Motivation, performance, and hypnosis

Abstract

London and Fuhrer (1961) and Rosenhan and London (1963a; 1963b) report that the waking base level performance of Ss who are relatively insusceptible to hypnosis is higher than the waking base level of highly susceptible Ss on tasks of muscular strength, endurance, coordination, and verbal learning. They also report that any increment in performance under hypnosis tends to be at least as great with insusceptible Ss as with highly susceptible Ss. These previous studies were carefully replicated, but the results were not confirmed. No differences in base level or hypnosis performance were found, except for poorer hypnosis performance of Ss of medium susceptibility to hypnosis, arising in part from the emphasis on relaxation in the induction procedure, and in part because of subtle demand characteristics present in the counterbalanced experimental design. These factors, and the failure by Ss to rate themselves as deeply hypnotized, suggest caution in interpreting the null findings as negating motivational explanations of hypnotic performance.

Many manuscripts submitted to International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis deal with highly specialized problems. In order to assist the editorial board in arriving at a judicious evaluation of these manuscripts, the following editorial consultants have provided specialized assistance in their respective fields of competence. The editor wishes to take this opportunity to gratefully acknowledge their assistance.

Frederick J. Evans Seymour Fisher Ulric Neisser Donald N. O'Connell Sydney Pulver David Rosenhan