Hypnosis and beyond: Exploring the broader domain of suggestion.

Abstract

Despite its many influence on numerous features of human behavior and consciousness, suggestibility, the ubiquitous disposition to generate and modify experiences, thoughts, and actions remains one of the least researched aspects of human cognition. As a critical feature of hypnosis, much research on suggestion and suggestibility has understandably focused on hypnotic suggestion with comparatively little exploration of the larger rich domain of suggestibility. From a research perspective, suggestibility, can be regarded as comprising a range of bio???psycho???social processes that facilitate or enhance the probability of a suggestion being accepted and believed. Suggestion, on the other hand, can be seen as a form of communicable ideation or belief, that once accepted has the capacity, (like other strong beliefs) to exert profound changes on a person???s mood, thoughts, perceptions, and ultimately their behaviors. Although studies of hypnotic suggestion have historically provided much productive research, the comparative neglect of the broader domain of suggestion seems surprising, given its demonstrable potential as a causal explanatory framework for many aspects of human behavior from the placebo effect to advertising. In addition to discerning the potential adaptive value(s) of suggestibility, it is now timely, given the growing interest from neuroscience in hypnotic suggestion, to revisit previous attempts to elucidate potential shared underlying psychological properties.