Not Discussed: Appeal to Vanity

One concept I found fairly interesting would be the appeal to vanity. This appeal targets a person's specific feelings of self esteem. Although this concept sounds confusing, it really isn't. In short, it's basically a strategy to make someone feel good about themselves, by either sugar coating what you say, or by flattering them. By doing this, a person's feelings towards that specific thing/person may change from negative to positive. For an example,

Yolanda: "I'm so mad at you, why did you take my car without asking me?"
Bunga: "I'm sorry, I just thought I'd take it out to run some errands."
Yolanda: "Yeah, well you could have asked me you know."
Bunga: "I was, but I also decided to do some fixing- up to your car along the way as a surprise."
Yolanda: "What fixing up?"
Bunga: "After my errands, I washed it and vacuumed the inside for you. Everything's spotless now!"
Yolanda: "Wow ! Thanks... I guess it was okay for you to take my car after all. I haven't even checked my car yet, but what a pleasant surprise."
Bunga: "Yeah, that's why I didn't want to say anything, I wanted you to see for yourself!"
Yolanda: "That's very sweet of you... just remember to ask first next time okay?"
Bunga: "Okay."

In this example, Yolanda was mad at Bunga for taking out her car without asking for her permission first. However, after Bunga brought up the fact that he took her car out to get washed/vacuumed, that anger and negativity she had towards him changed into something positive. In this very example, Bunga got himself out of the dog house by "Brown-nosing" Yolanda, flattering her in a way by pointing out what good things he did for her car even though he took it without asking first. What he did was an appeal to vanity, turning her negative attitude towards that subject into something neutral, or even positive in the end. This strategy is a good one to be used when you want to get out of trouble, or if you simply need an easy way out of a hard time. It works!