Studies based on a social-learning, cognitive skill model of hypnotic responsiveness have documented appreciable increases on behavioral and subjective measures of suggestibility following hypnotizability modification training. Spanos and his colleagues (see Gorassini & Spanos, 1999) have shown that more than 50 percent of initially low hypnotizable subjects who were administered a multi-faceted cognitive skill training program (Carleton Skills Training Program; CSTP) scored as high hypnotizable at post-testing. ? ? These studies provide support for sociocognitive models of hypnosis, and imply that the CSTP produces valid hypnotic training effects consistent with the aim of teaching participants imaginal strategies to generate suggested experiences. However, crucial experiments have not been conducted to rule out the possibility that the CSTP functions like a """"""""coaching program"""""""" that improves performance by virtue of teaching subjects to comply with task demands in the absence of aptitudinal enhancements and suggestion-related subjective experiences. The proposed studies seek to evaluate: (a) the CSTP task demands; (b) the contribution of instructions to physically enact responses and the use of imaginal strategies to treatment outcome, (c) the mediating role of imagery, expectancy, and interpretive set in producing treatment gains, and (d) setting-by response interactions in testing generalization effects. The proposed research includes groups of practice alone control subjects, untrained highly hypnotizable subjects, and low hypnotizable participants who, following a brief description of the CSTP, simulate the performance of subjects who undergo the training procedures. To provide a stringent test of the validity and generalizability of CSTP outcomes, the proposed research reliably classifies low hypnotizable subjects prior to the administration of the CSTP, uses stringent post-test hypnotizability measures, institutes follow-up procedures, and uses a variety of generalization measures germane to the interpersonal and cognitive domains of hypnosis.
| Giesbrecht, Timo; Lynn, Steven Jay; Lilienfeld, Scott O et al. (2008) Cognitive processes in dissociation: an analysis of core theoretical assumptions. Psychol Bull 134:617-47 |
| Fassler, Oliver; Lynn, Steven Jay; Knox, Joshua (2008) Is hypnotic suggestibility a stable trait? Conscious Cogn 17:240-53 |
| Lynn, Steven Jay (2004) Enhancing suggestibility: the effects of compliance vs. imagery. Am J Clin Hypn 47:117-28 |
