Goal-Directed Fantasy, Hypnotic Susceptibility, and Expectancies

We conducted an initial screening session in which hypnosis was presented as a "test of imagination" and administered with other imagination measures. In a second session, we instructed high- and low-hypnotizable subjects to imagine along with suggestions but to resist responding to motori...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of personality and social psychology 1987-11, Vol.53 (5), p.933-938
Main Authors: Lynn, Steven Jay, Snodgrass, Michael, Rhue, Judith W, Hardaway, Richard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Biological and medical sciences
Concentration
Expectations
Fantasy
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Goals
Human
Humans
Hypnosis
Hypnotic Susceptibility
Imagery
Male
Personality traits
Personality. Affectivity
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Set (Psychology)
Social research
Suggestion
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Summary:We conducted an initial screening session in which hypnosis was presented as a "test of imagination" and administered with other imagination measures. In a second session, we instructed high- and low-hypnotizable subjects to imagine along with suggestions but to resist responding to motoric suggestions. Subjects received either instructions to use goal-directed fantasies (GDFs) or no facilitative instructions. Sizable individual difference effects were secured. Hypnotizable subjects exhibited more suggestion-related movements and reported greater involuntariness than did low-hypnotizable subjects. With GDF instructions, low- and high-hypnotizable subjects reported equivalent GDF absorption and frequencies. However, hypnotizable subjects exhibited greater responsiveness and reported greater involuntariness than did those low in hypnotizability, even when their GDFs were equivalent. Thus, no support was generated for the hypotheses that sustained, elaborated suggestion-related imagery mediates response to suggestion ( Arnold, 1946 ) or that absorption in suggestions is of particular importance for low-hypnotizable subjects ( Zamansky & Clark, 1986 ). Our finding that measures of response expectancy paralelled responding and reports of nonvolition support the hypothesis that expectancies mediate the relation between imagination, involuntariness, and responding ( Kirsch, 1985 ; Spanos, 1982 ). Hypnotizable imagining subjects in the study discussed here exhibited greater responsiveness than a comparable sample of subjects did in a previous countersuggestion study ( Lynn, Nash, Rhue, Frauman, & Stanley, 1983 ) in which no attempt was made to foster an association between imagining and involuntary responding in the initial screening session.
ISSN:0022-3514
1939-1315
DOI:10.1037/0022-3514.53.5.933