SOLUTION

Understanding the Impact of Emotional Appeal on the Promotion of Refugee Support

Overview

Human displacement is not an uncommon phenomenon as it has been in occurrence since time immemorial. Interestingly, the rates of displacement have escalated by approximately 50 percent in the past decade, particularly since political clashes have been the order of the day in many regions, including the Middle East, and recently, Ukraine. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has made some devastating findings with regards to this trend. According to this international body, over 68 million people have been displaced from their homes following conflict, and at least 50 percent of this number comprises of children. Among the mentioned figure are asylum seekers (3.1 million), refugees (40 million), and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs -25 million) (Belim, 2020). The UNHCR advocates for a wide-scale approach in which the entire global community joins hands to resolve the challenges faced by refugees in their pursuit of peaceful cohabitation in foreign lands  Since there is a shortage of information on how emotional appeal promotes refugee support, the proposed  project explores the effect of compassion on the same. Such a worthy area of focus is grounded on the fact that foreign nationals are highly likely to embrace refugees through integrative policies and donation initiatives if they are led to understand life from the refugees’ perspective.

Literature Review

Displacement of people from their homes is a commonplace phenomenon in the world, and its prevalence has skyrocketed in the present society following increased cases of civil violence and cross-border wars. These challenges have been widely broadcasted, and it is no secret that citizens from the Middle East, and regions such as Ukraine have flooded foreign corridors in search for solace and new beginnings. As a matter of facts, this trend has seen the number of refugees increase by 50 percent in merely a decade. With over 68 million displaced people, it seems fair for governments, and the society, at large to find ways of resolving the matter.

So far, social psychologists seem to agree that the issue of refugees has reached a “persuasive realm”, in which a myriad of arguments are presented for or against their integration into foreign societies. Among the many arguments set forth in the present literature is the need for compassion appeal messages to foster support. It is agreeable that such an approach is bound to attain desirable outcomes since human beings are emotional creatures, and they are likely to place themselves in the refugees’ shoes in the process. Baider and Constantinou (2018) asserts that striking images of innocent children, resilient youth, frustrated parents, and fragile elderly members of a region that has been plagued by disaster tend to capture people’s hearts. These kinds of messages trigger feelings of compassion, and thus move people into action. Interestingly, the compassion appeal strategy has been widely criticized by the advocates of control appeal messages. It suffices to highlight that the latter usually perceive the refugee crisis from a skeptical point-of-view.

Like the compassionate philosophers, Caluya (2019) presents fairly justifiable arguments regarding the underlying issue. These individuals ground their sentiments on pragmatic reasoning geared toward the prioritization of the citizens residing in host countries. Their conservative claims are inspired by increasing rates of crime, economic burden, terrorism, and other vices that tend to emerge when refugees enter a country. As far as the statistical records in the United States are concerned, criminality has been largely attributed to Islamic, Mexican, and African American immigrants who lack necessary qualifications to survive legitimately within its borders (Murdocca, 2020). While this observation calls for thoughtful consideration, it seems important to note that poor integration of such individuals into the society also helps promote the vices. When viewed from this point, refugees cannot pose a major threat to the home country if they are embraced and integrated effectively into the society.

After a rigorous exploration of the present literature, Plewe and Fursich (2018) asserts that this realm is characterized by the lack of unity with respect to ideological response to the underlying issue. In their view, this tendency is triggered by issues of trust, social power, social expectations, and legitimacy of agents (including the refugees themselves). Therefore, it is a highly complex scenario that cannot be resolved haphazardly. Perhaps, such complexities affirm the lack of conclusive sentiments on what needs to be done to solve the problem. Now that the primary challenge affecting the present literature with regards to this refugee crisis is failure to consider the comparative effect ofcompassion and control appeals, the current study places immense focus on the grey area.

It is evident that the present literature is plagued by wanton disregard for the effect of emotional appeal when compared to control appeals. In their phenomenal piece, van Kleef and Lelieveld (2022) find that compassion and anger are useful emotions in promoting prosocial behavior. The fact that their work presents a review of available works on the given subject, it appears right to claim that future projects, particularly the current study, should explore how emotional appeal triggers support when compared to control appeals. A similar opinion emerges when reflecting on Lu and Schuldt’s (2016) empirical study: noteworthy are the high correlation rates between compassion appeal and prosocial policy frameworks

In an attempt to understand how compassion and control appeal messages impact social attitudes and behaviors towards refugees, this study will explore rhetoric communication campaigns initiated by various humanitarian and media bodies across the world. Belim (2020) defines rhetoric as carefully curated messages with the goal of persuading the intended audiences. Some of the factors that will be taken into consideration, include, source credibility, agenda behind the rhetoric, emotional response triggered by the message, and the campaign outcomes in terms of donations and/or public policy. Noteworthy is the fact that the first three are the independent variables, and they will influence the latter, which happens to be the desired dependent variable. It is expected that positive compassionate messages from credible sources that are known for their humanitarian visions and objectives will trigger prosocial behavior towards refugees. Since this study intends to use history as its analytical lens, most of the rhetoric messages and outcomes will be sourced from available primary data on refugee-centered humanitarian initiatives that were implemented in the past as well as the ones that are still ongoing.