Responsiveness to suggestions following waking and imagination instructions and following induction of hypnosis.

2 experiments are reported to test the increase of responsiveness to suggestion tests following hypnotic induction over responsiveness to such tests in waking and imagination conditions, an increase that has been doubted as a result of experiments by Barber and Calverley (1962, 1963). In the 1st experiment, 60 Ss were divided into groups of 20 Ss each serving under 1 of 3 conditions in a 1st session (waking, imagination, hypnosis). All received a standard hypnotic induction in a 2nd session. While the treatment effects did not yield significant differences on the 1st day, there were significant gains in responsiveness to suggestions by the waking and imagination groups in the 2nd session. In the 2nd experiment, with some methodological improvements, 90 Ss served in 6 groups of IS Ss each, in imagination without expectation of hypnosis, imagination with expectation of hypnosis, and hypnotic induction, in various combinations. Significant gains were found with hypnotic induction throughout. State reports (subjective responses of drifting into hypnosis) showed that those Ss within both imagination and hypnotic induction conditions who reported themselves as becoming hypnotized were the ones who yielded the highest suggestibility scores. The difficulty of obtaining significant treatment effects is noted unless Ss serve as their own controls.