The Moderating Role of Gender on Pathos and Logos in Online Shopping Behavior

Introduction

Rhetoric is a way of speaking or writing that is intended to impress or influence people. Rhetoric is defined as “an ability, in each particular case, to see the available means of persuasion”. Aristotle viewed rhetorical appeals to ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion), and logos (reason) as means of persuasion. To effectively persuade the audience, three important persuasive appeals are identified ethos, pathos, and logos corresponding to the persona of the speaker, the emotion of the audience, and the reason for the message. (Isai et al., 2020) The classical rhetoric to digital rhetoric emerged a new concept of persuasion in the environment of social media where consumer-to-consumer conversation and persuasion helped in the selection of products and services. (Gabriel et al., 2016) Ethos is concerned with the trustworthiness or authority, tone/style. Pathos is concerned with emotional impact, personal connection, and logos are concerned with the reason, facts, statistics, case studies, scientific evidence. In this continuation, karios is another mode of persuasion that is all about the right time and right place. It is defined as, an argument at the wrong time or to the wrong consumers will be wasted; to be effective, you must also consider when you are speaking and to whom. At a specific time like festivals or Valentine’s day, Christmas, the consumers can be more attracted to the particular products and services. In the business world, every organization tries to impress or influence their customer using print and online media. Out of three, logos (Logic) is the most important element where the companies use the alphanumeric in the name of the product like iPhone XS and XR, MI Realme 9A, Samsung Galaxy M02 which looks the scientific or logical products. The Ethos represents the credibility issues; Pathos explains the emotional issues. In this study, the researcher focussed only on the two aspects, pathos and logos to consumer behavior in online shopping. In online shopping, consumers have more choices as compared to traditional shopping. There is a commendable increase in the e-commerce industry in the last couple of years. Online shopping is beneficial for both consumers as well as merchants. With the fast-growing technology, online shopping is emerging in India at a very faster rate. Smartphone users have a significant role in the growth of e-commerce businesses in India. In several studies, the concept of pathos (appeal to emotion) and logos (appeal to logic) is used in the investigation of online purchasing behavior by smartphone users. Undoubtedly, emotions and logic play a vital role in any important decisions of personal and professional life. This study has focussed on the role of gender on pathos and logos while purchasing goods or services via various e-commerce sites and applications like Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, etc. There exists a behavioral difference in the shopping pattern of both genders which has become the subject matter of this research. It is presumed that emotions play a vital role for females whereas logic plays a vital role for males. There have been several observations that females feel like shopping when stressed. Generally in this process of online shopping, the money is paid by the females if financially independent and from the wallet of the males, in cases otherwise. That male could be her father, spouse, or anyone else. This critical behavior of males and females is evaluated in this study. This research will critically examine the role of gender on the emotional and logical behavior of a customer in online shopping.