Suggestion and Suggestibility Theory and Research

This book contains the proceedings of the First International Sym­ posium on Suggestion and Suggestibility, held at the University of Giessen in the Federal Republic of Germany, July 7-111987, upon the initiative of and organized by Dr. V. A. Gheorghiu and Dr. P. Netter. I regret that for personal reasons I was unable to accept his kind invita­ tion to attend, for Dr. Gheorghiu and I are old friends. I am pleased, however, to have this opportunity to call attention to the significance of this volume. Most of the chapters were presented in approximately their present form at the symposium, though some have been extensi­ vely revised for publication. It was a wise choice to divide the papers into four major sections. - I. Theoretical and Historical Perspectives, II. Assessment and Indivi­ dual Differences of Suggestibility, III. Psychophysiological Aspects of Suggestibility, and IV. Social and Cognitive Aspects of Suggestive Processes - each with a summarizing commentary. In view of the variety and difficulty of the individual papers, it is a help to have the integration provided by these commentaries - on Part I by Sheehan (Chap. 7), on Part II by Lundy (Chap. 13), on Part III by Edmonston (Chap. 19), and on Part IV by Fiedler (Chap. 30).

I. Theoretical and Historical Perspectives.- 1. The Development of Research on Suggestibility: Critical Considerations.- 2. Personality, Primary and Secondary Suggestibility, and Hypnosis.- 3. Conceptual Clarification of Hypnosis and its Relationship to Suggestibility.- 4. The Internal Confirmation of Personal Constructs: Why Suggestions are Not Accepted.- 5. Some Suggestions About Suggestion and Hypnosis: A Radical Constructivist View.- 6. The Difficulty in Explaining Suggestion: Some Conceivable Solutions.- 7. Commentary on ”Theoretical and Historical Perspectives’ ..- II. Suggestibility: Assessment and Individual Differences.- 8. Sensory Suggestibility: Measurement, Individual Differences, and Relation to Placebo and Drug Effects.- 9. Theoretical and Empirical Aspects of Interrogative Suggestibility.- 10. The Independence of Suggestibility, Placebo Response, and Hypnotizability.- 11. Cognitive and Physiological Flexibility: Multiple Pathways to Hypnotic Responsiveness.- 12. Interpretational Sets, Hypnotic Responding, and the Modification of Hypnotizability.- 13. Measurement and Individual Differences of Suggestibility: Some Comments.- III. Psychophysiological Aspects of Suggestibility.- 14. Cortical Event-Related Evoked Potential Correlates of Hypnotic Hallucination.- 15. Hypnotic Susceptibility and Cerebral Hemisphere Preponderance: Verbal-Imaginal Discrimination Task.- 16. 40-H2 EEG and Hypnotizability during Mental Activity.- 17. Hypnotic Susceptibility, Alpha Waves and 40-H2 EEG Rhythm, and Personality.- 18. Perceptual Styles in Chromatic Binocular Rivalry, Hypnotic Susceptibility, and Cerebral Dominance.- 19. Psychophysiological and Psychobiological Aspects of Suggestive Processes: A Commentary.- IV. Social and Cognitive Aspects of Suggestive Processes.- 20.Some Historical and Cultural Aspects of Suggestion.- 21. Suggestion as Social Biasing of Meaning Tests: A Heiderian Extension of the Miller, Galanter and Pribram Paradigm — Catalyzing McGuire’s Theory of Attitude Change.- 22. Memory Modification and the Role of the Media.- 23. Response to Suggestions of Memory Distortion in Hypnosis: Sampling Cognitive and Social Factors.- 24. A Mediational Theory of Susceptibility to Social Influence.- 25. Suggestion and Credibility: Lie Detection Based on Content-Related Cues.- 26. Expectations, Confirmation Bias, and Suggestibility.- 27. Indirect Suggestion as a Research Tool.- 28. Slight Manipulations with Great Effects: On the Suggestive Impact of Vocal Parameter Change.- 29. Suggestion, Self-Attribution, and behavior.- 30. The Manifold Facets of Social Influence: A Comment on the Social Psychological Contributions.