Moderating effects of contextual variables on the relationship between hypnotic susceptibility and suggested analgesia.

Abstract

Subjects high, medium, and low on hypnotic susceptibility were assessed on the cold pressor task before and after one of three instructional treatments The treatments were (a) brief instructions to try to reduce pain (n = 30), (b) the same analgesia instructions preceded by a hypnotic induction procedure (n = 30), (c) no hypnotic induction, no instructions (control, n - 15). In the hypnotic treatment, susceptibility correlated significantly with reductions in reported pain, and highsusceptible subjects reported significantly larger pain reductions than did control subjects. In the instruction-alone treatment there was no significant relationship between susceptibility and pain reduction, and subjects at all three susceptibility levels reduced reported pain significantly more than did control subjects and as much as did high-susceptible hypnotic subjects. These findings indicate that the correlation between hypnotic susceptibility and hypnotic analgesia is moderated by subjects' attitudes and expectancies concerning their own performance in situations denned as related to hypnosis A number of studies have found that hypnotic and nonhypnotic subjects administered suggestions for analgesia report reductions m pain of equivalent magnitude (Barber & Hahn, 1962; Evans & Paul, 1970; Spanos, Barber, & Lang, 1974; Spanos, Radtke-Bodorik, Ferguson, & Jones, 1979). Several studies also found that the degree of suggestion-induced pain reduction (suggested analgesia) correlated significantly with pretested levels of hypnotic susceptibility (Evans & Paul, 1970; Hilgard & Hilgard, 1975; Spanos etal., 1979) Moreover, the magnitude of the correlation between susceptibility and suggested analgesia was about the same for hypnotic and nonhypnotic subjects (Evans & Paul, 1970; Spanos et al., 1979). Despite their consistency, the interpretation of these findings remains a controversial issue One influential account, proffered by Hilgard (1977) holds that suggested analgesia involves two components, the first component consists of attention diversion and relaxation According to Hilgard (1977), this component is avail