeal should lead individuals who have already enacted change to process the fear appeal in the context of their high response efficacy ( Cho & Salmon, 2006 ). Consequently, the late-effectiveness hypothesis predicts that fear appeals should be more effective for late stage relative to early stage individuals. 4 To test the early-effectiveness and late-effectiveness hypotheses, we classified each study’s sample as belonging to one of the transtheoretical model’s first three stages or last two stages. We then compared the effectiveness of fear appeals for individuals in the early versus late stages.

We compiled the largest meta-analytic database of fear appeals to date to examine the effectiveness of fear appeals for changing attitudes, intentions, and behaviors, and also to test moderator predictions made by a variety of influential fear appeal theories. Each of these theories tends to focus on one of three things – the content of the message , the type of behavior recommended by the communication, or the characteristics of the audience receiving the message (see Table 1 for a full list of theories and related hypotheses). Of the 16 fear appeal hypotheses discussed, only seven have been tested in prior meta-analyses, and all of them fall under the message aspect of our framework ( Table 1 ). Thus, the present research represents the first meta-analytic test for nine of the 16 hypotheses and the first meta-analytic test for any hypotheses related to the behavior and audience aspects of our framework.

Review and Inclusion Criteria

To locate studies, we conducted a search of the PsycInfo and Medline databases using the keywords (risk or fear or shock or severity or susceptibility) AND (persuasion or appeal or argument or tactic or campaign or communication or intervention). To supplement these database searches, we examined the reference lists of previous fear appeal meta-analyses, review articles, and chapters. We also contacted researchers to request unpublished data and sent requests to the e-mail lists of the Society of Behavioral Medicine , the Society for Personality and Social Psychology , the European Health Psychology Society , and the American Academy of Health Behavior . Our search extended through February 2015 and yielded 430 potentially eligible articles, which were subsequently screened for inclusion in the current meta-analysis based on several inclusion criteria. For inclusion in this meta-analysis, studies had to meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Studies were included if they contained an experimental research design in which a treatment group was exposed to a message designed to induce fear (i.e., a fear appeal).
• Studies were included if they contained a comparison group. The comparison group could have been a group that was not exposed to any message, a group that was exposed to a message that was not designed to induce fear, or a message that was designed to induce less fear than the treatment group’s message. When a study included more than one potential comparison groups, we opted to compare the highest depicted fear condition with the lowest depicted fear condition, prioritizing them in the following order: No message comparison group, neutral message comparison group, and low depicted fear comparison group. Thus, for a study containing a low depicted fear group and a neutral message group, we used the neutral message group as the comparison group. Overall, all results should be interpreted as the effect of exposure to messages designed to depict relatively high levels of fear compared to conditions designed to depict relatively lower levels of fear (including no fear). 5
• Studies were included if they experimentally manipulated depicted fear across groups. Studies were excluded if they used correlational research designs or provided all groups with the same level of depicted fear.
• Studies were included if they measured one or more of the following variables as an outcome in both the treatment and comparison groups: Attitudes, intentions, or behaviors.
• Studies were excluded if they did not contain appropriate statistics (e.g., F ratios, means and standard deviations, frequencies, or exact p values) for calculating an effect size representing the difference of outcomes for treatment versus comparison groups. If a study was otherwise eligible but did not contain appropriate statistics (e.g., it provided path coefficients from a structural equation analysis but did not supply means and standard deviations for treatment and comparison groups), we attempted to contact the study’s authors to retrieve usable data such as means and standard deviations. We contacted authors of 39 papers for this purpose: Three provided us with the requested data, six responded but could not provide us with the relevant data, and the rest did not respond to multiple contact requests.

Of the 430 reports considered for inclusion in this meta-analysis, 127 met our inclusion criteria (9% unpublished), providing 248 statistically independent samples with a total N of 27,372 participants in the treatment and comparison groups combined. Samples ranged in age from 9-87 years ( M = 22.77 years, SD = 9.24 years) and were on average 66% female ( SD = 33%). An average of 81% of each sample had completed high school ( SD = 37%). Further, samples were on average 71% White or European-American ( SD = 34%), 14% Asian or Asian-American ( SD = 31%), 8% Black or African-American ( SD = 18%), and 5% Hispanic/Latino(a) ( SD = 14%).

Coding of Outcomes (Effect Size Calculation)

We calculated a single effect size per sample that compared attitudes, intentions, and behaviors for the treatment group relative to the comparison group. First, for each sample we recorded all measures of attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. For each outcome, we calculated the standardized mean difference between treatment and comparison groups correcting for sample size bias ( Johnson & Eagly, 2014 , p. 686). Effect sizes ( d ) were calculated based on provided F -ratios, t -tests, odds ratios, or means and standard deviations. To produce d for any odds ratios, we divided the log of the odds ratio by 1.81 ( Haddock, Rindskopf, & Shadish, 1998 ; Hasselblad & Hedges, 1995 ).

Note that outcomes could have concerned the negative behavior/issue targeted by the fear appeal (e.g., attitudes toward smoking) or the fear appeal’s recommendations (e.g., attitudes toward smoking cessation). Effect sizes were calculated such that higher positive values indicate the treatment group scored higher in the message’s direction. For example, if a study used anti-smoking messages, a positive d would indicate that the treatment group (relative to the comparison group) had more negative attitudes toward smoking or more positive attitudes toward smoking cessation. Thus, a positive effect size indicates the fear appeal worked, whereas a negative effect size indicates the fear appeal backfired.

The majority of samples ( k = 170) included only one type of dependent measure (attitudes, intentions, or behaviors), but some samples included two types ( k = 61) or all three ( k = 17). Therefore, after calculating d for each outcome in a sample, we averaged all d values together to form a single effect size per sample that represents positive change in the direction advocated by the fear appeal. Further, if a sample included two or more measures of the same outcome type (e.g., attitudes toward smoking and attitudes toward smoking cessation), each was included in the average and weighted equally (the number of samples with multiple attitude, intention, and behavior measures was respectively k = 18, k = 24, and k = 12). This approach is justified on several grounds. First, for studies that included all three types of outcomes (attitudes, intentions, and behaviors), Cronbach’s alpha for the composite measure was .87, indicating that the three types of measures are highly internally consistent. Further, prior research has demonstrated that composite measures combining attitudes, intentions, and behaviors are a valid outcome of interest when investigating the relative persuasiveness of messages ( O’Keefe, 2013 ). We therefore combined all attitude, intention, and behavior measures within each sample to form a single effect size per sample, which is how the results will be presented in the present manuscript. However, we also conducted all analyses separately for attitude, intention, and behavior measures; these results are presented in Appendix A and are consistent with the results based on the combined measure. Several hypotheses made specific predictions about attitudes, intentions, or behaviors, and for those hypotheses (see Table 1 ), we present the relevant outcomes of interest in the body of the manuscript.

Of note, attitudes were most commonly measured with semantic differential scales (e.g., positive/negative, beneficial/harmful, wise/foolish, etc.; Roskos-Ewoldsen, Yu, & Rhodes, 2004 ; Nabi et al., 2008 ) and Likert style scales (e.g., agreement with statements such as, “I don’t like speeding”; Cauberghe et al, 2009 , p. 280). Intentions were frequently measured with Likert style scales (e.g., agreement with statements such as, “In the immediate future, I plan to find someone who will teach me to do an accurate breast self-examination”; Roskos-Ewoldsen et al., 2004 , p. 58) and questions with dichotomous response options (e.g., “In the future, I intend to stop spending time outside strictly for the purpose of getting a tan,” with responses Yes and No ; McMath & Prentice-Dunn, 2005 , p.629). Finally, behaviors were often measured dichotomously with self-report questions (e.g., “As a direct result of this message, did you seek help?” with responses Yes and No ; Smalec & Klingle, 2000 , p. 45) or behavioral observation data (e.g., information obtained from medical records; Ordoñana et al., 2009 ).

Coding of Potential Moderators

To test each hypothesis from the message, behavior, and audience portions of our framework, we coded several relevant variables (moderator codes for each paper included in the meta-analysis are displayed in Table 2 ). The first author trained two independent coders, who then coded all study characteristics relevant to each report. Intercoder reliability was calculated on 20% of the overall database using Cohen’s kappa (κ) for categorical variables and Pearson’s r for continuous variables. Agreement for all variables was good: Categorical variables had average κ = .93 (SD = .06, minimum = .80), and continuous variables had average r = .92 (SD = .12, minimum = .73). Disagreements were resolved by discussion and further examination of the studies.

Effect sizes, sample sizes, and moderator codes for each sample in the meta-analysis.

Note: d = Standardized mean effect size. N = Sample size for treatment plus comparison. AIB = Whether d was based on attitude (A), intention (I), and/or behavior (B) outcomes. EFF = Whether an efficacy statement was included (Y) or not (N). Sev = Whether the treatment message was manipulated to be higher in depicted severity than the comparison message (Y) or not (N). Sus = Whether the treatment message was manipulated to be higher in depicted susceptibility than the comparison message (Y) or not (N). OR = Whether the recommended behavior was one-time (O) or repeated (R). DPP = Whether the recommended behavior was detection (D) or prevention/promotion (PP). DP = Whether the word death was present in the message (Y) or not (N). SE = Whether the recommended behavior was self-esteem enhancing (SEE) or self-esteem hindering (SEH). Delay = Whether the outcome followed exposure to the message by less than 24 hours (S), 1–14 days (M), or more than 14 days (L). %F = Percent of sample that was female (0–100%). IC = Whether the sample was from an individualist (I) or collectivist (C) culture. SOC = Whether the sample was in the early (E) or late (L) stages of change. Dash (–) indicates the variable was not relevant for the study.

Moderators related to message content

To test hypotheses concerning the message content, we coded messages’ amount of depicted fear, inclusion (or absence) of efficacy statements, and levels of depicted susceptibility and severity.

To test the linear and curvilinear hypotheses, we coded whether studies included a moderate depicted fear group. To qualify, studies had to contain at least three experimental groups that were exposed to different levels of depicted fear. Thus, a study containing a high depicted fear group, a moderate depicted fear group, and a low depicted fear group would be included, whereas a study containing a high depicted fear group, a low depicted fear group, and a neutral control group would not. As noted above, an appropriate test of the linear and curvilinear hypotheses requires a comparison between high and moderate depicted fear; thus, the moderate group must represent a level of depicted fear between high and low (rather than between high and none). In the entire database ( k = 248), 21 samples included more than two experimental groups exposed to varying levels of depicted fear. To test the linear and curvilinear hypotheses, we calculated effect sizes ( d ) comparing outcomes for the highest versus middle depicted fear groups (the calculation of these effect sizes followed the same procedure detailed above for the calculation of treatment versus comparison effect sizes). The moderate depicted fear groups (total N = 1,626) were not included in other analyses (the studies and corresponding effect sizes included in this analysis can be found in Table 3 )

Effect sizes and sample sizes for each sample included in the linear versus curvilinear test.

Note: d = Standardized mean effect size. N H = Sample size for the high depicted fear group. N M = Sample size for the medium depicted fear group. Combined outcomes = Average of all attitude, intention, and behavior measures. Dash (–) indicates the variable was not relevant for the study. The attitude, intention, and behavior measures are analyzed separately in Appendix A .

For each article, we dichotomously coded whether or not an efficacy message was embedded in the fear appeal. The efficacy message could have focused on self-efficacy (e.g., emphasizing that people have a built-in urge for physical activity and this basic human physical need will make it easy to begin a regular exercise program; Wurtele & Maddux, 1987 ), response-efficacy (e.g., emphasizing that exercise leads to higher levels of high-density lipoprotein and thus prevents heart attacks; Wurtele & Maddux, 1987 ), or both (e.g., highlighting that condoms substantially reduce the risk of HIV transmission if used correctly and are easy to use consistently; Witte & Morrison, 1995 ).

For each article, we coded whether depicted severity was manipulated to be higher in the treatment group relative to the comparison group (e.g., the treatment group received a message emphasizing the drastic consequences of not wearing bicycle helmets; Rodriguez, 1995 ) and whether depicted susceptibility was manipulated to be higher in the treatment group relative to the comparison group (e.g., the treatment group received a message focusing on how coffee consumption will likely lead the message recipient to develop fibromyalgia; Lieberman & Chaiken, 1992 ).

Moderators related to behavior characteristics

To test hypotheses concerning the targeted behavior, we coded whether the fear appeals recommended behaviors that were one-time or recurring and whether the behavior was a detection or prevention/promotion behavior. We also coded whether death was mentioned when discussing the behavior, whether the behavior was measured immediately versus after a delay, and whether the recommended behaviors was self-esteem enhancing or self-esteem hindering.

We coded whether the recommended behaviors concerned one-time-only instances (e.g., signing up for a stress management training; Das et al., 2003 ) or would need to be enacted over an extended period of time (e.g., regularly using child safety devices when traveling by car; Chang et al., 1989 ).

Detection versus prevention/promotion

For each article, we coded if the recommended behavior was a detection behavior (e.g., getting tested for syphilis; Fukada 1975 ) or a prevention/promotion behavior (e.g., attending a training to prevent repetitive stress injury; Pengchit, 2010 ). We initially attempted to code prevention and promotion behaviors separately. However, due to the nature of these constructs, it was often difficult to discern how participants would construe a behavior (e.g., did participants conceptualize exercising as promoting a healthy BMI or preventing obesity?). As the relevant hypothesis solely concerned fear appeals being more effective when recommending detection (vs. prevention/promotion) behaviors, promotion and prevention behaviors were collapsed into a single code.

We created a dichotomous code for whether or not the message explicitly used the word death . Messages dealing with behaviors or issues that could clearly lead to death were still coded as non-death if the word death was not explicitly mentioned within the message itself (e.g., messages about smoking or HIV/AIDS that did not explicitly mention death as one of the potential consequences; Insko et al., 1965 ; McMath & Prentice-Dunn, 2005 ; Raleigh, 2002 ; Witte & Allen, 2000 ). This decision allowed for a more stringent test of TMT hypotheses, and provided an even distribution of death versus non-death conditions, which avoids the potential confound of death messages always being about more severe topics than non-death messages.

Self-esteem relevance

We coded whether the recommended behavior was self-esteem hindering or self-esteem enhancing. Self-esteem hindering behaviors were intended to replace existing behaviors that allowed message recipients to derive self-esteem. Samples were coded as containing a self-esteem hindering behavior if the researchers specifically measured self-esteem for the existing behavior being targeted by the fear appeal and described the sample as high (e.g., high driving-related self-esteem; Taubman Ben-Ari et al., 2000 ), if the sample was designated as committed to the existing behavior (e.g., smokers that were highly committed to smoking; Priolo & Milhabet, 2008 ), or if the existing behavior is one that people typically engage in to improve self-esteem and/or physical attractiveness (e.g., tanning or bulimia; Janssen et al., 2013 ; Smalec & Klingle, 2000 ).

In contrast, self-esteem enhancing behaviors have the potential to provide individuals with self-esteem. Samples were coded as containing a self-esteem enhancing behavior if the recommended behavior is commonly associated with the pursuit of improved self-esteem and/or physical attractiveness (e.g., fear appeals recommending a healthy diet to decrease BMI; Goldenberg & Arndt, 2008 ). Samples were also coded as self-esteem enhancing when fear appeals targeted behaviors that the audience had clearly already made the choice to forego (e.g., antismoking ads directed at non-smokers; Insko et al., 1965 ) because message recipients should generally be able to derive self-esteem by continuing to avoid engaging in the discouraged behavior (e.g., non-smokers who are told that smoking is bad and smoking abstinence is good should feel as though their decision to abstain from smoking reflects positively on them). Thus, studies were coded as self-esteem enhancing if the recommended behavior could improve self-esteem via the pursuit of physical attractiveness (e.g., exercise; Wurtele & Maddux, 1987 ), if the addressed behavior was not relevant for the sample (e.g., anti-smoking ads for non-smokers; Insko et al., 1965 ; Smart & Fejer, 1974 ), if the sample was designated as not committed to the behavior in question (e.g., smokers that were not committed to smoking; Priolo & Milhabet, 2008 ), or if the researchers specifically measured self-esteem related to the existing behavior being targeted by the fear appeal and described the sample as low (e.g., low driving-related self-esteem; Taubman Ben-Ari et al., 2000 ).

We coded the amount of time between the fear appeal and the measurement of the outcome variable using three discrete categories: (a) The measure occurred the same day as the fear appeal exposure (e.g., Taubman Ben-Ari et al., 2000 ; Cho & Salmon, 2006 ; Nabi et al., 2008 ; Smart & Fejer, 1974 ; Stainback & Rogers, 1983 ); (b) the measure occurred one to fourteen days after fear appeal exposure (e.g., Berkowitz, 1998 ; Kirscht et al., 1978 ; Muthusamy et al., 2009 ); and (c) the measure occurred more than fourteen days after fear appeal exposure (e.g., Bagley & Low, 1992 ; Smith & Stutts, 2003 ; Witte & Morrison, 1995 ). We used categories because delayed outcomes often occurred within a specified range – e.g., participants returned to the lab during the following two weeks, but the exact number of days was not specified.

Moderators related to the audience

To test hypotheses concerning the audience portion of our framework, we coded the gender composition of the sample, whether the sample was from a collectivist or individualist country, and the transtheoretical model stage of change that was applicable to the sample.

Gender composition

We coded the percent of the sample that was female.

Collectivism and individualism

We dichotomously coded whether each study’s sample came from a primarily collectivist culture (e.g., East Asian cultures like South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan; Chu, 1966 ; Fukada, 1973 ; 1975 ; 1988 ; Kim et al., 2009 ) or a primarily individualist culture (e.g., Western cultures like Australia, Canada, and the United States; Beck, 1984 ; Brouwers & Sorrentino, 1993 ; Dahl et al., 2003 ; Hill & Gardner, 1980 ; Jones & Owen, 2006 ; LaTour & Tanner, 2003 ; Lewis et al., 2010 ; Smart & Fejer, 1974 ).

Stage of change

We coded the transtheoretical model’s stage of change that was most applicable to the audience. As most studies did not specifically measure this variable, we designed a conservative coding scheme to ensure we could include the maximum number of reports in this analysis while avoiding misclassifications. The early-effectiveness and late-effectiveness hypotheses both make predictions that compare individuals in the first three stages of the model (precontemplation, contemplation, and preparation) versus the last two stages of the model (action and maintenance). Thus, we created a dichotomous code indicating whether the sample was in the early or late stages of the model.

Samples were considered precontemplation if there was a clear indication that it was a sample merely at risk for a given behavior (e.g., participants who were designated as noncompliant with safe sex recommendations; Raleigh, 2002 ), or participants were being persuaded about a fictitious or not well-known disease/risk for which they had clearly not been engaging in protective action beforehand (e.g., hypoglycemia; de Hoog et al., 2008 ). We excluded samples in which the participants may have been in the precontemplation stage but for which there were no pretest measures available (e.g., if the sample was given a message about drinking and driving but there were no baseline measures available to indicate whether or not the sample had engaged in drunk driving in the past; Shehryar & Hunt, 2005 ). Samples were considered contemplation or preparation if there was a clear indication that they were already preparing to engage in the recommended action (e.g., a sample of women under 50 years old who had not yet received mammograms, but the majority of whom stated they intended to receive mammograms after age 50; Jones & Owen, 2006 ). Samples were classified into the action/maintenance category if participants had explicitly been engaging in the recommended behavior (e.g., a message promoted breast self-exams and 80% of the sample indicated they already performed breast self-exams regularly; Siero, Kok, & Pruyn, 1984 ) or if they were recruited from a population that would definitionally be in this stage (e.g., patients receiving treatment in alcohol rehabilitation clinics; Brown, 1979 ).

All analyses were conducted in R using the meta-analytic software package metafor, version 1.9.4 ( Viechtbauer, 2010 ). We conducted all analyses using random- and fixed-effects analyses. As both types of analyses produced comparable results, we present the random-effects analyses.

Distribution of Effect Sizes

We first analyzed the distribution of effect sizes in our sample to determine whether there were biases in study retrieval and inclusion. Figure 1 displays a forest plot for our meta-analytic database, and Figure 2 displays the corresponding funnel plot. In a forest plot, each study is represented by a horizontal line that indicates the confidence interval for the study’s effect size. By examining a forest plot, it is possible to assess the precision of effect size estimates from each study. Further, forest plots can also be used to assess the distribution of effect sizes across studies. As can be seen in the forest plot, the precision of effect size estimates varies across studies, with most studies displaying moderate precision. Further, the distribution of effect sizes appears to be roughly continuous and normal, which indicates a lack of inclusion bias. If no retrieval or inclusion bias is present in a meta-analytic database, the distribution of effect sizes in the funnel plot should be centered on and symmetric around the mean effect size, with smaller variability toward the top of the figure. If retrieval or inclusion biases are present, then the distribution should be asymmetric around the mean effect size. As can be seen in the figure, the distribution appears quite symmetric with smaller variability toward the top of the plot. We conducted a formal test of funnel plot asymmetry known as Begg and Mazumdar’s rank correlation test, which is a non-parametric correlation of the effect sizes with their corresponding standard errors ( Begg & Mazumdar, 1994 ). If this correlation is significantly different from zero, there is evidence of inclusion bias. The rank correlation was r = −.02, p = .67. Thus, there is no evidence of retrieval or inclusion bias.

Forest plot of the effect sizes.

Note: This forest plot includes point estimates and confidence intervals for all studies in the manuscript. The solid vertical line represents the combined effect size ( d = .29).

Funnel plot of effect sizes.

Note: Effect size ( d ) is plotted on the x-axis and standard error on the y-axis. The solid vertical line represents the combined effect size ( d = .29). The dotted line represents the x-intercept (x = 0) for a reference line. The white region represents the inside of the 95% pseudo confidence interval, whereas the shaded region represents the outside (i.e., the area of statistical significance).

Another way of testing for biases is to use the normal quantile plot method ( Wang & Bushman, 1999 ). In a normal quantile plot, the observed values of a variable are plotted against the expected values given normality. If the sample of effect sizes is from a normal distribution, data points cluster around the diagonal; if the sample of effect sizes is biased by publication practices or eligibility criteria, data points deviate from the diagonal ( Wang & Bushman, 1999 ). As can be seen from Figure 3 , the effect sizes followed a straight line and generally fell within the 95% confidence interval of the normality line, and thus there is no evidence of retrieval or inclusion bias.

Normal quantile plot.

Note: The dashed lines represents a 95% confidence band. The line on the diagonal indicates normality.

Average Effect Size and Between-Effects Variability

The average weighted effect size comparing outcomes for treatment to comparison groups was d = 0.29 with a 95% CI of [0.22, 0.35]. Therefore, fear appeals have a significant and positive effect on outcomes. That is, relative to participants in comparison groups, participants in treatment groups (i.e., those exposed to relatively high levels of depicted fear) had attitudes, intentions, and behaviors that were more in line with the position advocated by the fear appeal. There was also significant heterogeneity among effect sizes Q (247) = 1,287, I 2 = 85.11, p < .0001.

For studies that included a manipulation check of subjectively experienced fear, we coded this variable and calculated d for treatment versus comparison groups using the same methods employed for primary outcomes. We included all measures that asked respondents to report their current levels of fear (e.g., Cauberghe, De Pelsmacker, Janssens & Dens, 2009 ; Cho & Salmon, 2006 ; Nabi et al., 2008 ). Based on the 71 samples that included such manipulation checks, fear appeals were generally successful at inducing experienced fear, such that treatment groups reported more fear than comparison groups, d = 1.00 (95% CI: [0.83, 1.18]), Q(70) = 697, I 2 = 90.67, p < .0001. Importantly, this result should be taken as an estimate of how much fear was induced by the particular messages used in this sample, rather than an estimate of how much fear is induced by fear appeal messages in general.

Moderator Tests

To test our hypotheses of interest (see Table 1 ), we primarily conducted moderator analyses by calculating weighted effect sizes and corresponding 95% CIs for each level of our moderator variables (i.e., we meta-analyzed samples within each moderator level separately to produce an overall effect size estimate for that level). If the CIs for two moderator levels are not overlapping, then those levels of the moderator are significantly different from each other. In contrast, if the CIs are overlapping, then those levels of the moderator are not different from each other. We also conducted moderated meta-regressions to analyze all moderator variables; the results were the same as the 95% CI analyses and are thus not presented here. Table 5 displays average weighted effect sizes and corresponding 95% CIs for all levels of our moderator variables.

Moderator analysis results for categorical moderators.

Note: SE = Self-esteem. DP = Death present in message. DA = Death absent in message. PP = Promotion/prevention. SEE = Self-esteem enhancing recommended behaviors. SEH = Self-esteem hindering recommended behaviors. d = Standardized mean effect size estimated meta-analytically for the indicated moderator level. 95% CI = The 95% confidence interval for d . k = The number of studies for each moderator level.

Study Characteristics

For descriptive purposes, we recorded the following for each sample: (a) Study source (journal article, unpublished dissertation or thesis, or conference paper); (b) institution of the paper’s first author (university/college, research center); (c) the sampled population (general population, college students, high school students, children, other); (d) whether participants were run individually or in groups; (e) the study setting (laboratory, field); (f) the specificity of the message – whether the message targeted a single specific outcome (e.g., signing up for a training to prevent stress-related illness; Das et al., 2003 ), multiple specific outcomes (e.g., consuming calcium and performing weight-bearing exercises to prevent osteoporosis; Klohn & Rogers, 1991 ), or multiple non-specific outcomes (e.g., general recommendations to improve diet and increase exercise without mentioning specific dietary concerns or specific forms of exercise; Kirscht & Haefner, 1973 ); (g) whether the study measured subjective fear; (h) the type of media used to present the message (text information, pictures/videos); (i) whether the message targeted a health relevant outcome; and (j) the domain of the study’s targeted issue (dental hygiene, driving safety, HIV/STDs, drinking/drugs, smoking, cancer prevention, disease prevention, general safety, environment/society, other). As can be seen in Table 4 , none of these methodological factors moderated fear appeal effectiveness – within each factor, 95% CIs for each factor level overlap for all levels of all factors. In addition to these factors, we also recorded publication year, average age of participants, and sample size. Separate meta-regressions for each of these three variables revealed that none were related to fear appeal effectiveness: b = −0.0029 (SE = 0.0022, p = .18, 95% CI: [−0.0072, 0.0013]), b = −0.0046 (SE = 0.0039, p = .23, 95% CI: [−0.0122, 0.0030]), and b = 0.0000 (SE = 0.0002, p = .91, 95% CI: [−0.0003, 0.0003]), respectively for publication year, average age of sample, and sample size.

Moderator analysis results for methodological variables.

Note: d = Standardized mean effect size estimated meta-analytically for the indicated moderator level. 95% CI = The 95% confidence interval for d . k = The number of studies for each moderator level.

Tests of message content hypotheses

Message content: depicted fear.

To test the linear and curvilinear hypotheses, we calculated an average weighted effect size comparing groups that were exposed to moderate depicted fear versus high depicted fear. The linear hypothesis predicts that this effect size should be positive and significant, whereas the curvilinear hypothesis predicts that this effect size should be negative and significant. The combined effect size was d = −0.05 with a 95% CI of [−0.34, 0.24] and Q(20) = 154 (I 2 = 92.89, p < .0001). Therefore, outcomes did not differ for groups exposed to moderate versus high depicted fear. Instead of supporting either the linear or curvilinear hypothesis, this result suggests that depicted fear may have a maximum effective value, beyond which there is no impact of depicting additional fear. This finding may have implications for practitioners using fear appeals - i.e., once a message depicts moderate fear, there is no value in depicting additional fear, but depicting additional fear will not lead to negative effects.

One caveat is that this analysis was only based on 21 samples. However, to our knowledge, this is the largest and most valid test of the linear and curvilinear hypotheses to date. Specifically, to ensure that the test concerned high depicted fear versus moderate depicted fear, we only included studies with at least three levels of depicted fear. Given that we obtained an overall positive effect of depicted fear when comparing treatment and comparison groups, the results here can be interpreted as supporting a modified version of the linear hypothesis. Specifically, depicted fear has significant positive effects, but depicted fear cannot be effectively manipulated indefinitely and results in diminishing returns beyond a certain point (rather than negative effects causing the message to backfire, as suggested by the curvilinear hypothesis). However, given the limited sample size, this conclusion should be confirmed in future research.

Message content: Efficacy statements

The strong and weak efficacy hypotheses both predict that inclusion of efficacy statements in a fear appeal will lead to increased effectiveness. The results support this hypothesis: Fear appeals were more effective when they included efficacy statements (95% CI: [0.31, 0.55]) than when they did not (95% CI: [0.13, 0.29]). However, the strong hypothesis predicts that fear appeals without efficacy messages will backfire and produce negative effects, whereas the weak hypothesis predicts that fear appeals without efficacy statements will simply produce less positive or null effects. The results clearly support the weak efficacy hypothesis and disconfirm the strong efficacy hypothesis. Thus, fear appeals are effective with or without efficacy statements, but the inclusion of efficacy statements is associated with increased effectiveness. These results confirm the conclusions of prior meta-analyses concerning the use of efficacy statements ( de Hoog et al., 2007 ; Peters et al., 2012 ; Witte & Allen, 2000 ).

Message content: Depicted susceptibility and severity

The first hypothesis concerning depicted susceptibility and severity states that fear appeals high in depicted severity (but not depicted susceptibility) will positively influence attitudes but will not influence intentions or behaviors. The 95% CIs indicated that fear appeals that were only high in depicted severity had positive effects for attitudes (95% CI: [0.06, 0.37]) and intentions (95% CI: [0.20, 0.39]) but not behaviors (95% CI: [−0.08, 0.42]) (see Appendix A for the results of all analyses done separately for attitudes, intentions, and behavior). Although this hypothesis was not supported, our results partially replicated a previous meta-analytic finding in which high depicted severity influenced all three outcome measures ( de Hoog et al., 2007 ). The second hypothesis is that fear appeals high in depicted susceptibility (but not severity) will positively influence intentions and behaviors but will not influence attitudes. The 95% CIs indicated that fear appeals that were only high in depicted susceptibility had positive effects for intentions (95% CI: [0.15, 0.59]) and behaviors (95% CI: [0.01, 0.88]) but not attitudes (95% CI: [−0.51, 1.47]). Therefore, this hypothesis was supported. The third hypothesis is that fear appeals with high depicted severity and high depicted susceptibility will positively influence attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. The 95% CIs confirmed this prediction and indicated that fear appeals high on both moderators had positive effects for attitudes (95% CI: [0.05, 0.38]), intentions (95% CI: [0.23, 0.47]), and behaviors (95% CI: [0.24, 0.63]). Further, the 95% CI for the focal outcome in our meta-analysis (the average of attitude, intention, and behavior outcomes) also supported this result: [0.28, 0.50]. Thus, when testing all three hypotheses, fear appeals generally had positive effects on attitudes, intentions, and behaviors when they were high in depicted severity and/or susceptibility.

Tests of the recommended behavior hypotheses

Recommended behavior: one-time versus repeated behaviors.

According to Robertson’s (1975) single action theory, fear appeals that attempt to persuade people about one-time behaviors (e.g., getting vaccinated) should be more effective than fear appeals that attempt to persuade people about repeated behaviors (e.g., exercising multiple times per week every week). The results supported this hypothesis, such that fear appeals recommending one-time behaviors (95% CI: [0.30, 0.56]) were more effective than fear appeals recommending repeated behaviors (95% CI: [0.14, 0.29]). However, it is worth noting that fear appeals were effective for both types of recommended behaviors, and they were simply more effective for one-time behaviors.

Recommended behavior: Detection versus prevention/promotion behaviors

Based on hypotheses derived from prospect theory, several researchers have hypothesized that fear appeals should be more effective when recommending detection behaviors relative to prevention/promotion behaviors. The results did not support this hypothesis, as fear appeals recommending detection behaviors (95% CI: [0.21, 0.49]) and prevention/promotion behaviors (95% CI: [0.20, 0.38]) were equally effective.

Recommended behavior: Death and self-esteem

Based on predictions from TMT, fear appeals that mention death (versus not) should be more effective when the recommended behavior is self-esteem enhancing but less effective when the recommended behavior is self-esteem hindering. The results did not support these predictions, as fear appeals were equally effective when they mentioned death and recommended a self-esteem hindering behavior (95% CI: [−0.41, 0.18]), did not mention death and recommended a self-esteem hindering behavior (95% CI: [0.00, 0.96]), mentioned death and recommended a self-esteem enhancing behavior (95% CI: [0.11, 0.67]), or did not mention death and recommended a self-esteem enhancing behavior (95% CI: [−0.04, 0.47]). Thus, neither self-esteem hypotheses derived from TMT was supported.

Recommended behavior: Death and delay

A separate prediction derived from TMT is that fear appeals that mention death will be more effective if the recommended behavior is measured after a delay rather than immediately. These predictions were not supported. When fear appeals mentioned death, they were equally effective for outcomes that occurred the same day (95% CI: [0.04, 0.27]), between one and fourteen days after fear appeal exposure (95% CI: [0.21, 1.37]), or more than fourteen days later (95% CI: [0.19, 0.51]). Similarly, when fear appeals did not mention death, they were equally effective for outcomes that occurred the same day (95% CI: [0.25, 0.44]), between one and fourteen days after fear appeal exposure (95% CI: [−0.29, 0.33]), or more than fourteen days later (95% CI: [0.03, 0.88]). Therefore, the death and delay hypothesis was not supported.

Tests of the audience hypotheses

Audience: gender.

Based on predictions derived from regulatory fit theory, fear appeals should be more effective for women than men. We tested this hypothesis via meta-regression, using percent of the sample that was female as a predictor of effect size. This analysis produced a small but significant effect, b = 0.0031 ( SE = 0.0012, 95% CI for the slope: [0.0007, 0.0055]), p < .0001. Therefore, for every 10% increase in the percent of the sample that is female, fear appeal effectiveness increases by approximately d = 0.03. Thus, the hypothesis was supported: Fear appeals are more effective for audiences with a larger percentage of female message recipients than male message recipients.

Audience: Collectivism versus individualism

Based on predictions derived from regulatory fit theory, fear appeals should be more effective for collectivist samples than individualist samples. The results did not support this hypothesis. Fear appeals were equally effective in studies conducted in collectivist countries (95% CI: [0.27, 0.66]) and individualist countries (95% CI: [0.19, 0.33]).

Audience: Stages of change

Based on the early-effectiveness hypothesis, fear appeals should be more effective for samples that occupy the first three stages of the stages of change model relative to the last two stages. In contrast, the late-effectiveness hypothesis predicts the opposite. Neither hypothesis was supported by the data because audiences in the early stages (95% CI: [0.21, 0.40]) and late stages (95% CI: [0.14, 0.54]) were equally impacted by fear appeals.

General Discussion

Fear appeals are effective. The present meta-analysis found that fear appeals were successful at influencing attitudes, intentions, and behaviors across nearly all conditions that were analyzed. Even when a moderator was unrelated to fear appeal effectiveness, fear appeals were still more effective than comparison treatments. Further, there was not one level of any moderator that we tested for which fear appeals backfired to produce worse outcomes relative to the comparison groups. These results are striking given the wide range of theories that attempt to specify conditions under which fear appeals should be ineffective or counter-productive (e.g., the curvilinear model, the strong efficacy hypothesis, the stage model) and given the numerous practitioners who make bold claims stating that fear appeals are futile or even dangerous (e.g., Drug Free Action Alliance, 2013 ; Kok et al., 2014 ; Ruiter et al., 2014 ). Rather, fear appeals consistently work, and through our meta-analysis we were able to identify various factors that can enhance their effectiveness to make them work even better. We believe that these results make important contributions to theory, practice, and policy.

A Message-Behavior-Audience Framework of Fear Appeals

We structured our review around a framework that considers three important aspects of any fear appeal communication: The message’s content, the recommended behavior, and the audience. This model is meant to be an organizing thread to help connect existing theories and research, and to identify areas in need of future research. Specifically, we believe this framework is useful for several reasons. First, each aspect (message, behavior, and audience) has the potential to vary independently of the others and may impact the communication’s effectiveness in ways scholars must consider. Second, this structure connects and organizes seemingly unrelated theories and hypotheses concerning fear appeals, including the linear model, the stage model, and hypotheses derived from prospect theory. Specifically, we found that fear appeals were more effective when the message depicted relatively high amounts of fear, included an efficacy message, and stressed susceptibility and severity related to the concerns being addressed (i.e., factors concerning the message). We also found that fear appeals were more effective when they recommended one-time only behaviors (i.e., a factor concerning the recommended behavior) and when audiences included a higher percentage of women (i.e., a factor concerning the audience).

Our framework also highlights that prior research has strongly focused on one particular aspect of fear appeals somewhat to the exclusion of the other aspects. Specifically, the bulk of prior research on fear appeals has investigated questions about the message’s content – indeed, of the prior meta-analyses on fear appeals, all of them addressed questions related to the message’s content while overlooking questions related to the recommended behavior and audience. However, this bias is clearly not due to a lack of interesting or potentially important effects concerning the behavior or audience, as significant effects emerged pertaining to each. Thus, we hope that our framework will help generate interest in research directed toward these previously under-studied aspects of fear appeal effectiveness.

Limitations

Four specific limitations are worth mentioning. First, as discussed in the introduction, the present results concern fear appeals rather than fear. That is, our meta-analysis did not compare people who were subjectively afraid to people who were subjectively unafraid, but rather we compared groups that were exposed to more or less fear inducing content. Consequently, all comparisons between the treatment and comparison groups must be interpreted as effects of exposure to depicted levels of fear rather than effects of fear per se. However, this feature is not unique to our analyses, and prior meta-analyses of fear appeals are subject to the same considerations (e.g., Boster & Mongeau, 1984 ; de Hoog et al., 2007 ; Peters et al., 2012 ; Sutton, 1984; Witte & Allen, 2000 ). As researchers and practitioners alike are typically concerned with how to design effective communications, knowledge of the effectiveness of fear appeals is quite useful.

Relatedly, although we were able to determine that the treatment groups generally experienced more subjective fear than the comparison groups by analyzing fear-related manipulation check questions, the majority of samples included no assessment of subjective fear ( k = 177, which is 71% of samples in our database). This is a serious limitation of the existing literature for three reasons. First, if fear appeals are presumed to have an effect on outcomes by instilling fear in message recipients, it is important to verify that these messages actually evoke fear, and that it is the evoked fear that mediates the relation between message presentation and response. Indeed, many fear appeals may evoke emotions in addition to fear (e.g., disgust, anger), and these other emotions may partially (or in some cases fully) mediate the effects of fear appeals. Second, the lack of subjective fear measures makes it difficult (if not impossible) to equate fear appeal intensity across studies. What one research team refers to as low fear may represent what another research teams refers to as moderate fear or a control condition. However, the inclusion of subjective measures of fear in response to fear appeals would enable researchers to equate fear appeal intensity across studies and more precisely investigate effects via well-calibrated levels of fear. Finally, the lack of subjective fear measures makes it difficult for researchers interested in the effects of fear (rather than fear appeals) to investigate relevant hypotheses meta-analytically. All three of these issues can be easily resolved by including measures of subjective fear in future studies on fear appeals, and we therefore urge researchers to do so.

Third, our meta-analysis exclusively included experimental studies. As experiments often allow for increased internal validity at the cost of decreased external validity, it will be important for future research to investigate whether the present results generalize to naturalistic settings. For example, do fear appeals produce the same effects when used in real-world public health campaigns as they do when used in highly controlled experimental studies? Although we expect the results will generalize to such settings, future research will be necessary to definitively test this question.

The final limitation of note concerns the coding of variables in the current meta-analysis. Specifically, to test hypotheses related to TMT, studies were coded as either containing the word death or not. However, some studies did not include full texts for fear appeal messages, and thus it is possible that some messages did contain the word death but were nonetheless coded as not containing this word (however, studies were only coded as containing the word death if a portion of the message’s text was available that showed this word). Overall, it is likely that such miscodings would attenuate potential differences across conditions.

Future Directions

Experimental manipulations and mechanisms.

The present meta-analysis only included experimental studies that compared treatment and comparison groups, and thus internal validity is good when considering the effects of relatively high versus low depicted fear. However, meta-analyses are a correlational research design, and thus many of the moderator analyses we conducted should be interpreted with this in mind. For example, does using fear appeals to target one-time behaviors versus recurring behaviors actually cause the fear appeals to be more effective, or are fear appeals that target one-time behaviors systematically different from fear appeals that target recurring behaviors along some other dimension that results in the observed difference? Future experimental work will be necessary to address such questions, and we therefore encourage researchers to experimentally test our moderator findings concerning variables that were not manipulated in the primary studies.

It is also important for future research to uncover the mechanisms behind the moderation effects we identified. For example, why are fear appeals more effective for one-time behaviors? A number of the hypotheses that we substantiated are relatively agnostic concerning mechanisms, and this is a serious gap in the current fear appeal literature. To truly understand fear appeal effectiveness, it is necessary to know why they work. This knowledge could then be used to design more effective fear appeals, and it could potentially be used for other types of communications as well. Although some of the theories investigated do discuss mechanism to some degree (e.g., EPPM; Witte, 1992 ), our updated review of the literature is consistent with conclusions from prior reviews that these mechanisms are often under-studied and are in need of additional research (e.g., Popova, 2012 ).

Relatedly, future research could benefit from developing methods to manipulate perceptions of certain variables that were found to be significant moderators. For example, fear appeals were more effective for one-time behaviors, but this knowledge is currently of little use to researchers or practitioners who address recurring behaviors. However, this knowledge could become useful if methods were developed to successfully re-frame recurring behaviors as one-time behaviors. Such methods would also allow for experimental tests of the relevant dimensions and mechanisms (e.g., test whether fear appeals can be made more effective for a particular behavior if the behavior is framed as one-time rather than recurring).

Linear effect of fear

Another important question to address in future research concerns the linear and curvilinear hypotheses tested in the present study. Strictly speaking, we did not find support for either model. High levels of depicted fear did not lead to different outcomes than moderate depicted fear, suggesting that high and moderate depictions of fear produce similar results. However, the reason for this is unclear – were the high fear messages unsuccessful at evoking more subjective fear than the moderate messages, or is there simply a point beyond which additional fear (depicted or subjective) confers no benefit? To explore these possibilities, future studies should examine a large range of depicted fear along with measures of subjectively experienced fear.

Integration of findings

Finally, we believe that an additional benefit of our framework is its ability to guide researchers in generating future research questions. As mentioned, organizing the existing literature under this framework highlights the relative dearth of research addressing the behavior and audience aspects of the model relative to the message aspect. A number of interesting questions have yet to be explored in these areas. For example, are fear appeals more effective if they address behaviors concerning the self or close others (e.g., one’s children, romantic partners), public or private behaviors (e.g., exercising at a gym versus alone), or socially desirable or undesirable behaviors? Further, are fear appeals differentially effective for target populations that differ in age, education, social class, or personality? Such questions have received relatively little attention, but they have the potential to inform fear appeal theory and practice.

Additionally, what kinds of interactions exist when crossing aspects of message, behavior, and audience? We investigated two such questions in the present study with the hypotheses related to terror management theory – i.e., message content (presence versus absence of the word death) crossed with the recommended behavior (self-esteem enhancing versus hindering behaviors, immediate versus delayed outcomes). Although neither of these hypotheses was supported, the potential to test these types of interactions prompts the question of which variables may interact, particularly variables from separate aspects of the model. For example, might fear appeal effectiveness be moderated by interactions of culture (a factor of the audience) with the kind of behavior addressed by the fear appeal? Cross-cultural differences have rarely been explored in the effectiveness of fear appeals, and it is possible that cultural sensitivity to a behavior/issue may moderate the effectiveness of fear appeals addressing that behavior/issue. For example, East Asian countries have extremely low HIV prevalence rates and thus may be less susceptible to fear appeals on that topic relative to other topics. Whether this is true and whether it interacts with related findings is an empirical question that could be fruitfully explored in future research.

Importantly, aspects other than message content, behavior, and audience may moderate the effectiveness of fear appeal communications. However, based on our review of the literature, there simply appeared to be too little research on other aspects to include them in the current framework. Three potential aspects worth noting are the source of the communication, the subjective experience of the message recipient, and the channel used to transmit the message. First, based on a well-established body of literature in persuasion demonstrating that aspects of a message’s source can influence the persuasiveness of the message ( Briñol & Petty, 2009 ; Kumkale et al., 2010 ; Pornpitakpan, 2004 ; Wilson & Sherrell, 1993 ), the source of a fear appeal communication should be an important moderator for fear appeal effectiveness. For example, fear appeals from benevolent groups (e.g., a respected government institution, a close personal friend) may be more effective than fear appeals from self-interested groups (e.g., corporations or other for-profit entities). However, most empirical studies did not detail source information in a manner that allowed us to test such hypotheses. Further, many fear appeals are delivered in the form of public service announcements, and thus there is relatively little variation across existing studies on this dimension. Second, drawing on our previous distinction between fear appeals and fear, the subjective experience of the message recipient should be an important aspect of fear appeal communications. Although most empirical studies simply do not measure participants’ subjective states, such measures could be very informative to test a variety of interesting questions. For example, is fear the only emotion evoked by fear appeals? If not, what other negative emotions are evoked (e.g., disgust, shame, guilt, anger), and are they partially responsible for the effectiveness of fear appeals? Similarly, perhaps the effects of fear appeals are simply driven by induced negative affect or high arousal, and the specific experience of fear is superfluous? Future research using measures of subjective experience are needed to address these questions. The paucity of existing research addressing source characteristics and subjective experience led us to not include these as aspects of the current review framework, but they would be welcome additions in the future. Third, consistent with the focus of the persuasion literature on source, message, audience, and channel of communication as key components to understand in the persuasion process ( Shannon & Weaver, 1949 ), are certain channels of communication more likely to be effective in delivering fear appeals? For example, are graphic videos more likely to be effective than audio fear appeals without video? How do social media channels (generally more linked to liked peers) differ from mass media in effectiveness of delivered fear appeals?

To conclude, fear appeals are effective, and our synthesis organized and identified factors that make them even more effective. Specifically, fear appeals are particularly effective when the communication depicts relatively high amounts of fear, includes an efficacy message, stresses severity and susceptibility, recommends one-time only behaviors, and targets audiences that include a larger percentage of female message recipients. We formed these conclusions by meta-analytically testing a wide variety of influential fear appeal theories using the largest and most comprehensive fear appeals database to date. We believe our analysis has provided a thorough overview of the state of the literature and also generated a variety of important and exciting future directions.

Acknowledgments

This paper was facilitated by grants R01 MH094241, R01 NR08325, and R56 AI114501.

In the body of the manuscript, we presented random-effects analyses for a combined measure averaging across attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. Here, we present the analyses done separately for each type of measure.

First, the overall average effect size comparing treatment to comparison groups separately for attitudes, intentions, and behaviors was respectively d = 0.23 (95% CI: [0.11, 0.34]), d = 0.31 (95% CI: [0.24, 0.38]), and d = 0.27 (95% CI: [0.13, 0.42]). The heterogeneity statistics for each measure were respectively Q(109) = 614 (I 2 = 86.52, p < .0001), Q(162) = 615 (I 2 = 75.48, p < .0001), and Q(69) = 733 (I 2 = 92.37, p < .0001).

To examine the linear and curvilinear hypotheses for each outcome, we computed the average weighted effect size comparing outcomes for high fear versus moderate fear groups. For attitudes, intentions, and behaviors, the results were respectively d = 0.05 (95% CI: [−0.27, 0.36]), d = −0.09 (95% CI: [−0.29, 0.11]), and d = −0.04 (95% CI: [−0.63, 0.56]). The heterogeneity statistics for each measure were respectively Q(7) = 19 (I 2 = 66.10, p = .009), Q(8) = 19 (I 2 = 65.95, p = .01), and Q(9) = 118 (I 2 = 96.12, p < .0001).

To examine the gender hypothesis, we regressed outcomes onto the percent of the sample that was female. The results for attitudes, intentions, and behaviors were respectively b = 0.0019 ( SE = 0.0022, 95% CI for the slope: [−0.0024, 0.0061], p = .38, k = 72), b = 0.0043 ( SE = 0.0013, 95% CI for the slope: [0.0016, 0.0069], p = .002, k = 119), and b = 0.0037 ( SE = 0.0028, 95% CI for the slope: [−0.0018, 0.0091], p = .19, k = 49).

The results for all categorical moderator analyses are presented in Table A.1 .

Random-effects moderator analyses done separately for attitudes, intentions, and behaviors.

Note: SE = Self-esteem. DP = Death present in message. DA = Death absent in message. PP = Promotion/prevention. SEE = Self-esteem enhancing recommended behaviors. SEH = Self-esteem hindering recommended behaviors. d = Standardized mean effect size estimated meta-analytically for the indicated moderator level. 95% CI = The 95% confidence interval for d . k = The number of studies for each moderator level. Dash (−) indicates there were no observations at a particular moderator level.

1 We use the term effectiveness to indicate whether exposure to a fear appeal message resulted in more persuasion than a comparison condition. Thus, a fear appeal is considered effective if the effect size comparing treatment to control is significantly positive. Consequently, when testing moderation, fear appeals will be considered more effective for one level of a moderator versus another if the average effect size for the first level of the moderator is significantly larger than the average effect size for the second level of the moderator. In other words, when we compare fear appeal effectiveness for a moderator, we are comparing whether treatment led to more persuasion relative to control for one level of a moderator versus another level of that moderator.

2 Our framework addresses the relation between fear appeals and outcomes of interest (e.g., intentions) rather than the relation between fear and outcomes of interest. Although many fear appeal theories discuss fear, empirical studies typically test the impact of fear appeal messages on outcomes, and subsequently infer that message effects were mediated by experienced fear even though fear itself is rarely measured (for a discussion, see Popova, 2012 , p.466). Indeed, only 71 of the 248 studies in the current meta-analysis measured fear directly, and such measures were typically treated as manipulation checks rather than independent variables or mediators. We are therefore careful to discuss the influence of depicted message characteristics rather than subjectively experienced states (e.g., depicted fear versus experienced fear). This distinction applies to prior meta-analyses and primary studies as well, though the distinction is rarely made. We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for encouraging us to frame our results in line with this distinction.

3 TMT theories also predict a higher order interaction between mentions of death, time delays, and self-esteem, such that the predicted effects of self-esteem discussed above become stronger after a delay ( Goldenberg & Arndt, 2008 ). Of the 12 conditions represented by this prediction (2 death × 3 delay × 2 self-esteem), four had zero observations in our meta-analysis. Thus, we are only able to test the simpler predictions concerning self-esteem and time delay in isolation.

4 Although many researchers investigate stage progression in the transtheoretical model (the process by which people move from one stage of the model to the next; Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983 ), this outcome is not directly relevant for our investigation because we are examining the effect of fear appeals on attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. It is possible that individuals would be classified as moving from one stage of the model to the next due to changes in attitudes, intentions, or behaviors, but such classification decisions are not the focus of the present study. The transtheoretical model also includes three dimensions other than the stages of change — the processes of change, self-efficacy, and decisional balance. Although we test predictions derived from the transtheoretical model more broadly, we limited our predictions to the areas that are relevant to fear appeal audiences (stages of change).

5 A number of papers did not provide the full text of the messages that were presented to each group, which made it impossible to determine if comparison groups labeled with the terms neutral message or control message were actually presented with neutral messages or with low depicted fear messages. Similarly, groups labeled with the term low depicted fear may have actually been presented with a neutral message but were nonetheless labeled as low fear because they were designed to induce relatively less fear than the experimental group. Thus, we could consistently compare relative levels of depicted fear across studies (more depicted fear vs. less depicted fear), but not absolute levels of fear (high depicted fear vs. low depicted fear vs. no depicted fear). Consequently, no message groups, neutral message groups, and low depicted fear groups were all considered appropriate comparison groups. Further, it was generally not possible to combine different potential comparison groups because information about standard deviations for the outcomes of each group was often lacking from reports, which made it unfeasible to calculate correct standard errors for combined comparison groups.

Contributor Information

Melanie B. Tannenbaum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Justin Hepler, University of Nevada, Reno.

Rick S. Zimmerman, University of Missouri – St. Louis.

Lindsey Saul, Virginia Commonwealth University.

Samantha Jacobs, Virginia Commonwealth University.

Kristina Wilson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Dolores Albarracin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

References marked with an asterisk indicate studies included in the meta-analysis.

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• How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips

How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

• Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
• Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
• Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
• Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
• Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
• Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

• Make a claim
• Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
• Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
• Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

• Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
• Cite data to support your claim
• Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
• Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

• Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
• Highlight the problems with this position
• Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
• Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

• Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
• Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
• Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
• Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

College essays

• Choosing Essay Topic
• Write a College Essay
• Write a Diversity Essay
• College Essay Format & Structure
• Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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The Power of Persuasion: Understanding the Definition of Rhetoric

This essay about the mastery of persuasion explores the art of rhetoric and its historical significance. It highlights the fundamental elements of rhetoric—ethos, pathos, and logos—and their roles in effective communication. The essay underscores rhetoric’s power to influence emotions, establish credibility, and appeal to logic, illustrating its pervasive impact on human interaction, politics, and daily life. By mastering rhetoric, individuals can advocate for their beliefs and drive positive change.

How it works

In the vast tapestry of human interaction, there exists an art form of immense potency — the mastery of persuasion. It’s a skill as old as civilization itself, intricately woven into the fabric of societies, guiding opinions, steering decisions, and sculpting the course of history. At its core lies rhetoric, a term rich with history and profound significance.

Rhetoric, fundamentally, is the craft of effective communication, particularly the adept use of language to sway and influence others. It’s the tool through which ideas are sculpted, arguments are forged, and convictions are molded.

Rooted deeply in ancient Greek tradition, rhetoric was considered one of the foundational skills for any learned individual, alongside grammar and logic. Aristotle, the eminent philosopher of antiquity, defined rhetoric as “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.” This definition encapsulates the essence of rhetoric — the strategic use of language to guide an audience towards a specific viewpoint.

The persuasive might inherent in rhetoric lies in its capacity to appeal to the emotions, intellect, and values of the audience. It’s not just about presenting facts and reasoned arguments; rather, it’s about crafting a compelling narrative that resonates deeply. This is achieved through a mastery of diverse rhetorical devices — from the skillful use of imagery and metaphor to the nuanced manipulation of tone and rhythm.

Ethos, or the appeal to the character and credibility of the speaker, stands as a pivotal element of rhetoric. In persuasion, establishing trust and authority is paramount. A speaker perceived as knowledgeable, sincere, and reliable holds greater sway over an audience. This is why politicians, advertisers, and public figures often endeavor to cultivate a strong ethos, be it through showcasing expertise, citing reputable sources, or aligning with values shared by their audience.

Pathos, the appeal to the emotions of the audience, represents another vital facet of rhetoric. Humans are not purely rational beings; our decisions are often swayed by our emotions. Rhetoric acknowledges this fundamental aspect of human nature and leverages it to great effect. By tapping into the audience’s emotions — whether it’s fear, anger, joy, or hope — a skilled rhetorician can forge a profound connection and spur them to action.

Lastly, there’s logos, the appeal to reason and logic. While emotions play a significant role in persuasion, they must be underpinned by sound reasoning and evidence. Logical arguments provide the bedrock upon which persuasive appeals are constructed. This entails presenting facts, statistics, and logical deductions in a lucid and compelling manner. Without logos, rhetoric risks being perceived as mere manipulation or propaganda.

Yet, rhetoric is not solely a tool of manipulation; it’s also a vehicle for empowerment. By mastering the art of persuasion, individuals can articulate their ideas more effectively, advocate for causes they believe in, and effect positive change in the world. In the realm of politics, rhetoric has been instrumental in rallying support for social movements, galvanizing public opinion, and shaping the course of history.

Moreover, rhetoric permeates every facet of our daily lives, from advertising and marketing to interpersonal communication and negotiation. Its principles are at play whenever we seek to influence or persuade others. Whether it’s persuading a friend to try a new restaurant or convincing a colleague to support a project, the power of rhetoric is constantly at work, shaping our interactions and our world.

In conclusion, rhetoric stands as a potent force that molds our perceptions, beliefs, and actions. It’s the art of persuasion, refined over millennia by philosophers, orators, and leaders. By grasping the essence of rhetoric and mastering its techniques, we can become more effective communicators, more persuasive advocates, and more empowered individuals. In a world where ideas vie for attention and influence, the potency of rhetoric is more relevant and indispensable than ever.

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40 Strong Persuasive Writing Examples (Essays, Speeches, Ads, and More)

Learn from the experts.

The more we read, the better writers we become. Teaching students to write strong persuasive essays should always start with reading some top-notch models. This round-up of persuasive writing examples includes famous speeches, influential ad campaigns, contemporary reviews of famous books, and more. Use them to inspire your students to write their own essays. (Need persuasive essay topics? Check out our list of interesting persuasive essay ideas here! )

• Persuasive Essays
• Persuasive Speeches
• Advertising Campaigns

Persuasive Essay Writing Examples

From the earliest days of print, authors have used persuasive essays to try to sway others to their own point of view. Check out these top persuasive essay writing examples.

Professions for Women by Virginia Woolf

Sample lines: “Outwardly, what is simpler than to write books? Outwardly, what obstacles are there for a woman rather than for a man? Inwardly, I think, the case is very different; she has still many ghosts to fight, many prejudices to overcome. Indeed it will be a long time still, I think, before a woman can sit down to write a book without finding a phantom to be slain, a rock to be dashed against. And if this is so in literature, the freest of all professions for women, how is it in the new professions which you are now for the first time entering?”

The Crisis by Thomas Paine

Sample lines: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”

Politics and the English Language by George Orwell

Sample lines: “As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.”

Letter From a Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Sample lines: “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.'”

Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Sample lines: “Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.”

Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Roger Ebert

Sample lines: “‘Kindness’ covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime.”

The Way to Wealth by Benjamin Franklin

Sample lines: “Methinks I hear some of you say, must a man afford himself no leisure? I will tell thee, my friend, what Poor Richard says, employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain leisure; and, since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour. Leisure is time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never; so that, as Poor Richard says, a life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things.”

The Crack-Up by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Sample lines: “Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work—the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside—the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don’t show their effect all at once.”

Open Letter to the Kansas School Board by Bobby Henderson

Sample lines: “I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. … Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. … We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him. It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories.”

Open Letter to the United Nations by Niels Bohr

Sample lines: “Humanity will, therefore, be confronted with dangers of unprecedented character unless, in due time, measures can be taken to forestall a disastrous competition in such formidable armaments and to establish an international control of the manufacture and use of the powerful materials.”

Persuasive Speech Writing Examples

Many persuasive speeches are political in nature, often addressing subjects like human rights. Here are some of history’s most well-known persuasive writing examples in the form of speeches.

I Have a Dream by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Sample lines: “And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

Woodrow Wilson’s War Message to Congress, 1917

Sample lines: “There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.”

Chief Seattle’s 1854 Oration

Sample lines: “I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as they swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch.”

Women’s Rights Are Human Rights, Hillary Rodham Clinton

Sample lines: “What we are learning around the world is that if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish. If women are free from violence, their families will flourish. If women have a chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish. And when families flourish, communities and nations do as well. … If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all.”

I Am Prepared to Die, Nelson Mandela

Sample lines: “Above all, My Lord, we want equal political rights, because without them our disabilities will be permanent. I know this sounds revolutionary to the whites in this country, because the majority of voters will be Africans. This makes the white man fear democracy. But this fear cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the only solution which will guarantee racial harmony and freedom for all. It is not true that the enfranchisement of all will result in racial domination. Political division, based on color, is entirely artificial and, when it disappears, so will the domination of one color group by another. … This then is what the ANC is fighting. Our struggle is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by our own suffering and our own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live.”

The Struggle for Human Rights by Eleanor Roosevelt

Sample lines: “It is my belief, and I am sure it is also yours, that the struggle for democracy and freedom is a critical struggle, for their preservation is essential to the great objective of the United Nations to maintain international peace and security. Among free men the end cannot justify the means. We know the patterns of totalitarianism—the single political party, the control of schools, press, radio, the arts, the sciences, and the church to support autocratic authority; these are the age-old patterns against which men have struggled for 3,000 years. These are the signs of reaction, retreat, and retrogression. The United Nations must hold fast to the heritage of freedom won by the struggle of its people; it must help us to pass it on to generations to come.”

Freedom From Fear by Aung San Suu Kyi

Sample lines: “Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying. So free men are the oppressed who go on trying and who in the process make themselves fit to bear the responsibilities and to uphold the disciplines which will maintain a free society. Among the basic freedoms to which men aspire that their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from fear stands out as both a means and an end. A people who would build a nation in which strong, democratic institutions are firmly established as a guarantee against state-induced power must first learn to liberate their own minds from apathy and fear.”

Harvey Milk’s “The Hope” Speech

Sample lines: “Some people are satisfied. And some people are not. You see there is a major difference—and it remains a vital difference—between a friend and a gay person, a friend in office and a gay person in office. Gay people have been slandered nationwide. We’ve been tarred and we’ve been brushed with the picture of pornography. In Dade County, we were accused of child molestation. It is not enough anymore just to have friends represent us, no matter how good that friend may be.”

The Union and the Strike, Cesar Chavez

Sample lines: “We are showing our unity in our strike. Our strike is stopping the work in the fields; our strike is stopping ships that would carry grapes; our strike is stopping the trucks that would carry the grapes. Our strike will stop every way the grower makes money until we have a union contract that guarantees us a fair share of the money he makes from our work! We are a union and we are strong and we are striking to force the growers to respect our strength!”

Nobel Lecture by Malala Yousafzai

Sample lines: “The world can no longer accept that basic education is enough. Why do leaders accept that for children in developing countries, only basic literacy is sufficient, when their own children do homework in algebra, mathematics, science, and physics? Leaders must seize this opportunity to guarantee a free, quality, primary and secondary education for every child. Some will say this is impractical, or too expensive, or too hard. Or maybe even impossible. But it is time the world thinks bigger.”   

Persuasive Writing Examples in Advertising Campaigns

Ads are prime persuasive writing examples. You can flip open any magazine or watch TV for an hour or two to see sample after sample of persuasive language. Here are some of the most popular ad campaigns of all time, with links to articles explaining why they were so successful.

Nike: Just Do It

The iconic swoosh with the simple tagline has persuaded millions to buy their kicks from Nike and Nike alone. Teamed with pro sports-star endorsements, this campaign is one for the ages. Blinkist offers an opinion on what made it work.

Dove: Real Beauty

Beauty brand Dove changed the game by choosing “real” women to tell their stories instead of models. They used relatable images and language to make connections, and inspired other brands to try the same concept. Learn why Global Brands considers this one a true success story.

Wendy’s: Where’s the Beef?

Today’s kids are too young to remember the cranky old woman demanding to know where the beef was on her fast-food hamburger. But in the 1980s, it was a catchphrase that sold millions of Wendy’s burgers. Learn from Better Marketing how this ad campaign even found its way into the 1984 presidential debate.

De Beers: A Diamond Is Forever

A diamond engagement ring has become a standard these days, but the tradition isn’t as old as you might think. In fact, it was De Beers jewelry company’s 1948 campaign that created the modern engagement ring trend. The Drum has the whole story of this sparkling campaign.

Volkswagen: Think Small

Americans have always loved big cars. So in the 1960s, when Volkswagen wanted to introduce their small cars to a bigger market, they had a problem. The clever “Think Small” campaign gave buyers clever reasons to consider these models, like “If you run out of gas, it’s easy to push.” Learn how advertisers interested American buyers in little cars at Visual Rhetoric.

American Express: Don’t Leave Home Without It

AmEx was once better known for traveler’s checks than credit cards, and the original slogan was “Don’t leave home without them.” A simple word change convinced travelers that American Express was the credit card they needed when they headed out on adventures. Discover more about this persuasive campaign from Medium.

Skittles: Taste the Rainbow

These candy ads are weird and intriguing and probably not for everyone. But they definitely get you thinking, and that often leads to buying. Learn more about why these wacky ads are successful from The Drum.

Maybelline: Maybe She’s Born With It

Smart wordplay made this ad campaign slogan an instant hit. The ads teased, “Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline.” (So many literary devices all in one phrase!) Fashionista has more on this beauty campaign.

Coca-Cola: Share a Coke

Seeing their own name on a bottle made teens more likely to want to buy a Coke. What can that teach us about persuasive writing in general? It’s an interesting question to consider. Learn more about the “Share a Coke” campaign from Digital Vidya.

Always: #LikeaGirl

Talk about the power of words! This Always campaign turned the derogatory phrase “like a girl” on its head, and the world embraced it. Storytelling is an important part of persuasive writing, and these ads really do it well. Medium has more on this stereotype-bashing campaign.   

Editorial Persuasive Writing Examples

Newspaper editors or publishers use editorials to share their personal opinions. Noted politicians, experts, or pundits may also offer their opinions on behalf of the editors or publishers. Here are a couple of older well-known editorials, along with a selection from current newspapers.

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus (1897)

Sample lines: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias.”

What’s the Matter With Kansas? (1896)

Sample lines: “Oh, this IS a state to be proud of! We are a people who can hold up our heads! What we need is not more money, but less capital, fewer white shirts and brains, fewer men with business judgment, and more of those fellows who boast that they are ‘just ordinary clodhoppers, but they know more in a minute about finance than John Sherman,’ we need more men … who hate prosperity, and who think, because a man believes in national honor, he is a tool of Wall Street.”

America Can Have Democracy or Political Violence. Not Both. (The New York Times)

Sample lines: “The nation is not powerless to stop a slide toward deadly chaos. If institutions and individuals do more to make it unacceptable in American public life, organized violence in the service of political objectives can still be pushed to the fringes. When a faction of one of the country’s two main political parties embraces extremism, that makes thwarting it both more difficult and more necessary. A well-functioning democracy demands it.”

The Booster Isn’t Perfect, But Still Can Help Against COVID (The Washington Post)

Sample lines: “The booster shots are still free, readily available and work better than the previous boosters even as the virus evolves. Much still needs to be done to build better vaccines that protect longer and against more variants, including those that might emerge in the future. But it is worth grabbing the booster that exists today, the jab being a small price for any measure that can help keep COVID at bay.”

If We Want Wildlife To Thrive in L.A., We Have To Share Our Neighborhoods With Them (Los Angeles Times)

Sample lines: “If there are no corridors for wildlife movement and if excessive excavation of dirt to build bigger, taller houses erodes the slope of a hillside, then we are slowly destroying wildlife habitat. For those people fretting about what this will do to their property values—isn’t open space, trees, and wildlife an amenity in these communities?”   

Persuasive Review Writing Examples

Book or movie reviews are more great persuasive writing examples. Look for those written by professionals for the strongest arguments and writing styles. Here are reviews of some popular books and movies by well-known critics to use as samples.

The Great Gatsby (The Chicago Tribune, 1925)

Sample lines: “What ails it, fundamentally, is the plain fact that it is simply a story—that Fitzgerald seems to be far more interested in maintaining its suspense than in getting under the skins of its people. It is not that they are false: It is that they are taken too much for granted. Only Gatsby himself genuinely lives and breathes. The rest are mere marionettes—often astonishingly lifelike, but nevertheless not quite alive.”

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (The Washington Post, 1999)

Sample lines: “Obviously, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone should make any modern 11-year-old a very happy reader. The novel moves quickly, packs in everything from a boa constrictor that winks to a melancholy Zen-spouting centaur to an owl postal system, and ends with a scary surprise. Yet it is, essentially, a light-hearted thriller, interrupted by occasional seriousness (the implications of Harry’s miserable childhood, a moral about the power of love).”

Twilight (The Telegraph, 2009)

Sample lines: “No secret, of course, at whom this book is aimed, and no doubt, either, that it has hit its mark. The four Twilight novels are not so much enjoyed, as devoured, by legions of young female fans worldwide. That’s not to say boys can’t enjoy these books; it’s just that the pages of heart-searching dialogue between Edward and Bella may prove too long on chat and too short on action for the average male reader.”

To Kill a Mockingbird (Time, 1960)

Sample lines: “Author Lee, 34, an Alabaman, has written her first novel with all of the tactile brilliance and none of the preciosity generally supposed to be standard swamp-warfare issue for Southern writers. The novel is an account of an awakening to good and evil, and a faint catechistic flavor may have been inevitable. But it is faint indeed; novelist Lee’s prose has an edge that cuts through cant, and she teaches the reader an astonishing number of useful truths about little girls and about Southern life.”

The Diary of Anne Frank (The New York Times, 1952)

Sample lines: “And this quality brings it home to any family in the world today. Just as the Franks lived in momentary fear of the Gestapo’s knock on their hidden door, so every family today lives in fear of the knock of war. Anne’s diary is a great affirmative answer to the life-question of today, for she shows how ordinary people, within this ordeal, consistently hold to the greater human values.”   

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10.2: The Structure of a Persuasive Essay

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Skills to Develop

• Determine the structure of persuasion in writing
• Apply a formula for a classic persuasive argument

Writing a Persuasive Essay

You first need to choose a topic that you feel passionate about. If your instructor requires you to write about a specific topic, approach the subject from an angle that interests you. Begin your essay with an engaging introduction. Your thesis should typically appear somewhere in your introduction.

Next, need to acknowledge and explain points of view that may conflict with your own to build credibility and trust with your audience. You also should state the limits of your argument. This helps you sound more reasonable and honest to those who may naturally be inclined to disagree with your view. By respectfully acknowledging opposing arguments and conceding limitations to your own view, you set a measured and responsible tone for the essay.

Be sure to make your appeals in support of your thesis by using sound, credible evidence. Use a balance of facts and opinions from a wide range of sources, such as scientific studies, expert testimony, statistics, and personal anecdotes. Each piece of evidence should be fully explained and clearly stated. Also, write in a style and tone that is appropriate for your subject and audience. Tailor your language and word choice to these two factors, while still being true to your own voice. Finally, write a conclusion that effectively summarizes the main argument and reinforces your thesis.

Structuring a Persuasive Essay

The formula below for organizing a persuasive essay may be one with which you are familiar. It will present a convincing argument to your reader because your discussion is well rounded and thorough, and you leave your audience with your point of view at the end. Remember to consider each of these components in this formula as sections instead of paragraphs because you will probably want to discuss multiple ideas backing up your point of view to make it more convincing.

When writing a persuasive essay, it is best to begin with the most important point because it immediately captivates your readers and compels them to continue reading. For example, if you were supporting your thesis that homework is detrimental to the education of high school students, you would want to present your most convincing argument first, and then move on to the less important points for your case.

Some key transitional words you should use with this method of organization are: most importantly , almost as importantly , just as importantly , and finally .

The Formula You will need to come up with objection points, but you will also need to think of direct rebuttals to each of those ideas. Remember to consult your outline as you are writing because you may need to double-check that you have countered each of the possible opposing ideas you presented.

Section 1: Introduction

Attention getter

Thesis (showing main and controlling ideas)

Signposts (make sure you outline the structure your argument will follow: Pros Cons/Pros)

Section 2: (Multiple) Ideas in Support of Claim

Give a topic sentence introducing the point (showing main and controlling ideas)

Give explanations + evidence on first point

Make concluding statement summarizing point discussion (possibly transitioning to next supporting idea)

Repeat with multiple ideas in separate paragraphs

Section 3: Summary of ( S ome) Opposing Views

Give topic sentence explaining this paragraph will be opposing points of view to provide thorough, convincing argument

Present general summary of some opposing ideas

Present some generalized evidence

Provide brief concluding sentence for paragraph—transitioning into next rebuttal paragraph

Section 4: Response to Opposing Views

Give topic sentence explaining this paragraph/section connects to or expands on previous paragraph

[may recognize validity of some of points] then need to present how your ideas are stronger

Present evidence directly countering/refuting ideas mentioned in previous section

Give concluding statement summarizing the countering arguments

¶ Section 5 : Conclusion

Restate your thesis

Summarize your discussion points

Leave the reader with a strong impression; do not waiver here

May provide a “call for action”

In a persuasive essay, the writer’s point of view should be clearly expressed at the beginning of each paragraph in the topic sentence, which should contain the main idea of the paragraph and the writer’s controlling idea.

Essay Papers Writing Online

10 effective techniques to master persuasive essay writing and convince any audience.

As a skilled communicator, your ability to persuade others is crucial in many areas of life. Whether you’re presenting an argument, advocating for a cause, or simply trying to convince someone of your point of view, your persuasive essay can be a powerful tool. However, crafting an essay that truly convinces your reader requires more than just strong opinions and eloquent language. It requires a strategic approach that combines logical reasoning, emotional appeal, and effective writing techniques.

1. Craft a Compelling Introduction: Your introduction is the first impression you make on your reader, so it’s essential to capture their attention right from the start. Consider using a captivating anecdote, a thought-provoking question, or a shocking statistic to engage your audience and set the tone for your essay. By immediately grabbing their interest, you increase the chances that they’ll continue reading and be open to your persuasive arguments.

2. Clearly Define Your Position: Before launching into the main body of your essay, make sure to clearly state your position on the topic. This will help your reader understand your stance and follow your line of reasoning throughout the essay. Use concise and assertive language to communicate your position, and consider reinforcing it with strong evidence or expert opinions that support your viewpoint.

3. Appeal to Emotions: While rational arguments are important, emotions often play a significant role in persuasive writing. Connect with your reader on an emotional level by using vivid descriptions, personal anecdotes, or powerful metaphors. By eliciting an emotional response, you can create a deeper connection with your audience and make your arguments more compelling.

Choose a compelling topic that ignites your passion

When crafting a persuasive essay, it is crucial to select a topic that not only captivates and engages your readers but also resonates strongly with you. By choosing a compelling topic that ignites your passion, you will be able to infuse enthusiasm and conviction into your writing, making it more convincing and persuasive.

While it may be tempting to select a popular or trending topic, it is essential to choose something that you deeply care about and have a genuine interest in. Your passion for the subject matter will shine through in your writing, capturing the attention and interest of your readers.

• Explore your hobbies and personal interests.
• Reflect on societal issues that deeply affect you.
• Consider topics that challenge conventional thinking.
• Analyze current events and their impact on your community or society as a whole.
• Look for subjects that inspire debate and differing opinions.
• Examine topics that align with your values and beliefs.

By choosing a topic that you are not only knowledgeable about but also passionate about, you will have a stronger emotional connection to your writing. This emotional connection will allow you to effectively convey your argument, influence your readers’ perspectives, and ultimately convince them to see things from your point of view.

Remember, the key to writing a persuasive essay lies in your ability to convey your ideas convincingly. By selecting a compelling topic that ignites your passion, you will have a solid foundation for crafting a persuasive essay that will resonate with readers and leave a lasting impact. So, take the time to explore your interests and choose a topic that truly captivates you.

Conduct thorough research to gather supporting evidence

Gathering strong evidence is a vital step in writing a persuasive essay. Convincing your readers requires you to present compelling facts, statistics, expert opinions, and examples that support your arguments. To achieve this, it is crucial to conduct thorough research to collect relevant and reliable information.

Begin by determining the main points you want to convey in your essay. These points should align with your thesis statement and support your overall argument. Once you have a clear idea of what you are trying to communicate, start gathering supporting evidence.

Research various credible sources such as academic journals, books, reputable websites, and expert interviews. Look for information that directly relates to your topic and can be used to reinforce your arguments. Be sure to verify the credibility and reliability of your sources to ensure the accuracy of the information.

Take notes as you conduct your research, highlighting key points, supporting evidence, and any quotes or statistics that you may want to include in your essay. It is essential to organize your findings in a way that makes sense and flows logically in your essay.

When using statistics or data, make sure to cite the sources properly to give credit to the original authors and establish your credibility as a writer. This will also allow your readers to verify the information themselves if they wish to do so.

By conducting thorough research and gathering strong supporting evidence, you will be able to present a persuasive and well-supported argument in your essay. This will not only convince your readers but also showcase your knowledge, understanding, and dedication to the topic at hand.

Develop a clear and concise thesis statement

One of the most important aspects of writing a persuasive essay is developing a thesis statement that is clear, concise, and compelling. A thesis statement serves as the main argument or central idea of your essay. It sets the tone for the entire piece and helps to guide your reader through your argument.

When developing your thesis statement, it’s essential to choose a strong and persuasive statement that clearly states your position on the topic. Avoid vague or ambiguous language that can confuse your reader and weaken your argument. Instead, use strong and specific language that clearly conveys your main point.

Your thesis statement should be concise, meaning it should be expressed in a clear and straightforward manner. Avoid unnecessary words or phrases that can dilute your message and make it less powerful. Instead, focus on getting your point across in as few words as possible while still maintaining clarity and impact.

Additionally, your thesis statement should be compelling and persuasive. It should motivate your reader to continue reading and consider your argument. Use persuasive language and strong evidence to support your thesis statement and convince your reader of its validity.

In summary, developing a clear and concise thesis statement is crucial for writing a persuasive essay. Choose a strong statement that clearly conveys your position, use concise language to express your point, and make your statement compelling and persuasive. By doing so, you will create a strong foundation for your entire essay and increase your chances of convincing your reader.

Use persuasive language and rhetorical devices

When it comes to crafting a compelling persuasive essay, one must master the art of persuasive language and employ various rhetorical devices. The way you choose your words and structure your sentences can make all the difference in captivating and convincing your readers.

One effective technique is to use strong and powerful language that evokes emotion and creates a sense of urgency. The use of vivid and descriptive words can paint a picture in the minds of your readers, making your arguments more relatable and engaging.

Additionally, employing rhetorical devices such as metaphors, similes, and analogies can effectively convey your message and help your readers understand complex ideas. By drawing comparisons and creating associations, you can make abstract concepts more tangible and easier to grasp.

Another valuable device is repetition. By repeating key phrases or ideas throughout your essay, you can emphasize your points and reinforce your arguments. This technique can help make your arguments more memorable and leave a lasting impact on your readers.

Furthermore, using rhetorical questions can encourage your readers to think critically about your topic and consider your perspective. By posing thought-provoking questions, you can guide your readers towards your desired conclusions and make them actively engage with your essay.

Lastly, employing the use of anecdotes and personal stories can make your essay more relatable and establish a connection with your readers. By sharing real-life examples or experiences, you can offer concrete evidence to support your arguments and establish credibility.

In conclusion, mastering persuasive language and employing rhetorical devices can greatly enhance the effectiveness of your persuasive essay. By choosing your words carefully, using powerful language, and incorporating various rhetorical techniques, you can captivate your readers and present your arguments in a compelling and convincing manner.

Address counterarguments and refute them with strong evidence

When writing a persuasive essay, it is crucial to anticipate and address potential counterarguments to strengthen your argument. By acknowledging opposing viewpoints and then refuting them with strong evidence, you can demonstrate the credibility and validity of your own position.

One effective way to address counterarguments is to acknowledge them upfront and present them in an objective and unbiased manner. By doing so, you show that you have considered different perspectives and are willing to engage in a fair and balanced discussion. This approach also helps you connect with readers who may initially hold opposing views, as it shows respect for their opinions and demonstrates your willingness to engage in thoughtful debate.

To effectively refute counterarguments, it is important to use strong evidence that supports your own position. This can include data, statistics, expert opinions, research findings, and real-life examples. By providing convincing evidence, you can demonstrate the superiority of your argument and weaken the credibility of counterarguments. Be sure to cite credible sources and use persuasive language to present your evidence in a convincing way.

In addition to providing strong evidence, it is also important to anticipate and address potential weaknesses in your own argument. By acknowledging and addressing these weaknesses, you can show that you have thoroughly considered your stance and are able to respond to potential criticisms. This helps to build trust and credibility with your readers, as they can see that you are aware of the limitations of your argument and have taken steps to address them.

In conclusion, addressing counterarguments and refuting them with strong evidence is a crucial component of persuasive writing. By acknowledging opposing viewpoints and providing solid evidence to support your own position, you can strengthen your argument and convince readers to adopt your point of view. Remember to always approach counterarguments objectively, use persuasive language, and address any potential weaknesses in your own argument. By doing so, you can create a compelling and persuasive essay that will resonate with your readers.

Edit and proofread your essay for grammar and clarity

Once you’ve completed your persuasive essay, the work isn’t quite finished. It’s essential to go back and review your writing with a critical eye, focusing on grammar and clarity. This final step is crucial in ensuring that your arguments are effectively communicated and that your reader can easily understand and follow your points.

First and foremost, pay attention to grammar. Look for any errors in your sentence structure, verb tense, subject-verb agreement, and punctuation. Make sure that your sentences are clear and concise, without any unnecessary or confusing phrases. Correct any spelling mistakes or typos that may have slipped through the cracks.

Next, consider the overall clarity of your essay. Read through each paragraph and ensure that your ideas flow logically and cohesively. Are your arguments supported by evidence and examples? Are your transitions smooth and seamless? If necessary, revise or rearrange your paragraphs to strengthen the overall structure of your essay.

It’s also important to check for any ambiguous or vague language. Make sure that your words and phrases have precise meanings and can be easily understood by your reader. Consider whether there are any areas where you could provide more clarification or add further details to strengthen your points.

When editing and proofreading, it can be helpful to read your essay out loud. This can help you identify any awkward or convoluted sentences, as well as any areas where you may have used repetitive or redundant language. Reading aloud also allows you to hear the natural rhythm and flow of your writing, giving you a better sense of how your words will be perceived by the reader.

Finally, consider seeking feedback from others. Share your essay with a trusted friend, family member, or teacher and ask for their input. They may be able to offer valuable suggestions or catch any errors that you may have missed. Sometimes, a fresh set of eyes can provide a new perspective and help you improve your essay even further.

By taking the time to edit and proofread your essay for grammar and clarity, you can ensure that your persuasive arguments are presented in the most effective and compelling way possible. This attention to detail will not only demonstrate your strong writing skills, but it will also increase the chances of convincing your reader to see things from your perspective.

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Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking

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• Topic: Fear , Personal Life , Phobias

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