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Related Experiment Videos

Suggestibility or hypnosis: what do our scales really measure?

I Kirsch1

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs 06269-1020, USA. irvingk@uconnvm.uconn.edu

The International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis
|July 1, 1997
PubMed
Summary

Hypnotizability scales may not accurately measure hypnotizability. Instead, they might better reflect non-hypnotic suggestibility, suggesting a need to redefine hypnosis and hypnotizability concepts.

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Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Hypnotizability is conceptually defined as increased suggestibility due to hypnosis.
  • Operationally, it is measured by suggestibility after a hypnotic induction.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the distinction between conceptual and operational definitions of hypnotizability.
  • To determine if current hypnotizability scales accurately measure hypnotic suggestibility or waking suggestibility.

Main Methods:

  • Comparing suggestibility levels before and after hypnotic induction.
  • Analyzing the correlation between hypnotic suggestibility and non-hypnotic suggestibility.
  • Evaluating the reliability coefficients of standard hypnotizability scales.

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Main Results:

  • Hypnotic induction significantly increases suggestibility.
  • The correlation between hypnotic and non-hypnotic suggestibility is comparable to scale reliability.
  • Hypnotizability scales appear to measure waking suggestibility more effectively than hypnotizability.

Conclusions:

  • A discrepancy exists between the conceptual and operational definitions of hypnotizability.
  • Reinterpreting scores from hypnotizability scales as indicators of non-hypnotic, imaginative suggestibility is proposed.
  • Revising conceptual definitions of hypnosis and hypnotizability may be necessary.