Experimental Hypnosis

Question 1

What are the Harvard and Stanford scales based on?

Answer 1

Operationalizing responses
From the French 19th century literature
From previous attempts that looked at the depth of state of hypnosis

Question 2

What are the different types of suggestions?

Answer 2

Ideo-motor items: thinking of a movement elicits a corresponding motor response
Challenge items: ideo-motor item followed by a counter-suggestion
Cognitive items: imagination or cognitively- based suggestion

Question 3

How are the items listed in most scales?

Answer 3

Difficulty index: proportion of subjects passing the item

High DI means that the items is easy

Question 4

What do hypnosis scales measure?

Answer 4

From a state point of view (depth of response) to a performance-based view (number and difficulty of items)

Question 5

Why are scales useful?

Answer 5

Opened the door to scientific experimentation by providing a unified way of measuring hypnotizability
Makes it easier to compare results from different experiments
If not measured, difficult to differentiate context effects from hypnotizability effects

Question 6

What can we see about the timeline of hypnosis?

Answer 6

Hypnotizability can be looked at as a stable individual difference across lifespan
peaks just before teen years (about 12-13) It has a 25 years test-retest reliability over .70 (more stable than IQ)

Question 7

What are the different ways that we can use hypnosis and scales in research?

Answer 7

Intrinsic: studying hypnosis or hypnotizability per se
Instrumental: using hypnosis to study another phenomenon (for example, memory or hallucinations)