Hypnotic Suggestions Can Induce Rapid Change in Implicit Attitudes

Abstract

We sometimes evaluate our environment (e.g., persons, objects, situations) in an automatic fashion. These automatic or implicit evaluations are often considered to be based on qualitatively distinct mental processes compared with more controlled or explicit evaluations. Important evidence for this claim comes from studies showing that implicit evaluations do not change as the result of counterattitudinal information, in contrast to their explicit counterparts. We examined the impact of counterattitudinal information on implicit evaluations in two experiments ( N = 60, N = 72) that included an innovative manipulation: hypnotic suggestions to participants that they would strongly process upcoming counterattitudinal information. Both experiments indicated that hypnotic suggestions facilitated effects of counterattitudinal information on implicit evaluations. These findings extend recent evidence for rapid revision of implicit evaluations on the basis of counterattitudinal information and support the controversial idea that belief-based processes underlie not only explicit but also implicit evaluations.

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

“…The case of phenomenological control (Case 4) has not been explicitly addressed yet in EC, but one recent study is close to it. Van Dessel et al (2019) relied on hypnotic suggestion to enhance the processing of counter-attitudinal information in EC procedures. Their study indicates that participants integrate counter-attitudinal information into their final impression of the CSs to a larger extent (as measured by an IAT) after receiving the following hypnotic suggestion: "You will now receive information that you will process more strongly than you normally can.…”

A Process Dissociation Model of Implicit Rapid Revision in Response to Diagnostic Revelations

“…In Experiment 2, we re-analyzed an (exploratory) data set previously collected for Van Dessel et al (2020), in which participants first learned positive information about a stranger and later discovered a highly diagnostic revelation about him.…”

“… 5. Experiment 2 relies on data initially reported in Van Dessel et al (2020). This experiment was split across two time points.…”

Clinical Hypnosis & VR, Subconscious Restructuring- Brain Rewiring & the Entanglement with the 8 Pillars of Metacognition X 8 Layers of Consciousness X 8 Intelligences

“…Implicit attitudes about individuals and situations are considered as an important inhibitor in metacognitive development in terms of adaptation since they seem to be out of conscious control and thus resistant to change. Van Dessel et al [46] examined whether hypnosis could change those automatic behaviours. Participants read positive or negative information about two fictional social groups or learned to associate one person with positive words and pictures and another person with negative words and pictures.…”