Psychology2016

158 CHAPTER 4

Table 4. 2 Examples of Items That Would Appear on a Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale

1. Movement of the body back and forth 5. Responding to posthypnotic suggestion


2. Closing eyes and unable to open them 6. Loss of memory for events during the session


3. Fingers locked together 7. Unable to state one’s own name


4. One arm locked into position 8. Seeing or hearing nonexistent stimuli
   SOURCE: Based on Hilgard, E, Hypnotic Susceptibility, 1965.

*suggestibility: being readily influenced.

**susceptible: easily affected emotionally.

Hypnosis

Contrary to what you may have seen in the movies or on television, people who are hyp-

notized are not in a trance (Lynn et al., 2015). Hypnosis is simply a state of consciousness

in which a person is especially susceptible to suggestion. Although a lot of misunder-

standings exist about hypnosis, it can be a useful tool when properly managed.

How Hypnosis Works

4. 9 Explain how hypnosis affects consciousness.
   There are four key steps in inducing hypnosis (Druckman & Bjork, 1994):
   
   
   1. The hypnotist tells the person to focus on what is being said.
   
   
   2. The person is told to relax and feel tired.
   
   
   3. The hypnotist tells the person to “let go” and accept suggestions easily.
   
   
   4. The person is told to use vivid imagination.
   
   
   
   

The real key to hypnosis seems to be a heightened state of suggestibility.* People

can be hypnotized when active and alert, but only if they are willing to be hypnotized.

Only 80 percent of all people can be hypnotized, and only 40 percent are good hypnotic

subjects. The ability to be hypnotized may lie in the way the brain functions. Using

brain-scanning techniques, researchers found that two areas in the brains of highly hyp-

notizable people, areas associated with decision making and attention, seem to be more

active and connected when compared to people who cannot be hypnotized (Hoeft et al.,

2012).

A test of hypnotic susceptibility, or the degree to which a person is a good hyp-

notic subject, often makes use of a series of ordered suggestions. The more sugges-

tions in the ordered list the person responds to, the more susceptible** that person is.

(See Ta b l e 4. 2 for examples of the types of items on a typical hypnotic susceptibility

scale.)

Is it true that people can be hypnotized into doing things that

they would never do under normal conditions?

Although the popular view is that the hypnotized person is acting involuntarily, the fact

is that the hypnotist may only be a guide into a more relaxed state, while the subject actu-

ally hypnotizes himself or herself (Kirsch & Lynn, 1995). People cannot be hypnotized

against their will. The tendency to act as though their behavior is automatic and out of

their control is called the basic suggestion effect (Kihlstrom, 1985); it gives people an excuse

to do things they might not otherwise do because the burden of responsibility for their

actions falls on the hypnotist.

hypnosis
state of consciousness in which the
person is especially susceptible to
suggestion.