title: Reporting biases in hypnosis: suggestion or compliance?
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs 06269-1020, USA.
authors.forename: S B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Reed
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kirsch
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wickless
authors.forename: K H
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Moffitt
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Taren
mesh_terms: 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