Differences In Hypnotizability Research Articles

Two personality measures relating hypnotic susceptibility to absorption.

Abstract 2 scales of involvement in absorbing experiences, developed independently by Tellegen (1976) and Swanson (1978), were compared with each other and with a group version of the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C (Weitzenhoffer & Hilgard, 1962). Significantly positive correlations were obtained for all three comparisons. The results further confirm the relationship between hypnotic susceptibility and absorption, providing new evidence for the existence of stable individual differences in hypnotizability.

Complexity and measurement of hypnotic susceptibility: A comment on Coe and Sarbin's alternative interpretation.

Coe and Sarbin's claim that a single role skill dimension accounts for individual differences in hypnotizability is not supported by an empirical analysis. We suggest that current measures of hypnotic susceptibility are not only factorially complex but contain a sizable nonhypnotic variance component. Implications for the assessment of "true" hypnotic susceptibility are discussed.

Hypnotic susceptibility in old age: some data from residential homes for old people.

Abstract A sample of 55 old people, 21 men and 34 women, aged 62 through 94 (x = 80.5), living in 3 residential homes, were teeted with a Swedish translation of the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form A. Mean SHSS:A more was 3.43 (SB. = 3.54). The most difficult items were verbal inhibition, eye catalepsy, and posthypnotic suggestion. There were no Significant differences in hypnotizability between sexes or between age group though there is a marked decline in the group 85 years and older. The low hypnotic susceptibfity mean is in agreement with the findings of others with regard to a gradual decline in hypnotizability with increasing age.

Hypnotizability, Suggestibility, and Personality: V. a Critical Review of Research Findings

Studies designed to test the general hypothesis that individual differences in hypnotizability or suggestibility are related to differences among individuals in relatively enduring characteristics of personality are critically reviewed. A large number of studies using self-report inventories, projective tests, ratings, interviews, and other methods of personality assessment, failed to find reliable relationships between hypnotizability or suggestibility and traits of personality. A few investigators reported that hypnotizability or suggestibility is related to hysteria, neuroticism, extroversion, impunitiveness, tendency to repression, sociability, cooperativeness, and proneness to imaginative-fantasy experiences, but other investigators were unable to confirm these findings. The concluding section of the paper presents data to support the contention that individual differences in response to suggestions are more closely related to (1) differences among individuals in siruationally-variable characteristics such as relationship with E, attitudes toward the immediate test situation, and level of motivation with respect to performance on assigned tasks rather than to (2) differences among individuals in enduring and trans-situational characteristics of personality.