Suggestibility

The intrigue of differences in individual suggestibility even crops up in the early Greek philosophers. Aristotle had an unconcerned approach:

"The most intelligent minds are those that can entertain an idea without necessarily believing it."

— Aristotle

[8]

This perhaps is a more accurate echo of the experience of practicing hypnotherapists and hypnotists. When anyone is absorbed in someone else's inspiring words as they outline an idea or way of thinking, the subjective attention is held because of the logic, the aesthetic, and the relevance of the words to one's own personal experience and motivations. In these natural trance states, like those orchestrated purposefully by a hypnotherapist, the 'critical faculties' are naturally less active when there is less to be naturally critical of.

It is perhaps the "necessarily believing it" that is problematic, as this conception of suggestibility raises issues of the autonomy of attributing belief to an introduced idea, and how this happens.[9]

Popular media and layman's articles occasionally use the terms "suggestible" and "susceptible" interchangeably, with reference to the extent to which a given individual responds to incoming suggestions from another. The two terms are not synonymous, however, as the latter term carries inherent negative bias absent from the neutral psychological factor described by "suggestibility".

In scientific research and academic literature on hypnosis and hypnotherapy, the term "suggestibility" describes a neutral psychological and possibly physiological state or phenomena. This is distinct from the culturally biased common parlance of the term "suggestible". The term "susceptible" implies weakness or some increased danger to which one is more likely to become a victim. It therefore has a negative effect on expectation and itself is a hypnotic suggestion that suggestions must be noticed and guarded against. Both terms are often bound with undeserved negative social connotations not inherent in the word meanings themselves.

To be suggestible is not to be gullible. The latter pertains to an empirical objective fact that can be shown accurate or inaccurate to any observer; the former term does not. To be open to suggestion has no bearing on the accuracy of any incoming suggestions, nor whether such an objective accuracy is possible, as is the case with metaphysical belief.

Some therapists may examine worries or objections to suggestibility before proceeding with therapy: this is because some believe there is a rational or learned deliberate will to hold a belief, even in the case of more convincing new ideas, when there is a compelling cognitive reason not to 'allow oneself' to be persuaded. Perhaps this can be seen in historical cases of mass hypnosis where also there has been media suppression. In the individual, unexamined actions are sometimes described by hypno- and psycho-therapists based on outgrown belief systems.

Hypnotic suggestions include terms, phrases, or whole concepts where to understand the concept includes making sense of a subjective sensation, or a framework for the appropriate response.... simple one-word forms of this include the word terrorism where to understand the concept, one must understand the notion of terror and then understand in the sentence that it is meant to refer to "that" given object.

Cognition of a phrase must occur before the decision how to act next can occur: because the concepts must exist before the mind. Either they are suggested from the mind itself, or in response to introduced suggestions of concepts from outside – the world and its scenarios and facts, or suggestions from other people.

A suggestion may direct the thoughts to notice a new concept, focus on a specific area within the world, offer new perspectives that later may influence action-choices, offer triggers for automatic behavior (such as returning a smile), or indicate specific action types. In hypnotherapy the portrayed realistic experience of the client's requested outcome is suggested with flattery or urgency, as well as personalized to the client's own motivations, drives, and tastes.

Suggestions are not necessarily verbal, spoken, or read. A smile, a glare, a wink, a three-piece suit, a scientist's white coat, are all suggestive devices that imply more than the immediate action. A hypnotist uses techniques that use these instinctive "fillings-in of gaps" and changes to how we respond to a scenario or moment. In the therapy setting, a hypnotist or hypnotherapist will likely evaluate these automatic cognitive leaps, or dogma, or any self-limiting or self-sabotaging beliefs.

Being under the influence of suggestion can be characterized as exhibiting behavioral compliance without private acceptance or belief. That is, actions being inconsistent with one's own volition and belief system and natural unhindered action-motivations. This could hinder the autonomy, expression or self-determination of an individual. It could equally supersede emotions with rationally chosen, deliberate long-term results.

The applications of hypnosis vary widely and investigation of responses to suggestion can be usefully separated into two non-exclusive broad divisions:

• Experimental hypnosis: the study of "experimental suggestion", of the form:

"What is it that my group of test subjects actually do when I deliver the precise standard suggestion ABC to each of them in the same experimental context?"

(i.e., given a fixed suggestion, what is the outcome?)

• Clinical hypnosis: the study of clinical suggestion directed at the question:

"What is it that I can possibly say to this particular subject, in this specific context, to generate my goal of having them do XYZ?" (I.e., given a fixed outcome, what is the suggestion?)

• Age: Children have a remarkable ability to remember events in their lives. The real variability between ages in suggestibility is the amount of detail provided for an event. Memory detail will be great for older children. Some younger children may need help recalling past events with the help of an adult.[11] The problem as it relates to suggestibility is when children, and even adults, blend previous knowledge of similar experiences into their recollection of a single event. Children, particularly younger children, are prone to including details that are similar yet unrelated to the specific event showing that the age of a person is critical in their susceptibility to influence.
• Prior knowledge: As mentioned before, the possession of prior knowledge that relates to an event can be particularly dangerous when dealing with child suggestibility. Prior knowledge, as it relates to suggestibility is the use of past experiences to help reconstruct past or current events. Prior knowledge of an event can actually be effective at producing accurate recall of a particular situation, but can also be equally as effective at producing false memories. Research showed that when presented with a previously familiar situation, children were likely to falsely recall events as if they had happened.
• Gist extraction: Although children are extremely likely to recall false memories when past events are similar to a current event, they will also recall false memory details that are seemingly unrelated to the event. Researchers named this phenomenon global gist, which is a representation that identifies connections across multiple events. Children will falsely recall information that fits with their representation of the events around them.

• Interviewer bias: Interviewer bias is the opinion or prejudice on the part of an interviewer, which is displayed during the interview process and thus affects the outcome of the interview. This happens when interviewers pursue only a single hypothesis that supports what they already think, and ignore any details that counter their hypothesis. The goal is not to get the truth, but to simply corroborate what is already believed. Interviewer bias is commonly experienced when extracting information from children.
• Repeated questions: It has been shown that asking children the same question over and over again in an interview will often cause the child to reverse their first answer, especially in yes or no questions. It is the child's belief that since the question is being repeated that they must have not answered correctly and need to change their answer.[12]
• Interviewer's tone: Children are extremely perceptive of people's tones, especially in an interview situation. When an interviewer's tone dictates the questioning, a child is likely to construct memories of past events when they actually have no memory of that event. An example would be that when a positive tone is used, it has shown to produce more detailed accounts of events. However, it has also been shown to produce false information intended to appease the interviewer.
• Peer interactions: Children's accounts of events can be greatly distorted by information from their peers. In some cases, children who were not present for an event will later recall witnessing the event as well as details about the event. This information come from hearing about the event as described by their peers.[13] These children may speak up in order to feel included.
• Repeating misinformation: Repeating misinformation is simply when an interviewer gives a child incorrect details of an event. This technique is used over several interviews and occurs several times within a single interview. It has been shown to have a great effect on the accuracy of a child's recollection of an event, and eventually, the misinformation will be included in the child's account of a given event.

In extreme events such as sexual abuse, extreme anxiety or mistreatment, children can in fact be greatly subjected to suggestibility. It is possible that a child may recall something that didn't actually happen[14] or they are so traumatized that they do not want to think about what actually happened.

Little research has been carried out into the effects of anxious mood at the time of either the encoding of misleading post‐event information or the time of its possible retrieval, on subsequent suggestibility. Memory accuracy for non‐suggestible items was unaffected by the anxious mood induction. With respect to suggestibility, there was a strong effect of misleading information.[15] This is just one example of how a highly emotional situation such as an anxiety attack can create suggestibility misconception.

Another example of research is that memory, suggestibility, stress arousal, and trauma-related psychopathology were examined in 328 3- to 16-year-olds involved in forensic investigations of abuse and neglect. Children's memory and suggestibility were assessed for a medical examination and venipuncture. Being older and scoring higher in cognitive functioning were related to fewer inaccuracies. In addition, cortisol level and trauma symptoms in children who reported more dissociative tendencies were associated with increased memory error.[16] This again proves how a stressful or traumatic experience in young children can be affected by suggestibility.