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An inquiry into the effect of positive and negative expectancy on hypnotizability as measured on the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale: Form A
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to detect the influence, if any, of high or low expectancy with regard to hypnotizability on the part of the hypnotist and subject. The result was measured by the subject's score on the SHSS:A. The time each subject took to complete the SHSS:A was also recorded. Data were analyzed using a 2 x 2 analysis of variance (ANOVA) with experimenter expectancy (high vs. low) and subject expectancy (high vs. low) as variables (as shown in table 4.1). Two measures were examined: time taken to complete the SHSS:A and the score received. Since individual experimenters may differ in administration of the SHSS:A even with safeguards to insure uniformity, possible differences in experimenter performance were examined in a 1-way ANOVA with the experimenters as the variables (3 levels). There were no significant differences between the scores of any of the subject groups and no interaction found between any of them. There was a significant result in the time taken for the high expectancy subjects (SE) which was shorter (36.438 min.) than the low expectancy subjects (SE) (41.471 min.). The primary result does not support the contention that hypnotizability as measured on the SHSS:A is affected significantly by the expectations of either the subject or the hypnotist. The secondary result indicates a significant effect on the subjects who were told that they were highly hypnotizability which was not directly measured by the SHSS:A, i.e., time. That may be the result of an interaction between those subjects and the hypnotists. They may have communicated their heightened belief in their hypnotizability to the hypnotists in subtle ways which enabled the hypnotists to deliver the hypnotizability test more quickly.
Subject Area
Psychology|Educational tests & measurements|Educational evaluation
Recommended Citation
Langdell, Sarah, "An inquiry into the effect of positive and negative expectancy on hypnotizability as measured on the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale: Form A" (1993). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9408298.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9408298