A Critical Review of Standardized Measures of Hypnotic Suggestibility

Abstract

The most well-established finding gleaned from decades of experimental hypnosis research is that individuals display marked variability in responsiveness to hypnotic suggestions. Insofar as this variability impacts both treatment outcome in therapeutic applications of hypnosis as well as responsiveness to suggestions in experimental contexts, it is imperative that clinicians and researchers use robust measures of hypnotic suggestibility. The current paper critically evaluates contemporary measures of hypnotic suggestibility. After reviewing the most widely used measures, we identify multiple properties of these instruments that result in the loss of valuable information, including binary scoring and single-trial sampling, and hinder their utility, such as the inclusion of sub-optimal suggestion content. The scales are not well-suited for contemporary research questions and have outlived their usefulness. We conclude by outlining ways in which the measurement of hypnotic suggestibility can be advanced.

Sixty years after Orne’s American Psychologist article: A Conceptual Framework for Subjective Experiences Elicited by Demand Characteristics.

“…Phenomenological control is measured by scales that record responses to a series of suggestions. The most popular scales are delivered within the hypnotic context (for reviews, see Acunzo & Terhune, 2021;Woody & Barnier, 2008), but scales that avoid the hypnotic context have been developed (Barber, 1965;Oakley et al, 2021, Lush et al, in prep).…”

Social steerability modulates perceptual biases

“…Along the same lines, our work brings forth the pertinence of inventories where suggestibility is construed as a measure of social steerability to study influence under regular perceptual contexts. Such inventories might be relevant for the development of improved measures of suggestibility, an issue recently revisited in the hypnosis domain (Acunzo & Terhune, 2021;Oakley et al, 2021;Kallio, 2021). Moreover, our findings suggest that scales of suggestibility could be valuable tools for studying not only perception, but more generally the construction of judgments, beliefs and trust.…”

The Phenomenological Control Scale: Measuring the Capacity for Creating Illusory Nonvolition, Hallucination and Delusion

“…While this strategy is advantageous with regard to relating results to earlier studies, a disadvantage is that weaknesses of these historical scales have not been removed. There is, however, a need for development of imaginative suggestion scales, which have undergone relatively little development since their initial development many decades ago (see Acunzo & Terhune, 2021). Future development of phenomenological control scales can afford to be less conservative, for example, by revising the post-session/post-hypnotic suggestion and by introducing new items.…”

“…Here we follow Barber & Wilson (1978) in developing a scale to measure response to imaginative suggestion outside the hypnotic context (see also Oakley et al, 2021). The dominant hypnosis scales have been in use for decades, and there is a general need for new scale development to reflect current scientific understanding (Acunzo & Terhune, 2021;Jensen et al, 2017), as well as to address potential confounds arising from peoples' expectations about what hypnosis entails.…”