Transcultural Factors in Hypnotizability Scales: Limits and Prospects

Abstract

Hypnotic suggestibility—loosely termed hypnotizability—is difficult to assess across cultures. Investigators often use translated research instruments to guide their inquiry in disparate geographic locations. Present-day hypnosis researchers rely heavily on two primary scales that are more than half a century old: the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale: Form C (SHSS:C) (Weitzenhoffer & Hilgard, 1959) and the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility: Form A (HGSHS:A) (Shor & Orne, 1962). Scholars typically translate these scales to measure hypnotizability transculturally. This approach, however, operates under the specious assumption that the concept of hypnotizability is largely monolithic or universal across cultures. Whereas translations likely conserve the linguistic content, they may arguably imply different cultural meanings and historical subtexts. Whereas social scientists acknowledge the importance of qualitative and phenomenological accounts in the study of altered consciousness, including suggestibility, researchers interested in hypnotizability consider the impact of findings from anthropology and ethnography too little. Clinicians and scholars of hypnosis would stand to benefit from incorporating the insights afforded by transcultural research in the overarching investigation of a concept as nuanced as hypnotizability.