Gradualization = Pacing then Leading in Hypnosis

I just seeing it as not saying anything the reader won't believe.

If there is something that will be hard to believe,
then you need to get little agreements prior to the bigger one.

Seems common sense when you think about it this way.

Best,
Ewen

Yes, it's really similar to the pace-lead, but I find there are
several rather "invisible" and behind-the-scenes action going
inside the brain:

Firstly, the brain likes repetition, because each repetition
strengthens the synapses in a series of connections of neurons
in the brain, according to the Hebbian theory on synaptic
plasticity.

It states that any two cells, or rather any two systems, which
are simultaneously AND repetitively active, will tend to be
"associated" with each other.

For example, "nokia" might pop out when you prime your mind
with "mobile phone". A certain kind of horse, with a certain kind
of colour might pop out in your mind when you think of "horse".

What about your last experience at the bakery?

(Did that take you back to the smell?)

There are tons of things being associated if you'd go with this
Pace-Lead structure.

You're doing "minor conditioning" to the reader. At first, when
you start off with an information bit of high believability, the
reader's brain fires a connection associated with agreement.

And then, the second statement does the same thing...

And then, the third statement again...

The increasing "associations" in each progressive statement
starts to fire off the same shortcut...

But what happens, on a second layer of effect, is a limit of
the human mind. The average human being has a working
memory capacity of 9 plus/minus 2 bits of information.

And when you start repeating bits of information that fire off
the same connection, closer to your working memory capacity.

It kind of "shuts down" your logical faculty to let your brain
process the new information. Not the best way to say it, but
it's layman.

However, I feel that the problem with using gradualization in
the text form, is that the short number of repetitions and
associations will never be sufficient for conditioning.

That's why copywriting bases itself on using EXISTING
reference experiences, emotions, personal buzz words, beliefs,
thoughts, objections etc.

It's kind of leveraging whatever neuronal shortcuts you
already have in your brain..

For example, if you're being exposed to tons of advertising
that tells you that buying XYY milk over organic milk is far
healthier... and then the news verifies it again...

You're more likely to respond to an ad on XYY milk, wouldn't
you?

And of course, it boils back down to how you communicate
with the reader - linguistics and/or psycholinguistics?

Which of course, good copywriters have a natural/trained
flair in writing compelling sentences and "flow".

Best,
Winston Tian

Wow, some really good threads lately.

Nice, JP and Winston!

Made me want to share something cool David Garfinkel and I created about this topic.

Here's a cheat sheet PDF from our Fast Effective Copy live monthly training in January, "How To Keep Your Copy Believable (In An Increasingly Skeptical World)":

FEC_LiveTraining_011212_Believability_CheatSheet.p df

#2 is specifically about Gradualization, but the other sections are equally applicable, really.

Enjoy!

Brian