Hypnotic suggestibility, cognitive inhibition, and dissociation Zoltán Dienes a, * , Elizabeth Brown a , Sam Hutton a , Irving Kirsch b , Giuliana Mazzoni b , Daniel B. Wright c a School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK b Department of Psychology, University of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull HU6 7RX, UK c Department of Psychology, Florida International University, University Park Campus, H200 S.W. 8th Street, Miami, Florida 33199, USA article info Article history: Received 19 February 2009 Available online 25 August 2009 Keywords: Hypnosis Hypnotisability Suggestibility Negative priming Dissociation Gender abstract We examined two potential correlates of hypnotic suggestibility: dissociation and cogni- tive inhibition. Dissociation is the foundation of two of the major theories of hypnosis and other theories commonly postulate that hypnotic responding is a result of attentional abilities (including inhibition). Participants were administered the Waterloo-Stanford Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form C. Under the guise of an unrelated study, 180 of these participants also completed: a version of the Dissociative Experiences Scale that is normally distributed in non-clinical populations; a latent inhibition task, a spatial negative priming task, and a memory task designed to measure negative priming. The data ruled out even moderate correlations between hypnotic suggestibility and all the measures of dissociation and cognitive inhibition overall, though they also indicated gender differ- ences. The results are a challenge for existing theories of hypnosis. Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In response to suggestion, highly hypnotizable participants report and display a wide variety of interesting responses (Hilgard, 1965). They report hallucinations, negative hallucinations (not seeing or hearing a stimulus that is present), and clinically significant degrees of pain reduction. They display selective amnesia, partial paralyses, and vastly reduced Stroop interference (e.g. Raz, Shapiro, Fan, & Posner, 2002). With the exception of the Stroop effect modulation, one might suspect that these are merely enacted responses performed in compliance with the perceived demand characteristics of the exper- imental situation. However, behavioural and physiological data converge to indicate that these reports and responses reflect genuine changes in experience (e.g. Kinnunen, Zamansky, & Block, 1994; Kirsch, Silva, Carone, Johnston, & Simon, 1989; Oak- ley, 2008). One of the most notable characteristics of hypnosis is the stability of individual differences in responsiveness to sugges- tion. Test–retest correlations of .75 have been reported for a standard measure of hypnotic suggestibility over a 25-year interval (Piccione, Hilgard, & Zimbardo, 1989). Despite the prominence and reliability of individual differences in responding, correlates of hypnotic suggestibility are notoriously difficult to find. This is disappointing because theories of hypnosis sug- gest that various predictors of hypnotic suggestibility should be detectable. For example, dissociation theories (e.g. Hilgard, 1986; Woody & Bowers, 1994) regard hypnosis as involving a fractionation in the normal cognitive control systems. Disso- ciation theories are consistent with the association of hypnotisability with dissociative disorders in clinical populations (Bry- ant, Moulds, & Guthrie, 2001; Frischholz, Lipman, Braun, & Sachs, 1992; Stutman & Bliss, 1985). But these theories also predict that in non-clinical as well as clinical populations people who are highly responsive to hypnotic suggestion should 1053-8100/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2009.07.009 * Corresponding author. Address: Department of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QH, UK. Fax: +44 1273 678058. E-mail address: dienes@sussex.ac.uk (Z. Dienes). Consciousness and Cognition 18 (2009) 837–847 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Consciousness and Cognition journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/concog