Attitudinal and Imaginal Ability Predictors of Social Cognitive Skill-Training Enhancements in Hypnotic Susceptibility

Male and female subjects with initially low hypnotic susceptibility were either administered a skill-training procedure aimed at inculcating positive attitudes and appropriate interpretational sets toward hypnotic responding or assigned to a no-treatment control condition. Skill-trained subjects obtained significantly higher posttest scores than controls on objective and subjective dimensions of susceptibility and on measures of attitudes toward hypnosis. Over half of the skill-trained subjects but only one control subject scored in the high-susceptibility range on post testing. Questionnaire measures of imagery vividness and absorption predicted posttest susceptibility in skill-trained females, whereas a combination of attitudes toward hypnosis and imagery vividness predicted posttest susceptibility in skill-trained males. Theoretical implications are discussed.