Appeal to Vanity

According to the textbook, a feel good argument is one that appeals to our wanting to feel good about ourselves. Appeal to vanity is a fallacy in which one uses compliments to make another person feel good to convince or persuade them. This type of fallacy is also referred to as apple polishing. An example of appeal to vanity would be: "Dad, I know that I disobeyed you and made a huge mistake by going out past my curfew, but you sure prepared a delicious meal for dinner tonight." This would be considered an appeal to vanity because the speaker is trying to make their dad feel good by complimenting his meal. Apple polishing is usually much more effective if the compliment that the person makes is closely related to the issue. In the previous example, the compliment that the speaker gave their dad was not related to the issue that they were dealing with and was therefore not very convincing.