Hypnotizability, imaginative involvement, and anxiety

Forty-five undergraduate students were investigated to determine the relationship between hypnotizability, imaginative involvement (absorption), and anxiety responses. Hypnotizability was measured independently with the Creative Imagination Scale (CIS), and imaginative involvement was measured with the Absorption Scale (ABS). The results indicated moderate significant correlations between CIS, ABS, and several of the anxiety measures. In particular self-reported physiological aspects of anxiety/activation were associated with the CIS and the ABS. Three of the subjects reported having panic attacks. These subjects also exhibited high hypnotic responsiveness, and their scores on the ABS and several of the anxiety scales were considerably elevated as compared with the group mean level.     

Hypnotic suggestibility predicts the magnitude of the imaginative word blindness suggestion effect in a non-hypnotic context

The present study investigated how the magnitude the word blindness suggestion effect on Stroop interference depended on hypnotic suggestibility when given as an imaginative suggestion (i.e. not post-hypnotic suggestion) and under conditions in which hypnosis was not mentioned. Hypnotic suggestibility is shown to be a significant predictor of the magnitude of the imaginative word blindness suggestion effect under these conditions. This is therefore the first study to show a linear relationship between the imaginative word blindness suggestion effect and hypnotic suggestibility across the whole hypnotizability spectrum. The results replicate previous findings showing that highs respond to the word blindness suggestion to a greater extent than lows but extend previous work by showing that the advantage for those higher on the hypnotizability spectrum occurs even in a non-hypnotic context. Negative attitudes about hypnosis may not explain the failure to observe similar effects of the word blindness suggestion in less hypnotizable individuals.     

Involvement in everyday imaginative activities, attitudes toward hypnosis, and hypnotic suggestibility.

One hundred male and 83 female subjects were assessed on absorption (i.e., involvement in everyday imaginative activities), attitudes toward hypnosis, and hypnotic suggestibility. Significant positive correlations were obtained for both sexes between absorption and attitudes and between each of these variables and hypnotic suggestibility. Multiple regression analyses indicated that most of the predicted variance in hypnotic suggestibility scores was accounted for in both sexes by the absorption variable.     

Cross-sectional studies of personality in a national sample: 2. Stability in neuroticism, extraversion, and openness

Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES I) Epidemiologic Followup Study were used to examine age differences in neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience. Cross-sectional analyses of data from 10,063 respondents showed that older subjects were slightly lower in neuroticism, extraversion, and openness; that age trends were not curvilinear; and that there were no differences in personality scores that might be attributable to a mild-life crisis or transition. Comparison with data from 654 participants in the Augmented Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (ABLSA) showed that the ABLSA sample was lower in extraversion and higher in openness than the national sample, although the differences were small in magnitude. Results were interpreted to mean that sampling and attrition in this longitudinal sample did not seriously bias results on these personality variables, and that cross-sectional findings from a large probability sample support the conclusion that personality is predominantly stable in adulthood.     

Patterns of hypnotic response,revisited

It has long been speculated that there are discrete patterns of responsiveness to hypnotic suggestions, perhaps paralleling the factor structure of hypnotizability. An earlier study by Brenneman and Kihlstrom (1986), employing cluster analysis, found evidence for 12 such profiles. A new study by Terhune (2015), employing latent profile analysis, found evidence for three such patterns among highly hypnotizable subjects, and a fourth comprising subjects of medium hypnotizability. Some differences between the two studies are described. Convincing identification of discrete “types” of high hypnotizability, such as dissociative and nondissociative, may require a larger dataset than is currently available, but also data pertaining directly to divisions in conscious awareness and experienced involuntariness.     

Personality traits and autobiographical memory: Openness is positively related to the experience and usage of recollections

We examined the relationship between the Five-Factor Model of personality and the experience and overall usage of autobiographical memory in two studies. In both studies we found that Openness was related to the directive and self functions of overall usage. In addition, Openness was related to the vividness, reliving, coherence, and centrality of event to the person's identity and life story of concrete memories in Study 2, whereas this was not found in Study 1. For the remaining "Big Five" personality traits the results were less consistent across studies. Neuroticism was related to the self function in Study 1, but also to the directive function as well as to negative affect of concrete memories in Study 1. Extraversion was positively related to the social function as well as to conversational rehearsal of memories in Study 1, but this was also not replicated in Study 2. Finally, in both studies there were no significant relationships with regard to Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Overall, the findings replicate and extend previous work showing a positive relationship between Openness and the experience and overall usage of autobiographical memory, whereas the roles for the remaining "Big Five" are less clear.     

Interpretive sets, expectancy, fantasy proneness, and dissociation as predictors of hypnotic response.

College students with no prior experience of hypnosis were assessed for fantasy proneness and dissociation. In a totally separate context, they were subsequently tested for their interpretations of hypnotic suggestions, hypnotic response expectancies, and hypnotizability. Contrary to Spanos and Gorassini's (1984) hypothesis, strategic enactment of suggested responses was rarely reported, and its endorsement was not correlated with hypnotic responsiveness. Suggestibility was significantly predicted by fantasy proneness and response expectancy, but not by dissociation. A path analysis suggested that the relation between fantasy proneness and hypnotizability was partially mediated by expectancy.     

Relationship of purported measures of pathological and nonpathological dissociation to self-reported psychological distress and fantasy immersion

In order to investigate both the psychometric structure of the Dissociative Experiences Survey (DES) and the discriminant validity of the DES-Taxon (Waller, Putnam, & Carlson, 1996) as a specific marker of pathological dissociation, 376 non-clinical community based respondents completed the DES and a battery of psychopathology and imaginative involvement self-report measures. The DES was scored for both the Taxon and the DES-Absorption subscale. A DES subscale purported to tap normative dissociative processes. The two DES subscales demonstrated substantial overlap, both with each other (r = .80) and with the self-report measures with both DES scales comparably associated with high levels of psychological distress. Both DES subscales were also associated with elevated levels of "normative" imaginative involvement (fantasy proneness, absorption, daydreaming immersion). We conclude that both DES scales are largely indistinguishable from each other in relation to other self-report measures of psychopathology and fantasy access.     

MEASUREMENT OF 'POLITICAL.' PREFERENCES: A further study of direct and indirect scaling methods

The direct methods of ratio estimation and magnitude estimation and the indirect method of pair comparison were used to construct scales of liberalism and conservatism. It was found ( a ) that the scales of conservatism are linearly related to each other and ( b ) those of liberalism are also linearly related to each other but with a discontinuity in the middle of the range; one linear function for the conservative statements and another for the liberal statements, with the discontinuity occurring in the middle of the subjective scale. Liberalism vs. conservatism was found to be reverse. The linear function between all kinds of scales as well as the reverse relation between liberalism vs. conservatism suggest that the continuum of political preferences is metathetic.     

Recruiting Global Travelers: The Role of Global Travel Recruitment Messages and Individual Differences in Perceived Fit,Attraction, and Job Pursuit Intentions

Organizations often require managers to travel globally to fill international roles. Attending to fit with an organization's need for international mobility and global openness during recruiting could increase the proportion of effective global managers in an organization's applicant pool. We use recruitment research and theory to develop and test a conditional process model of the relationship between recruitment messages and job seeker perceived fit, attraction, and job pursuit intentions, depending on job seekers’ global openness and willingness to travel globally. Recruitment messages include information about a job's travel requirements and the global presence of the business. Two studies were undertaken to test our hypotheses. Analyses were conducted with conditional process modeling using nonlinear bootstrapping. Study 1, involving 230 job seekers, found that applicants’ willingness to travel interacted with recruiting messages about a job's global travel requirements to relate to job pursuit intentions through perceived job fit and job attraction. Study 2, involving 260 participants recruited through Mechanical Turk, indicated that global openness interacted with a global recruitment message, and willingness to travel interacted with a travel recruitment message, to relate to job pursuit intentions through job and organizational dimensions of perceived fit and attraction.     

Identification During Imposed Change: The Roles of Personal Values,Type of Change,and Anxiety

Using a person‐situation perspective, we explain what happens to individuals' identification with a collective in the context of a change. We propose that given the anxiety that often emerges during change, individuals' personal values (conservation and openness to change) interact with type of change (imposed vs. voluntary) in predicting identification following change. In a pilot, longitudinal field study (N = 61, 67% female) of an imposed university campus relocation, we measured employees' values and identification with the university before and several months after the relocation. In two lab experiments (Study 1: N = 104, 91.3% female; Study 2: N = 113, 75.2% female), we manipulated a change to be either imposed or voluntary and compared the relationships between values and identification across types of change. In Study 2, we also measured anxiety from the change. When change was imposed (all three studies), but not when voluntary (Studies 1 and 2), individuals' conservation was positively, and openness negatively, related to individuals' post‐change identification. The effects emerged only for individuals who experienced change‐related anxiety (Study 2). Our findings demonstrate that individuals' identification with a changing collective depends on the amount of anxiety change elicits and on the particular combination of their values and type of change.     

Religion,trauma and non-pathological dissociation in Northern Ireland

This study assessed the relationships between non-pathological dissociation, trauma and religion in members of the Northern Irish diaspora in England. One hundred and seventy-nine opportunity sampled participants completed the non-pathological absorption and imaginative involvement items from the Dissociative Experiences Scale, the Age Universal Intrinsic-Extrinsic Religious Orientation Scale, and a measure of exposure to traumatic events in the form of political violence derived from the Irish Social Mobility Survey (1973), the Social Attitudes Survey (1978), the Social Identity Survey (1995) and the Northern Ireland Referendum and Election Survey (1998). Analysis indicated that non-pathological dissociative experiences were not significantly predicted by intrinsic religiosity, extrinsic religiosity, direct exposure to political violence or indirect exposure to political violence, but were significantly predicted by some specific religious practices. Findings are discussed with specific reference to research on dissociation, trauma, and religion.     

Goal-directed fantasy, hypnotic susceptibility, and expectancies

We conducted an initial screening session in which hypnosis was presented as a "test of imagination" and administered with other imagination measures. In a second session, we instructed high- and low-hypnotizable subjects to imagine along with suggestions but to resist responding to motoric suggestions. Subjects received either instructions to use goal-directed fantasies (GDFs) or no facilitative instructions. Sizable individual difference effects were secured. Hypnotizable subjects exhibited more suggestion-related movements and reported greater involuntariness than did low-hypnotizable subjects. With GDF instructions, low- and high-hypnotizable subjects reported equivalent GDF absorption and frequencies. However, hypnotizable subjects exhibited greater responsiveness and reported greater involuntariness than did those low in hypnotizability, even when their GDFs were equivalent. Thus, no support was generated for the hypotheses that sustained, elaborated suggestion-related imagery mediates response to suggestion (Arnold, 1946) or that absorption in suggestions is of particular importance for low-hypnotizable subjects (Zamansky & Clark, 1986). Our finding that measures of response expectancy paralelled responding and reports of nonvolition support the hypothesis that expectancies mediate the relation between imagination, involuntariness, and responding (Kirsch, 1985; Spanos, 1982). Hypnotizable imagining subjects in the study discussed here exhibited greater responsiveness than a comparable sample of subjects did in a previous countersuggestion study (Lynn, Nash, Rhue, Frauman, & Stanley, 1983) in which no attempt was made to foster an association between imagining and involuntary responding in the initial screening session.     

SBNR Identity: The Role of Impersonal God Representations,Individualistic Spirituality,and Dissimilarity With Religious Groups

We conducted two studies investigating the extent to which self-identification as Spiritual but not Religious (SBNR) was associated with (H1) the development of idiosyncratic religious beliefs and exposure to religious diversity and/or (H2) negative attitudes toward organized religion and being hurt by members of a religious group. In Study 1, SBNRs scored higher than religious and nonreligious participants on belief in God as an impersonal cosmic force (but not as a personal being) and individualistic spirituality. Although SBNRs had positive attitudes toward religion, they were less positive than those identifying as religious. Exposure to religious diversity and hurt by religious groups were not significant predictors of SBNR. We replicated these results in Study 2 using a multi-item measure of God representations and also found that SBNRs’ attitudes toward religion were predicted by a perceived dissimilarity with religious groups over and above individualism, secular group participation, perceptions of Christianity as too structured, and liberalism.     

NON-HYPNOTIC EXPERIENCES RELATED TO HYPNOTIZABILITY IN MALE AND FEMALE COLLEGE STUDENTS

Ås, A. Non-hypnotic experiences related to hypnotizability in male and female college students. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1962, 3 , 112–131.—Some recent research on the relation between subjective experiences and hypnotic susceptibility is reviewed. In a male sample of 50 subjects significant correlations between scores on the Experience Inventory and hypnotizability were found. A cross-validation of composite experience scores on this sample and a female sample studied earlier gave positive results. Based on several sources of data a preliminary analysis is made of the similarities and differences between male and female students regarding experiences related to hypnotizability.     

No personality change following unemployment: A registered replication of Boyce,Wood, Daly,and Sedikides (2015)

The involuntary loss of paid employment represents an adverse life event that has been suggested to lead to personality change. However, previous research has reported highly contradictory findings. Therefore, a replication of Boyce et al. (2015) is presented. These authors originally identified nonlinear changes in openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Using data from the German National Education Panel Study (N = 5005), we examined the impact of unemployment on personality change across three years. Latent change analyses indicated no effect of job loss on any Big Five trait. Moderating effects of unemployment duration or gender were not found. Even analyses accounting for potential selection effects led to comparable results. Thus, personality seemed invariant despite changes in employment status.     

The interoception and imagination loop in hypnotic phenomena

We tested a working hypothesis that the ideomotor and motor-control suggestions measured by current hypnotizability scales depend on the activation of an interoception-imagination processing loop. In three experiments, participants were exposed to an induction phase, Items 3 (mosquito hallucination) and 8 (arm immobilization) of the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C, and a new version of Item 8 involving the additional activation of imaginative and interoception processes. We found that this modified version of Item 8 elicited greater responsiveness to suggestion, irrespective of its position in the sequence of hypnotic items. We argue that this interoception-imagination loop hypothesis provides a useful information processing analysis for understanding several hypnotic phenomena.     

Parent–Child Discrepancies in Report of Psychopathology: The Contributions of Response Bias and Parenting Stress

Summary: Two experiments were conducted to examine the relationship between conservatism and openness to experiences. In Study 1, the responses of 64 males and 60 females to the Conservatism Scale and the Coan (1972) Experience inventory were correlated. For the total sample, conservatism was significantly related to the total score of the Experience Inventory plus six of seven of the component scales. Study II examined the relationship between conservatism and the expressed willingness to volunteer for certain psychological experiments that were assumed to require more openness. Subjects were 91 males and 114 females from introductory psychology classes. High conservative subjects were less wiling to volunteer for the experiments that required more openness as compared to low conservative subjects. These results were discussed in the context of volunteer bias in psychological research.     

Group Identification and University Involvement1

Campus involvement has been identified as an important predictor of academic persistence and success. We propose a group identification approach to campus involvement and present the results of 3 studies. Study 1 established that group identity was strongly related to campus involvement. Study 2 determined that group identity mediated the relationship between student residency (on‐campus vs. off‐campus) and campus involvement. Study 3 replicated the prior results, but used a longitudinal design to help rule out alternative explanations. We conclude that group identification, particularly the affective component, plays an important role in campus involvement, and offer suggestions for enhancing group identification and for further research.