Appeal to fear

What it is

Tries to persuade by raising fear of a threat, often exaggerated, rather than showing that the claim is true or the proposal effective.

Related

• Appeal to emotion fallacy
  Fear is the most common emotion used in appeals to emotion.
• Availability heuristic bias
  Vivid stories of rare dangers make them easy to recall, so the fear feels justified.
• Slippery slope fallacy
  Slippery slope arguments often work by stoking fear of a worst-case chain of events.
• Negativity bias bias
  We weigh threats more than rewards, which is why fear appeals grab attention.
• Neglect of probability bias
  Fear appeals exploit neglect of probability: the size of the threat is stressed and its probability is not mentioned.

References

• Wikipedia: Appeal to fear en.wikipedia.org
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Fallacies iep.utm.edu
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Fallacies plato.stanford.edu
• Wikipedia: List of fallacies en.wikipedia.org
• Purdue OWL: Logical fallacies owl.purdue.edu

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