Reason Versus Intuition

2 replies
As usual, I've been reading up on quite a few books today, and found a few things that I was quite intrigued about...

I've read about Intuition (Defined as: Ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason.) from a book called "The Invisible Gorilla" (The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us). The book was written based on an experiment conducted by Harvard University... the infamously viral video with balls being passed and a gorilla moon-walking in the middle of the video. 50% of the viewers missed the gorilla moonwalking right in the centre.

In Jungian psychology, Intuition is a "conscious understanding/judgement" (either introvert or extrovert) based on cold, empirical data over the years.

That's my conjecture on why repeated advertising works so well. Brand names are hammered into the consumer's mind... and when they see it, they immediately have a certain "hypnotic rapport" and familiarity with the brand, and trust it to be more superior than unheard-of brands.

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The other side of the comparison would be Reason. I've heard from both master hypnotists, psychologists and some copywriters that reason layers can be very powerful.

For examples: If you sell a product that seems too good to be given away, a valid reason would boost the conversions; If you give people a reason to opt-in, the conversion rates skyrocket; If you give people a reason why you're introducing scarcity/urgency, the rates rise.

A master hypnotist told me to tweak my linguistic patterns to include "and that means", "because", "due to", "and that stems from" and similar phrases like that. And that means that these phrases build reason upon reason and supposedly boost credibility.

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So I'm wondering here about warriors with real-life, practical experience in conversions (not only in theory).... Which works for you, and what do you normally use in your copywriting?

Which works better under testing?
#intuition #reason #versus
  • Profile picture of the author marciayudkin
    The other side of the comparison would be Reason. I've heard from both master hypnotists, psychologists and some copywriters that reason layers can be very powerful.

    For examples: If you sell a product that seems too good to be given away, a valid reason would boost the conversions; If you give people a reason to opt-in, the conversion rates skyrocket; If you give people a reason why you're introducing scarcity/urgency, the rates rise.

    A master hypnotist told me to tweak my linguistic patterns to include "and that means", "because", "due to", "and that stems from" and similar phrases like that. And that means that these phrases build reason upon reason and supposedly boost credibility.
    Here you are confusing Reason - a faculty that we use to think logically - with "reasons," which are often highly illogical and extremely emotional. For example, when someone tells us there are only three spaces left, is it Reason that gets us to grab one? No, not at all. That's Emotion.

    The hypnotist who uses phrases like those mentioned above is not appealing to Reason. He is using them to slip something by Reason.

    I don't deny that the techniques you mentioned have effects, just saying that you are classifying them in entirely the wrong way.

    Marcia Yudkin
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  • Profile picture of the author Scott Murdaugh
    You may be (IMO) making this more complicated than it needs to be, or maybe not.

    Intuition in my mind is that "gut feeling", it's rapport, trust, and being believed and liked and perceived as an authority, someone people connect with.

    As far as reasoning...

    ...I'll use an example from my piano selling days.

    10 Yamaha grands on the floor at $15k retail. 1 with a minor blemish on the back. We can't sell it at retail. And it's costing us valuable floor space. We'll have to fly an authorized tech in from 5 states over to sell at retail and that's going to cost us, BUT if you don't mind our tech fixing it, and you help us out we can probably...

    I'm sure you can figure out the rest.

    Just to be clear that's kind of a made up scenario, and it's not "shady" because that story, in that case, wouldn't be manufactured. That stuff does happen.

    No matter what I've sold, there's always a "hookup" for the customer, there's always a "reason why", and there's ALWAYS a deadline.

    Go to a GOOD car salesman, and you should get a great deal, and a great reason why for the deal as well as a deadline.

    But the reason why has to be believable, even if it's "look, I have to move one more to hit my bonus, so here's what I'll do if we can finalize this today"...

    ...And even if you know he's a good salesman, and pulling the "reason why" and "urgency" tricks on you, you'll still look to intuition as to whether or not he's someone you want to buy from.

    In short, both.

    But really it's, "here's an amazing, one time deal, here's the reason I can offer it, and this is why you have to act now"...

    The trick is being able to put all of that together in a believable and ethical way. The "only 50 ebooks left" stuff doesn't fly with reason or intuition.

    My half-awake .02.

    Hope that helps!

    -Scott
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