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Julius Phillip L. Lopez 

English 115 

Professor Beadle 

30 September, 2019 

How Happiness ​R​eally​ A​ffect​s​ ​P​eople. 

Have you ever thought ​about​ what strategies authors use to convince their readers? ​A​n 

article or text needs to ​use​ some type of strategy in order for the author’s claim to be presented to 

the readers ​effectively​. The most effective way to satisfy the readers is to use the three rhetorical 

strategies and ​these​ ​include ​Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Out of the three articles about happiness 

one article stands out. ​Sonja ​Lyubomirsky, a psychologist conducted some serious research in 

2016 about happiness in her article, “How Happy Are You and Why?”, she provides the most 

compelling argument compared to ​David​ Brooks’ article, “What suffering does”, and​ Graham 

Hill’s article, “Living With Less. A Lot Less”.​ Lyubomirsky uses the three rhetorical strategies 

equally to back-up her argument and intertwine with one another making her claim stronger and 

more reliable. 

In Brooks’ article, “What Suffering Does”, ​he​ claims that people become different ​in 

experience of ​suffering. He may have used all three strategies throughout his article, but he was 

relying ​mostly with Logos and somewhat Ethos, and Pathos​ rather than using all three strategies 

equally. ​Firstly,​ he use​s​ ethos as his introduction ​explaining ​who he is, what he has 

accomplished, and why the readers should​ read his ​article. ​Although he used Ethos, he only used 

it once and it was his opening paragraph which consist of his background,​“ Since 2003, David 

Brooks has written a regular opinion column for the New York Times…..” (Brooks 284). ​His 
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background may help him gain credibility, but his claim wouldn’t be as strong if he only relies 

on his background, rather than using more Ethos in his paragraphs.​ Brooks used Logos four 

times when he mentioned some famous people like Paul Tillich, a German-American Christian 

theologian and philosopher, Franklin Roosevelt, the ​thirty-second​ President of the United States, 

Abraham Lincoln, ​sixteenth​ president of the United States, and Victor Franklin, a 

psychotherapist and psychologist. Victor Franklin said “Recovering from suffering is not like 

recovering from disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different.” (Brooks 

287). ​Even if he used logos multiple times, Lyubomirsky provided more evidence by including 

statistics, bar graphs, and other researches that Brooks didn’t have as Ethos.​ Lastly Brooks only 

used pathos once, when he mentions, “ Well, I’m feeling a lot of pain over the loss of my child. I 

should try to balance my hedonic account by going to a lott of parties and whooping it up.” 

(Brooks 286). ​Compare to Brooks, Lyubomirsky conducted some more research based on 

multiple people with their experience that will further have more explanation throughout this 

essay. ​Like Brooks, Hill didn’t take advantage of the strategies since he is relying more on his 

experience​ which is​ Pathos.  

In Hill’s article, “Living With Less. A lot less”, he claims that material things could help 

us from being sad. He is using his experience and some little research to strengthen his argument, 

“​My experiences show that after a certain point, material objects have a tendency to crowd out 

the emotional needs they are meant to support. I wouldn’t trade a second spent wandering the 

streets of Bangkok with Olga for anything I owed.” (Hill 312). Most of his article is just talking 

about his personal experience of his happiness ​which is Pathos, but his claim wouldn’t be 

supported strongly if he only relies on his experience.​ I​n addition to that​ he ​also​ use ethos and 
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logos only when he mentioned about the statistics of UCLA’s research, “ In a study published 

last year titled “Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century,” researchers at U.C.L.A. observed 32 

middle-class Los Angeles families and found that all mother’s stress hormones spiked during the 

time they spent dealing with their belongings.” (Hill 310). This is Ethos since he uses UCLA as a 

credible school and could be also logos at the same time since it’s a piece of evidence or example 

for his claim. ​Both Logos and Ethos are intertwined, but he should have provided more 

intertwined strategies throughout his article to convince more readers of his point just like how 

Lyubomirsky did.​ He ​may have ​used ethos and logos, but his article is ​constructed based on his 

personal experience which ties up more with the pathos strategy. Lyubomirsky used the three 

rhetorical Strategies more than Brooks and Hill ​since both didn’t use the strategies that much 

compared to Lyubomirsky. ​Lyubomirsky uses them more equally rather than relying on one or 

two strategies only. 

Lyubomirsky’s article, “ How Happy Are You and Why?”, argues that even though our 

happiness is fifty percent genetic and circumstances is ten percent, we still have forty percent to 

change our moods and find what truly makes us happy. She accumulated all her research about 

happiness with various aspects from ​various researchers​. In addition to that she used the three 

rhetorical strategies equally more often since her article is longer than Brooks’ and Hill’s and the 

more information the more she uses the strategies, the more satisfaction the audience will 

receive, ​meaning Lyubomirsky has more Logos, Ethos, and Pathos provided due to the amount 

of research she had done and converge it into one article.​ First she started her article by using 

ethos and pathos, when she mentioned her background just like Brooks and Hill. Another ethos 

strategy was when she used one of the researchers mentioning, “​The fountain of happiness lies 
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not in changing our genetically determined set points, for they are, by definition, resistant to 

change, influence, or control.” (Lyubomirsky 195).​ This quote is ethos with the sense that she 

used someone’s work to back up her claim and this quote is from John Mason Good, a English 

writer on medical, religion, and classical subjects. ​Lyubomirsky then use pathos when she 

scheduled ​some interviews from ​Randy, Angela, Shannon, James, Randy, and the other people 

with their real-life situations,​ “When Shannon feels particularly insecure…”, “... Angela 

considers herself a very happy person.”, and “Today Randy is one of those people everyone them 

smile and laugh.” (Lyubomirsky 180-183). ​Lastly her Logos is used when she put some 

Statistics, pie-chart, bar-graph, and even some examples like the people she interviewed. ​Aside 

from being Logos the charts and the interviews can also​ be both pathos and ethos since the 

interviews catches some emotions and it helps Lyubomirsky gain credibility ​by using people’s 

work ​with authority. We can see that Lyubomirsky’s article uses the rhetorical strategies more 

effectively than Brooks and Hill, meaning she uses the rhetorical strategies multiple times. 

Hence, even though Brooks and Hill used rhetorical strategies, Lyubomirsky’s article, “ 

How happy are you and why?” uses the three rhetorical strategies; Ethos, Pathos, and Logos 

more effectively than Brooks’, “What suffering does”, and Hill’s, “Living with less. A lot 

less”.She​ expanded ​her research and as a result she has more evidence, credibility and ​shared 

​ esides​ she uses the ​three​ rhetorical strategies to back-up ​her claim 
emotions with the audience​ . B

and intertwine the strategies making her ​argument​ stronger and ​reliable​. Lyubomirsky’s research 

tend to provide more evidence ​to prove​ that she had thought about it, meaning a long process to 

do research and prove her claim. 

 
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Works Cited: 
 
Brooks, David, “What Suffering Does.” ​Pursuing Happiness​, edited by Matthew Parfitt and  

Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martin’s 2016, pp. 284-287. 

Hill, Graham. “Living with Less. A lot Less.” ​Pursuing Happiness​, edited by Matthew Parfitt 

and  

Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martin’s 2016, pp. 308-313. 

Lyubomirsky, Sonja. “How Happy Are You and Why?” ​Pursuing Happiness​, edited by Matthew  

Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martin’s 2016, pp. 179-197.