Emotional intensity measures how strongly something is felt, not whether it deserves belief.
An event, image, or message can produce a powerful emotional response through threat, excitement, anger, hope, or personal relevance. That intensity narrows attention and increases the felt importance of the stimulus. It does not by itself establish the accuracy of the claim or the value of the action being suggested.
Persuasive systems exploit this distinction by using emotional force as an attention signal. When intensity becomes the main measure of relevance, noise can outrank substance and urgency can replace judgment. A disciplined response separates the strength of the feeling from the quality of the evidence.
Source: Gross, J. J. (2012), “Emotion Regulation: Affective, Cognitive, and Social Consequences,” Psychophysiology.