A Multivariate Study of Hypnotic Susceptibility

Abstract

Twelve variables previously shown to predict hypnotic susceptibility were factor analyzed. Six of them loaded on a common factor labeled "a positive set toward imagining." The items from two hypnotic susceptibility scales were also factor analyzed, and fell into three factors (one "cognitive" and two motor factors). Multiple regression analyses using the susceptibility scales and also the three susceptibility factors as criterion variables indicated that most of the predicted variance was accounted for by the predictor variables that loaded on the "imaginative set" factor. Many of the predictor variables did not contribute significantly to the prediction of the susceptibility measures. Moreover, a number of predictors, that purportedly assess similar processes, failed to intercorrelate significantly. Methodological and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.Studies of individual differences in hypnotic susceptibility frequently involve only zero order correlations between one (or sometimes several) predictor variables and a single measure of hypnotic susceptibility. This research strategy has a number of limitations. Investigators often use different measures to index

On reintegrating dissociated theories: Comment on Kirsch and Lynn (1998).

“…First, hypnosis appears to be a complex, “impure” set of phenomena, involving multiple processes, reflecting multiple determinants, and likely tapping multiple individual differences (cf. Balthazard & Woody, 1992; Hilgard, 1977; Shor, Orne, & O'Connell, 1962; Spanos, Mah, Pawlak, D'Eon, & Ritchie, 1980; Tellegen, 1979; Woody, Bowers, & Oakman, 1992). Thus, any reasonably well-focused theory of hypnosis seems unlikely to explain all its features because of the multifaceted nature of the subject matter itself.…”

A reexamination of the role of nonhypnotic suggestibility in hypnotic responding.

“…However, an alternative view has been advanced by a number of investigators trying to make sense of the structural implications of factor analytic and other results with such scales. This alternative view is that there are at least two major mechanisms underlying performance on hypnosis scales (Balthazard & Woody, 1985, 1992; Hilgard, 1977; Shor, Orne, & O'Connell, 1962; Spanos, Mah, Pawlak, D'Eon, & Ritchie, 1980; Tellegen, 1979; Tellegen & Atkinson, 1976; Weitzenhoffer, 1962). Generally, the argument has been that the relative contributions of these two mechanisms change with the difficulty of the hypnosis-scale item, so that one mechanism would be especially important as a determinant of performance on easy items and the other mechanism especially important as a determinant of performance on difficult items.…”