Cognitive factors in hypnotic susceptibility.

Conducted 3 pilot studies with a total of 50 undergraduates to test 3 hypotheses derived from M. Gill and M. Brenman's (see pa, vol. 34:5325) study of hypnosis: (a) strong automatizers are less susceptible to hypnosis, (b) highly hypnotizable ss are more prone to distraction, and (c) highly hypnotizable ss produce more amorphous figure drawings. Performances on the stanford hypnotic susceptibility scale, the stroop color-word test, and the draw-a-person test support only the 2nd and 3rd hypotheses. Further testing using 4 verbal and 6 visual-motor measures on 40 male and 33 female undergraduates support the 2nd and 3rd hypotheses only for females. Analysis of pilot study data indicate that sex differences may have been present there also. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)