Harvard group scale of hypnotic susceptibility and the creative imagination scale: defining two separate but correlated abilities

Abstract

AbstractNormative data for most psychological tests have been collected from student samples rather than clinical populations. So it was for the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (HGSHS:A). This paper describes a comparative study, not a normative study, using an unselected adult, primarily non‐student, cohort of volunteers (n=128) tested on the HGSHS:A. The purpose was to compare the results with those of normative studies performed in the USA, Australia, Germany and Canada. Results indicated strong similarities. Likewise, 49 of these subjects were tested with a taped form of the Creative Imagination Scale (CIS), published in 1978. Scores on neither the HGSHS:A nor the CIS were predicted by either age or sex. Although the CIS and HGSHS:A results were correlated, factor analysis on the two tests showed loadings on separate factors suggesting that these tests are measuring two related, but separate, abilities found in conjunction with each other. We concluded that these instruments can be used with confidence with clinical populations. Copyright © 1997 British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis