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First, some analytic characterizations of suggestibility as well as a brief summary of recent developments of tests and scales for suggestibility without hypnosis are provided. Following that summary, an empirical study on the development of a relaxation tool both for induction and measurement is described that does not make use of the terms 'suggestion' and 'hypnosis'. The objective was to measure suggestibility and relaxation that may correlate to these two approaches. This instrument consists of indirect motor items which are supposed to induce relaxation in an implicit manner and mental items inducing relaxation in an explicit way. In order to assess its psychometric quality this scale was administered to 177 school children (aged between 10 and 21 years). Item diffi culties, item-total-correlations and reliability had satisfactory psychometric qualities. The correlation between these scales was moderate (r = 0.37). Finally, the strategy for further development of the scales is outlined.

Product prices are often considered to be an indicator for quality. In our experiment we focussed on the question if consumers' hypotheses can be biased by exchanging the digits on price displays due to currency changes. We found that high numbers in a price expressed in terms of a currency with a relatively low value (German Mark) lead to a higher perceived quality level than an equivalent price expressed in terms of relatively high listed currency (Euro). Contrary to our expectations we could not prove that this effect is stronger for premium than for low-budget products.

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Investigations concerning the influence of suggestion on warmth sensations are one of the favoured topics of suggestibility research. The great uncertainty concerning the perception of objective or faked warmth stimuli turned to be favourable premisses for such experiments. Methods such as the heat illusion test (Scripture, 1893; Seashore, 1895) have been used in various investigations for many years. The main purpose of such research was to investigate relationships between this kind of test and other suggestibility measures, applied dependently or independently from a hypnotic context. However, it has been found repeatedly that the readiness to respond to faked sources of warmth is heavily dependent on situational factors. The question to be examined is whether situational factors should become a matter of research themselves in order to enlarge our knowledge concerning suggestive processes. The present study investigated some of these factors, namely: type of simulated sources of warmth; affected area of skin; and set factors preceding the actual experimental trials. By far the strongest effects were found for the set factors. When the faked stimulation was embedded in procedures enhancing plausibility, the susceptibility to react was significantly greater. It was postulated that the heat illusion procedures may be useful in assessing various conditions influencing suggestibility. The results are discussed in terms of more general psychological perspectives. Copyright © 2001 British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis