This article is an exploratory study investigating the relationship between hypnotizability, personality style, and attachment. Data were collected from 99 students by means of the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A; Personality Styles and Disorders Inventory; and Relationship Scale Questionnaire. Results suggest that individual personality styles accounted for a significant amount of variance in hypnotizability in: (a) the whole sample, (b) the securely attached, and (c) the insecurely attached. High hypnotizables among both the whole sample and securely attached individuals shared the unselfish/self-sacrificing personality style as a main predictor of hypnotizability and displayed elevated scores for the charming/histrionic and the optimistic/rhapsodic personality style. Furthermore, two groups were identified among the high hypnotizables that differed mainly according to attachment style: one consists of securely attached, charming/histrionic, and optimistic/rhapsodic people, who are best described by socio-cognitive theories. The other is composed of insecurely attached intuitive/schizotypal people, who are better depicted by dissociation theories.

Ninety-two high school and 8 secondary school students, aged between 15 and 19 years, were tested for intelligence and for hypnotic susceptibility. No correlations could be observed for the overall sample unselected by sex because the negative correlations for male participants canceled out the positive correlations for the female subsample. These are significant for the total value of intelligence (r = .288) and highly significant for the subcategory verbal intelligence (r = .348), yet nonsignificant for the subcategories numerical intelligence and figural intelligence. Females seem to be more able to imaginatively process semantic contents induced verbally. They also seem to have a higher task motivation than males--at least during adolescence.

The Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A (HGSHS:A) has not been explicitly tested on an adolescent population. In this study, the German version of the HGSHS:A was administered to 99 German adolescents aged 15 to 19. In contrast to other studies, the gender distribution was relatively balanced: 57% female and 43% male. Results were comparable to 14 earlier studies with regard to distribution, mean, and standard deviation. Some peculiarities in contrast to the 14 previous studies are pointed out. It is concluded that the HGSHS:A can be used as a valid and reliable instrument to measure hypnotic suggestibility in adolescent samples.

The relationship between hypnotizability, personality style, and attachment was examined according to sex in 99 student participants. No specific differences for personality and hypnotizability were found in the highly hypnotizable participants according to sex. Similarly, no differences were found between high, medium, and low hypnotizable females, though differences were found among males. For males, the best predictor of hypnotizability was the unselfish/self-sacrificing personality style, which explained 40% of variance. This was in contrast to low hypnotizable males, who were less spontaneous/borderline, self-critical/avoidant, unselfish/self-sacrificing, but more assertive/antisocial. In comparison with females, low hypnotizable males were less intuitive/schizotypal and less loyal/dependent. Within the whole sample and among securely attached high hypnotizables, two peaks were observed for charming/histrionic and optimistic/rhapsodic styles, which suggests a "prone to hypnosis" personality style. Such people are optimistic and charming, and tend to be securely attached. This may suggest a high self-selection bias in hypnosis experiments and potentially creates confounds for the majority of such studies.