ACTION AND DESIRE IN POSTHYPNOTIC RESPONDING

The authors examined the impact of suggestion focus and test type on t he posthypnotic responding of high hypnotizable participants. The post hypnotic suggestion focused on either behavior (action) or experience (desire); posthypnotic responding was indexed in a formal test, an emb edded test, and an informal test. In Experiment 1, the posthypnotic su ggestion involved a motor act. Participants given the action suggestio n were more likely to respond completely on the formal test than parti cipants given the desire suggestion. Also, responding declined across the three tests; suggestion focus influenced responding on the informa l but not the embedded test. In Experiment 2, the posthypnotic suggest ion involved a verbal act. In contrast to Experiment 1, participants g iven the action or desire suggestion responded similarly on the formal test. As in Experiment 1, responding declined across the three tests; however, suggestion focus did not influence responding on the embedde d or the informal tests. The findings highlight the meaningful effects of changes in what the hypnotist says, what participants are asked to do, and how their responses are assessed.