Analysis of the cue characteristics of task motivational instructions

Abstract

This study investigated the assumption of Barber's model of hypnosis that its set of task motivational instructions is thoroughly “nonhypnotic” in character. If this assumption is correct, then the cues associated naturally with task motivational instructions should be more compatible with a suggestibility test situation explicitly defined as nonhypnotic than with one defined as hypnotic, and this affinity should be reflected in both Ss' objective and subjective suggestibility test scores. Barber's (1965) Suggestibility Scale data collected from 90 Ss did not confirm the main prediction under test, but results failed to provide unequivocal support for the model; subjective evidence, in particular, supported least well the assumptions of the paradigm.