1
Understanding Consciousness and Hypnosis
Module 22
Module 22 provides a definition and brief historical account of the increasing importance of the study of
consciousness in psychology. The various states of consciousness are discussed here and current
information on hypnosis is reviewed alongside a discussion of Ernest Hilgard’s hypnotism experiments.
The parallels between hypnosis and selective attention are illustrated with research studies.
Defining Consciousness
List and elaborate on the historical factors that impacted the view of consciousness in the field of
psychology.
In 1887, psychology was the description and explanation of states of
consciousness. During the first half of the twentieth century, behaviorists
turned to direct observations of behavior rather than trying to study the
elements of consciousness. After 1960, mental concepts reemerged. Neuroscience
advances related brain activity to sleeping, dreaming, and other states. Cognition,
or mental processes, became important. We now define consciousness as our
awareness of ourselves and our environment. We talk about dual processing and
selective attention.
Hypnosis
What is one defining
characteristic of someone who
is easily hypnotized?
Discuss the evidence refuting
some of the commonly held
false beliefs about hypnosis.
Highly hypnotizable
people are those with
the ability to focus
attention totally on a
task, to become
imaginatively absorbed
in it, and to entertain
fanciful possibilities.
Hypnosis cannot be used to
tap into a pure and complete
memory bank—hypnotically
refreshed memories combine
fact with fiction. Hypnosis
cannot force people to act
against their will. Orne and
Evans inserted a control
group of pretend hypnotic
patients into an experiment
and showed that
unhypnotized patients
performed the same
behaviors.
List the ways in which hypnosis
is used today in therapy and for
pain reduction.
POSTHYPNOTIC
SUGGESTIONS
Hypnosis seems helpful for
the treatment of obesity, but
drug, alcohol, and smoking
addictions have not
responded well to hypnosis.
Hypnosis can relieve pain—
and can reduce fear.
Hypnotized patients can
require less medication and
recover sooner and leave the
hospital earlier. Nearly 10%
of people can undergo major
surgery while deeply
hypnotized.
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Explaining the Hypnotized State
Explain the arguments that state that hypnosis is
a social phenomenon.
Like actors caught up in their
roles, hypnotized subjects begin
to feel and behave in ways
appropriate for “good hypnotic
subjects”—the more they like and
trust the hypnotist, the more they
allow that person to direct their
attention and fantasies.
Summarize how Ernest Hilgard’s work supports
the idea hypnosis as a divided consciousness.
Ernest Hilgard proposed the idea of the
hidden observer or divided consciousness
and this idea of dual processing would help
explain why the hypnotized subjects could
identify the color quicker.
Hilgard also had hypnotized people lower
their arm into an ice bath, and found that the
hypnosis dissociated the sensation of the
pain stimulus from the emotional suffering
that defined their experience of pain.
Hypnosis divided their consciousness so that
they could feel the cold, but not the pain.
Discuss the Stroop effect and how it supports the
argument that hypnosis is a state of divided
consciousness.
The Stroop Effect is a
phenomenon that occurs when
subjects are asked to identify the
color of letters that form words.
When those words are color
words and in the same color as
the word itself (ie. RED is colored
red), the subjects are easily able
to identify color. It gets trickier
when RED is colored green. While
hypnotized and given a
suggestion to focus on the color
and see the letters as gibberish,
they were much less slowed by
the word-color conflict.
John is a soccer player who sustained a serious injury
during the game but was not aware of it and did not
feel the pain from the injury until the game was over.
Discuss how the idea of selective attention plays a role
in his ability to not feel the pain.
A form of dual processing, selective
attention may play a role in hypnotic
pain relief. Hypnosis reduces brain
activity in the region that processes
painful stimuli but not in the sensory
cortex, which receives the raw sensory
input—the attention to the stimuli is
blocked until we direct our attention
to it (after the game).