Reporting biases in hypnosis: suggestion or compliance?
The tendency of highly hypnotizable participants to bias their retrospective perceptual reports in response to instructional demands was reexamined with the addition of low-hypnotizable control participants instructed to simulate hypnosis. Mean scores of high-hypnotizable participants and simulators did not differ, but the responses of simulators to the demand instruction was less variable than those of high-hypnotizable participants, and the shape of the response distribution was different. Unlike simulators, some high-hypnotizable participants who had reported changes in perception that were consistent with a hypnotic suggestion subsequently reported changes opposite to those suggested by a demand instruction. These data were interpreted as suggesting that the responses of high-hypnotizable participants to both the demand instruction and the preceding hypnotic suggestion were not entirely due to compliance.
Reed
S B
SB
Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs 06269-1020, USA.
Kirsch
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I
Wickless
C
C
Moffitt
K H
KH
Taren
P
P
D000328:Adult; D015982:Bias; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006990:Hypnosis; D008297:Male; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D013404:Suggestion; D014342:Truth Disclosure