Imaginative Involvement and Hypnotic Susceptibility: A Re-Examination of the Relationship

Several researchers have reported that significant correlations between hypnotic susceptibility and absorption result from the reactive effects of administering scales immediately before measurement of hypnotizability. The present study was conducted to determine whether interview measures of Imaginative Involvement are similarly reactive. Three groups of forty-eight, forty-three, and forty-three subjects each were first administered three scales of absorption/imaginativeness. This was followed by administration of a hypnotizability scale. Subjects in Group 1 who were administered the three scales immediately prior to hypnosis evidenced the usual significant positive correlation between each of the three scales and hypnotizability. Subjects in Groups 2 and 3 were administered the three scales twenty-four to thirty-six hours prior to hypnosis. Group 2 subjects were informed that administration of these scales was part of a hypnosis experiment. Group 3 subjects were not aware that the scales were part of a hypnosis experiment. No significant correlation between hypnotizability and the three measures of imagination/absorption was evidenced for either Group 2 or Group 3. Our findings suggest that any relationship between these two constructs may be quite dependent on how and when the measures are administered.