States of Consciousness

HYPNOSIS

Discuss• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prMvP9ustN0

• What different states of consciousness do you think there are?

• Of the time that you are awake , how much time do you think you are consciously thinking about the world around you?

• What do you think Hypnosis is ?

• What do you think happens to people who are hypnotised?

Controversial Question

• When someone is hypnotised, do they enter a different state of consciousness or is there another explanation for their behaviour.

State versus Non-state

• State Theory: Hypnosis is a different state from waking or sleeping

• Non-state: Hypnosis promotes relaxation, imagination and compliance. So hypnotised people are not in a different state, the just behave differently

Hypnosis is a state of heightened suggestibility in which people experience imagined situations as if they were real.

Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815)

Mesmer developed a technique called ‘animal magnetism’ (later renamed mesmerism).

Mesmer noticed that patients would often enter a trance-like state. Apparent ‘miracle cures’ also resulted.

Eventually Mesmer realised the magnets were unnecessary .

Hypnosis

• In 1841 Scottish surgeon James Braid witnessed a demonstration of mesmerism and began to develop his own technique.

• Braid held a bright object in front of patients’ eyes while also making verbal suggestions.

• He argued mesmerism was a state of “nervous sleep” produced by concentrated attention.

• He renamed it hypnosis after Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep.

Hypnotic Induction Procedures

• Hypnotic induction is the process by which one person leads another into hypnosis.

• It is not necessary to swing a watch in front of the eyes or say “you are feeling sleepy”!

• Moss (1965) reported being able to sometimes induce a trance simply by saying “Please sit in that chair and go into hypnosis”!

Sample test items from the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C

Item Suggested Behaviour

Criterion for Passing

Arm lowering Right arm will become heavy

Arm lowered by at least 6 inches

Moving hands apart

Force is pushing hands apart

Hands are 6 or more inches apart

Mosquito hallucination

Mosquito is buzzing nearby

Any grimace or acknowledgement

Posthypnotic amnesia

Will not remember suggestions

Three or fewer items recalled

Hypnotic Susceptibility

• According to Hilgard (1977), in an average testing session 10% of subjects will be completely nonresponsive, 10% will pass all or nearly all items, and the rest will fall in between. This is a stable characteristic when tested 25 years later people scored the same !

• However susceptibility can be enhanced by increasing people’s expectations (Spanos et al., 1991; Vickery & Kirsch, 1991).

Behaviour under Hypnosis• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9djiWIWMaO

A• Hypnotised people are very suggestible and their

behaviour will conform with what the hypnotist tells them. Typical behaviour that can be induced include:

• Acting out imaginary scenes.• Pretending to be an animal.• Believing a limb cannot move or is insensitive to pain.• Positive and negative hallucinations – seeing things that

are not really there, or not seeing objects that really are present.

• Enhanced memory or posthypnotic amnesia

Plenary

• What is hypnosis?

• How can we be sure that hypnosis is real?

• What is a key argument against hypnosis being a real phenomenon?

• Why do you think people vary in their susceptibility to hypnosis?

• Why is hypnosis useful?

Test• Define Hypnosis

• What is the only essential ingredient for hypnotic induction?

• What is a key argument against hypnosis being a specific state of consciousness?

• According to Hilgard what percentage of people are not susceptible to hypnosis?

• What can increase susceptibility?

Why does hypnosis work?

• There are two main competing explanations for how hypnosis works:

• Dissociation (state hypothesis) theories.

• Social Cognitive (non-state hypothesis) theories.

Dissociation theories of hypnosis

• Dissociation theories view hypnosis as an altered state of consciousness.

• Best known example is the neo-dissociation theory proposed by Ernst Hilgard (1978, 1991).

• Hilgard argued that cognition involves multiple systems of control which are not all conscious at the same time.

• These systems are controlled and motivated by a central ‘executive ego’.

Neo-dissociation Theory

• Executive ego distributes cognitive resources to different tasks e.g driving and using a mobile phone !!! Multi-tasking divides attention.

 

• Hilgard argued that during hypnosis the hypnotist gains control of the executive ego, and therefore has access to the various subsidiary control systems.

• Hypnosis creates a division of awareness in which a person simultaneously experiences two streams of consciousness (primary consciousness and a hidden observer)that are cut off from one another.

• The primary consciousness responds to the hypnotist’s suggestions, while the hidden observer is stuck behind an amnesiac barrier, aware of everything going on but unable to communicate, until the hypnotist asks it to.

‘Hidden Observer’ Phenomenon

• In one study Hilgard (1977) hypnotised subjects and suggested that they would not feel pain.

• Then placed arm in ice-cold water for 45 seconds and reported level of pain experienced.

• For another group Hilgard said “Perhaps there is another part of you that is more aware than your hypnotised part. If so, would that part of you report the amount of pain”.

‘Hidden Observer’ Study (Hilgard, 1977)

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Normal PainHidden ObserverHypnotized Subject

Hypnosis and Involuntary Control

• When under hypnosis people subjectively experience their actions to be involuntary.

• Can people be made to perform acts that are harmful to themselves or others?

• Evans & Orne (1965) told hypnotized subjects that a cup of foaming liquid was ‘acid’. They were told to throw it a person’s face (to see if they would follow the instructions despite it being harmful)

Evaluation

• However, a control group who were asked to simply pretend that they were hypnotised behaved in the same way.

• This behaviour can be explained in terms of “destructive obedience”; i.e., psychological compliance with an authority figure (Milgram, 1974).

Evidence in favour of hypnosis being a separate state of consciousness

• For some time now hypnosis has been successful when anaesthetics cannot be used and in the treatment of chronic pain (Hilgard and Le Baron 1984).

• People can imitate clinical depression successfully but that is not to say clinical depression does not exist. The crucial point is that the hypnotised person believes they are in a different state, whilst the imitator does not. (McIlveen 1995).

• An important feature of the Hilgard model is the “hidden observer”. Hilgard (1973) induced hypnotic deafness in a participant but also suggested that he should raise a finger when asked if there was any part of him that could still hear. Deafness was convincingly established but a finger was still raised when the question was asked. In Hilgards view this is the hidden observer monitoring the situation and replying to the question without the participants awareness.

• Some researchers feel that hypnosis is associated with specific changes in brain electrical activity (Crawford and Gruzlier – 1992)

• It is possible we are looking at the wrong measures or the wrong part of the brain for hypnotic phenomena.

• Although Kosslyn et al (2000) found that when pps were asked to visualise adding colour to a grey image there was increased brain activity in the left hemisphere when they were hypnotised but not when they weren’t.

Plenary

• Can you describe Hilgard’s theory?

• What is the ‘hidden observer’?

• Use handout to identify criticisms of State theories of hypnosis.

• Discuss

Test• What is the proper name of Hilgard’s theory of

hypnosis?

• Briefly describe Hilgard’s evidence for the hidden observer.

• What is Hilgard’s name for the part of consciousness which is in control of the multiple cognitive control structures?

• Why does hypnosis appear to produce involuntary actions?

Social Cognitive theories of hypnosis

• Social cognitive theories deny that hypnosis produces an altered state of consciousness.

• Instead argue that hypnotic experiences result from expectations of people motivated to take on the role of being “hypnotised”.

• Subjects develop a perceptual set – a readiness to respond to suggestions and to perceive hypnotic experiences as real and involuntary.

Stanley Milgram (1933-1984)

Do we need to be hypnotised to do things against our will?

I observed a mature and initially poised businessman enter the laboratory smiling and confident. Within 20 minutes he was reduced to a twitching, stuttering wreck, who was rapidly approaching nervous collapse. He constantly pulled on his ear lobe, and twisted his hands. At one point he pushed his fist into his forehead and muttered “Oh God lets stop it”. And yet he continued to respond to every word of the experimenter, and obeyed to the end.

Milgram, Behavioral Study of Obedience

• In a study by Orne (1959) subjects were told prior to being hypnotised that a common feature of a trance is stiffening of the muscles in the dominant hand.

• This information was fictitious.• When the subjects were hypnotised, 55%

spontaneously displayed hand stiffening.• No subjects in a control group showed this

behaviour.• Social Cognitive theories do not claim that

hypnotised people are ‘pretending’. Expectations can influence behaviour without conscious awareness (e.g., placebo effects etc.)

Alternative explanations of hypnosis – Non-state theories• Barber (1969) suggests that hypnosis is simply the result of experimental “demand characteristics”

i.e. the participant pleases the experimenter and tries not to “ruin the show”.• All hypnotic phenomena can be imitated by non hypnotised people, indistinguishably from the

hypnotised (Barber 1979)In a study by Orne (1959) subjects were told prior to being hypnotised that a common feature of a

trance is stiffening of the muscles in the dominant hand.This information was fictitious.When the subjects were hypnotised, 55% spontaneously displayed hand stiffening.No subjects in a control group showed this behaviour.

• No measure of brain activity successfully distinguishes between hypnotised and non hypnotised states consistently. (Sarbin and Slagle 1972).

• Council and Kenny (1992) showed that expert ratings also failed to distinguish between self reports of subjects experiencing hypnotic induction from those experiencing relaxation training and they conclude that the state of consciousness produced by the two procedures is indistinguishable.

• Wagstaff (1995) indicates that research and debate in hypnosis flourishes but we do not seem to be any further forward in deciding whether there is an altered state of consciousness we can call “hypnosis”.

Summary

• Hypnosis produces an increased receptiveness to suggestions.

• Hypnotised people subjectively experience their actions to be involuntary.

• Dissociation theories attribute this to divided streams of consciousness.

• Social Cognitive theories attribute this to subject’s expectation as to what effect hypnosis will have on them.

Test

• What did Spanos et al find about susceptability in hypnosis?

• What were the specific findings of Orne’s study with the hand stiffening?

• What is a major weakness of state theories?

• Explain a problem with the argument that hypnosis can be faked.

Evaluation and AnalysisEvaluation – However, Although, On the other hand•Look for alternative explanations for findings of research or theoretical conclusions•Criticise the research methods and validity of findings

Analysis

•This suggests……

•This implies that………..

•This shows us that………….

Essay plan• Describe what hypnosis is and how it affects

behaviour. Controversial question is whether it produces an altered state of consciousness or not.

• Outline and evaluate state theory including 3 pieces of research evidence

• Outline and evaluate non-state theory including 3 pieces of research evidence

• Conclusion should discuss the usefulness of hypnosis despite the inability of science to explain the phenomenon completely.