HYPNOTIC ANALGESIA, EXPECTANCY EFFECTS, AND CHOICE OF DESIGN - A REEXAMINATION

Previous research by Stam and Spanos suggests that if waking analgesia is followed by hypnotic analgesia, subjects refrain from maximally re sponding during the waking trial so they report less pain under hypnos is (i.e., a ''holdback effect''). This hypothesis was re-examined usin g more stringent controls. Thirty-six highly susceptible subjects chos en by a combination of the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibil ity, Form A and the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C wer e randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups (waking analgesia followed by hypnotic analgesia, waking analgesia followed by waking a nalgesia, or hypnotic analgesia followed by waking analgesia). Each gr oup received three 60-second immersions of cold pressor pain stimulati on (baseline, Immersion 1, Immersion 2) and rated pain using a magnitu de estimation and a category rating scale. The obtained results failed to support the hypotheses of a holdback effect or a ''reverse-order h oldback effect.'' Properties of within-subjects and between-subjects d esigns were considered in explaining the superiority of hypnotic analg esia over waking analgesia typically found in within-subjects models.