HYPNOTIZABILITY AND DISSOCIATION IN A COLLEGE-AGE POPULATION - ORTHOGONAL INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES

In a sample of 886 college undergraduates, we examine the relationship between dissociative experiences and hypnotic susceptibility, which h as been shown to be a stable individual difference. Although the pheno mena of dissociation and hypnosis have been closely associated in both the scientific and popular literature since at least the 1880s, our c urrent research using two standard measures of dissociative experience s (The Dissociative Experiences Scale and the Questionnaire of Experie nces of Dissociation) and a traditional measure of hypnotic susceptibi lity (The Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility) reports an o rthogonal relationship between these factors. A lack of relation exist s even if only difficult hypnotic tasks are used. Theoretically, this research suggests that it may be important to distinguish between volu ntary and involuntary pathway to dissociative experiences.