HYPNOSIS AND REPORTING BIASES - TELLING THE TRUTH

We examined the malleability of verbal reports by manipulating pressur es to comply in an hypnotic context, but independently of hypnotic pro cedures. In both experiments, hypnotizable subjects received a baselin e and an hypnotic-deafness condition wherein they were required to rat e the intensity of a pure tone 10 s following completion of the tone. In Experiment 1, subjects biased their reported loudness reductions in response to a trial 3 demand instruction, but not to a similarly dist racting, though nondemanding, instruction. In Experiment 2, half of th e demand instruction subjects received bogus polygraphic feedback chal lenging the veracity of their loudness ratings. The results here indic ate that all demand instruction subjects biased their initial trial 3 reports; however, only those receiving polygraphic feedback recanted t heir initially biased trial 3 responses. The findings suggest that rep orting biases, reflecting purposeful deception, play a critical role i n hypnotic responding. (C) 1998 Academic Press.