Toward a theory of hypnotic behavior: Effects on suggestibility of defining the situation as hypnosis and defining response to suggestions as easy.

96 Ss participated in a 2 X 2 factorial experiment which was designed to assess the effects on suggestibility of: defining the situation as hypnosis or as control, and defining response to suggestions as easy or as difficult. The dependent variables consisted of responses to 8 standardized test suggestions (Barber Suggestibility Scale). Ss told "You are in the hypnosis group" were more responsive to suggestions than Ss told "You are in the control group." Ss told that it was easy to respond to test suggestions were more suggestible than Ss told that it was difficult. The suggestibility-enhancing effects of the independent variables were additive: the level of suggestibility was highest when the situation was defined as hypnosis and the test suggestions as easy; next highest when either the situation was defined as hypnosis or the suggestions as easy; and lowest when the situation was defined as control and the suggestions as difficult. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dissociation, duality, and demand characteristics in hypnosis.

Examined hypnotic dissociation (as indexed by the "hidden-observer" method), duality in age regression, and the potential impact of situational cues on these phenomena. 12 high- and 9 low-susceptible undergraduates (as determined by the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale) were tested in an application of the real–simulating paradigm of hypnosis; 10 high- to medium-susceptible Ss were also employed. Inquiry into Ss' experiences was conducted through the experiential analysis technique, which involves Ss viewing and commenting on a videotape playback of their hypnotic session. Results demonstrate that neither the hidden-observer effect nor duality could be explained solely in terms of the demand characteristics of the test situation. The hidden-observer effect was observed in high-susceptible Ss only; all Ss who displayed the hidden-observer effect also displayed duality in age regression. High-susceptible Ss were distinctive in their reports of multiple levels of awareness during hypnosis. Findings are discussed in terms of the cognitive skills that Ss bring to hypnosis and the degree to which the hypnotic setting encourages the use of dissociative cognitive processes. (43 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward a theory of hynotic behavior: Effects on suggestibility of task motivating instructions and attitudes toward hypnosis.

Attitudes toward hypnosis were assessed in 75 college students. 3 weeks later the students were required to participate in an experiment in which they were tested individually on the Barber Suggestibility Scale. The scale was administered under 3 experimental treatments with 25 Ss, ? with positive attitudes toward hypnosis and ? with nonpositive attitudes, assigned randomly to each treatment. The treatments were: Task Motivating Instructions, Hypnotic Induction Procedure, Direct Suggestions (Control). The findings confirmed Hypotheses 1 and 2 which stated: (a) Ss given either brief task motivating instructions or a procedure of the type traditionally termed a hypnotic induction show greater response to suggestions than Ss given neither task motivating insructions nor a hypnotic induction; and (b) brief task motivating instructions and an extended hypnotic induction procedure both elicit high levels of suggestibility. (46 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of hypnotic susceptibility, suggestions for analgesia, and the utilization of cognitive strategies on the reduction of pain.

96 undergraduates were stratified in terms of hypnotic susceptibility (high, medium, and low) on the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A. Ss next had 1 arm immersed in ice water for a 60-sec pretest and, afterward, were assigned to 1 of 4 treatments: (a) hypnosis plus analgesia suggestion, (b) hypnosis alone, (c) suggestion alone, or (d) no hypnosis—no suggestion. Ss were retested in ice water and then interviewed about their experiences during the retest. High susceptibles reported the use of more cognitive strategies during the retest and showed greater pretest-to retest pain magnitude reductions than did low susceptibles. Similar effects occurred for Ss given, as opposed to not given, a suggestion. The hypnosis variable, however, failed to affect either strategy use or pain magnitude. Strategy use facilitated pain reduction only for Ss who did not worry about and did not exaggerate the unpleasantness of the situation (i.e., noncatastrophizers). The few Ss who showed dramatic pretest-to-retest reductions in pain magnitude (50% reduction or more) were all high-susceptible noncatastrophizers who used one or more cognitive strategies. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Significant factors in hypnotic behavior.

This study was structured so as to be able to test 2 hypotheses derived from previous work on hypnosis (Wells, 1924), viz., that suggestions involving typical behavior under hypnosis, e.g., loss of voluntary control over muscles and speech, can be effective without the induction of a formal trance state, and that such a condition is as effective in producing the desired behavior as when the situation includes utilization of a preparatory set-inducing trance state. The 1st hypothesis was confirmed; the 2nd was not. The "trance" facilitated the presence and degree of hypnotic behavior. Personality characteristics of the more suggestible Ss were: (a) more willing to form new interpersonal relationship and (b) prone to imaginative activities, daydreaming, and fantasy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Responsiveness to suggestions following waking and imagination instructions and following induction of hypnosis.

2 experiments are reported to test the increase of responsiveness to suggestion tests following hypnotic induction over responsiveness to such tests in waking and imagination conditions, an increase that has been doubted as a result of experiments by Barber and Calverley. In the 1st experiment 60 Ss were divided into groups of 20, each serving under 1 of 3 conditions in a 1st session (waking, imagination, hypnosis). All received a standard hypnotic induction in a 2nd session. While the treatment effects did not yield significant differences on the 1st day, there were significant gains in responsiveness to suggestions by the waking and imagination groups in the 2nd session. In the 2nd experiment, with some methodological improvements, 90 Ss served in 6 groups of 15 in: (1) imagination without expectation of hypnosis, (2) imagination with expectation of hypnosis, (3) hypnotic induction, and (4) various combinations. Significant gains were found with hypnotic induction throughout. State reports (subjective responses of drifting into hypnosis) showed that those Ss within both imagination and hypnotic induction conditions who reported themselves as becoming hypnotized yielded the highest suggestibility scores. There is difficulty in obtaining significant treatment effects unless Ss were as their own controls. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some ambiguities in the escape from the ambiguous.

P. W. Sheehan (see record 1974-10335-001) is erroneous in claiming to identify an artifact in T. X. Barber's (1969) model for hypnosis. While Sheehan shows empirically that the group differences in Barber's Ss do make a difference in suggestibility scores, this is a variable of constraint in terms of instructions, not an artifact. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety, birth order, and susceptibility to social influence.

The effect of order-of-birth and susceptibility to social influence (suggestibility) was studied. The reactivity of first-born and non-first-born Ss was observed in the autokinetic situation. First born Ss showed themselves to be more suggestible than non-first-born Ss under conditions which entailed the arousal of anxiety or not. Results are related to previous research. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HK16S. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imaginative suggestibility and hypnotizability: An empirical analysis.

Hypnotic and nonhypnotic suggestibility were investigated in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, nonhypnotic suggestibility was suppressed when measured after hypnotic suggestibility, whereas hypnotic suggestibility was not affected by the order of assessment. Experiment 2 confirmed a small but significant effect of hypnosis on suggestibility when nonhypnotic suggestibility was measured first. Nonhypnotic suggestibility was correlated with absorption, fantasy proneness, motivation, and response expectancy, but only expectancy predicted suggestibility when the other variables were controlled. Behavioral response to hypnosis was predicted by nonhypnotic suggestibility, motivation, and expectancy in a model accounting for 53% of the variance. Experiential response to hypnotic suggestion was predicted only by nonhypnotic suggestibility. Unexpectedly, hypnosis was found to decrease suggestibility for a substantial minority of participants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Real and simulated occurrences of memory distortion in hypnosis.

79 undergraduates were prescreened for high or low susceptibility to hypnosis (Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility—Form A) and tested individually to examine memory distortion in hypnosis. Independent groups of Ss were allocated to a 2?×?2 factorial design in which S grouping (hypnotic or simulating) was crossed with an information condition that either misled or did not mislead Ss about a series of scenes depicting an apparent robbery. It was hypothesized that memory distortion would characterize the performance of hypnotic Ss when memory was examined in unstructured, narrative recall. Results show that real Ss were differentiated appreciably from simulating Ss in the extent to which they incorrectly intruded uncued errors (i.e., errors not arising from misleading information) into their memories but not in their intrusion of cued errors (i.e., errors arising from misleading information). Real Ss remembered correctly more detail of a peripheral kind but also distorted more with respect to the same kind of detail. Results overall negate the view that earlier memory traces are revived in hypnosis, thereby leading to more accurate retrieval, and suggest that hypnotic Ss bring distinctive styles of information processing to bear on their recollections of complex, socially meaningful events. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hypnotic analgesia and stress inoculation in the reduction of pain.

Investigated the influence of hypnotic ability on 3 methods of reducing cold-pressor pain. Following a baseline immersion, 30 high- and 30 low-hypnotizable undergraduates were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 treatment groups: stress inoculation training, stress inoculation training defined as hypnosis, or hypnotic analgesia. Analysis of pain reports indicated a significant hypnotic ability?×?treatment interaction. Among Ss receiving hypnotic analgesia, high-hypnotizables reported significantly less intense pain than lows. There was no differential response for high- and low-hypnotizable Ss receiving stress inoculation training, whether or not it was defined as hypnotic. Moreover, Ss in the stress inoculation condition (whether or not defined as hypnosis) reported using cognitive strategies to reduce pain, whereas this was not the case for Ss in the hypnotic analgesia condition. The present findings seem inconsistent with the social psychological account of hypnosis and are discussed from a dissociation perspective, which views hypnosis as involving changes in the way information is processed. (56 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On becoming hypnotized: How skeptics become convinced: A case of attitude change?

Used tape recordings, interviews, and participant observation in a hypnosis workshop with 20 practicing psychologists as Ss to perform a social-psychological analysis of becoming hypnotized. During the 1st sessions, most of the Ss were struck by the ambiguity and vagueness of "hypnosis" and doubted the authenticity of their own "trances." By the last session, most of the Ss had learned how to behave like good hypnotic Ss and had come to accept new definitions of their own feelings and of the term hypnosis. The ways in which these changes occurred are compared with the ways in which attitude change occurs in laboratory settings, particularly as a result of role playing and forced compliance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expert judgments of hypnosis from subjective state reports.

Suggestibility was assessed in 60 college students after a traditional hypnotic induction, an alert induction, progressive relaxation training, or instruction in goal-directed imagery. Responsiveness to suggestion did not differ between groups. Ss also generated open-ended reports of their states of awareness and of their experience of 3 hypnotic suggestions. A sample of these reports from 24 moderately to highly suggestible Ss were evaluated by 18 experts in the field of hypnosis. Expert ratings of Ss' open-ended reports indicated that (1) traditional hypnotic inductions produce a state of consciousness that is indistinguishable from nonhypnotic relaxation training, (2) the subjective experience of hypnotic suggestions after imagination training is indistinguishable from that after hypnotic inductions, and (3) suggestibility is unrelated to state of consciousness as assessed by experts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multidimensional analysis of "hypnotic" behavior.

110 female student nurses served as Ss. Those who had not previously participated in a hypnotism experiment were told simply to close their eyes for 5 min. and place themselves in hypnosis. These Ss were almost as responsive as a group of Ss who were exposed to a formal hypnotic-induction procedure on 4 dimensions of "hypnotic" behavior: (1) trancelike appearance (e.g., apparent limpness-relaxation); (2) responses to test suggestions to hallucinate, to be amnesic, etc.; (3) reports of unusual experiences such as reported "disappearance" of the body or body parts; and (4) testimony of having been hypnotized. An additional group of 50 controls who were told to close their eyes for 5 min. were generally less responsive than the place-yourself-in-hypnosis group and the hypnotic-indiction group on the dimension of hypnotic behavior. (24 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of counselor facilitative level on client suggestibility.

Investigated the effects of the level of counselor facilitation on client suggestibility. 48 university students were individually tested for suggestibility in 1 of 3 conditions. In the experimental conditions, Ss interacted with an E rated as either high or low on a scale of empathy and were then administered the Barber Suggestibility Scale. In the control condition, Ss were simply administered the test. Results support the hypothesis that Ss of higher rated Es would demonstrate more suggestibility than Ss of lower rated Es. Results do not support the hypothesis that S interaction with lower rated Es would elicit less suggestibility than a no-interaction control. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A field study of the forensic use of hypnosis.

Conducted a field study of selected cases from police files in which hypnosis had been used as a memory aid. In a detailed analysis of 7 of the 41 cases, scoring revealed that hypnosis almost tripled the amount of information that witnesses provided compared with a standard interview (conducted prior to the hypnosis interview) with no loss in accuracy. Interviews with police hypnotists and investigators revealed that in addition to hypnosis the procedure included known memory aids. It is concluded that the cognitive instructions incorporated in the hypnotic interview may provide the basis for improved recall. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A signal detection analysis of hypnotically induced narrowing of the peripheral visual field.

Narrowing of the peripheral visual field ("tunnel vision") was suggested to 4 hypnotized Ss and to 4 Ss simulating hypnosis. Changes in light thresholds in the "blind" portion of the periphery were observed and analyzed using a signal detection approach and were attributed to changes in sensitivity rather than to criterion shifts. Ss simulating hypnosis produced results that were statistically indistinguishable from those of hypnotized Ss. Results are discussed in terms of S attention, and theoretical and practical implications of the results for research in hypnosis and hysteria, for the appropriateness of signal detection theory, and for visual field testing in general are pointed out. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transient positive and negative experiences accompanying stage hypnosis.

Frequency of positive and negative experiences accompanying stage hypnosis was assessed in follow-up interviews with 22 participants of university-sponsored performances. Most Ss described their experience positively (relaxing, interesting, exciting, satisfying, illuminating, and pleasurable), but some described it negatively (confusing, silly, annoying, and frightening). Five Ss (22.7%) reported partial or complete amnesia; all were highly responsive to the stage hypnosis suggestions. One S was completely unable to breach amnesia and felt annoyed and frightened. Five Ss (22.7%) believed the hypnotist had control over their behavior. Participants (n?=?15) tested subsequently on the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C (A. M. Weitzenhogger and E. R. Hilgard, 1962) were most moderately to highly hypnotizable (M?=?7.07), and the scores correlated significantly (r?=?.68) with percentage of passed stage hypnosis suggestions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Empirical evidence for a theory of hypnotic behavior: Effects on suggestibility of five variables typically included in hypnotic induction procedures.

3 experiments were conducted to ascertain the relative effects on suggestibility of the following 5 components that are typically included in present-day hypnotic induction procedures: 1—defining the situation to S as "hypnosis"; 2—instructing S to close his eyes; 3—administering suggestions of relaxation, drowsiness, and sleep; 4—administering motivational instructions; and 5—suggesting that it is easy to respond to further suggestions. Component 1, by itself, tended to facilitate response to test suggestions of arm levitation, thirst hallucination, body immobility, selective amnesia, etc. Component 1 in combination with Component 3 produced a higher level of suggestibility than Component 1 alone. Components 4 and 5 in combination were as effective as Components 1 and 3 in combination in facilitating response to test suggestions. Component 2 did not exert a noticeable effect on response. (25 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The psychobiological effects of cognitive experiential therapy, hypnosis, cognitive restructuring, and attention placebo control in the treatment of essential hypertension.

Examines the psychobiological effects of cognitive experiential therapy (CET) or what was previously referred to as rational stage directed hypnotherapy on essential hypertension. CET combines cognitive restructuring, hypnosis, and developmental staging. 39 Ss were assigned to 1 of 4 conditions: CET, hypnosis only, cognitive restructuring, or an attention placebo control group. The overall multivariate model consisting of all experimental conditions over time yielded a significant interaction effect with respect to 9 psychobiological outcome measures. Discriminant analysis revealed a stronger overall effect over time for CET when compared with its major components (i.e., hypnosis, cognitive restructuring, and attention control). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)