Journal of abnormal psychology
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Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
Hypnosis, suggestion, and placebo in the reduction of experimental pain.
Two experiments compared placebo and hypnotic analgesia in high and low hypnotizable subjects. Experiment 1 demonstrated that hypnotic and placebo analgesia were equally ineffective in low hypnotizables, but that hypnotic analgesia was much more effective than placebo analgesia in high hypnotizables. Experiment 2 replicated these results, but also included low and high hypnotizables who were given a nonhypnotic suggestion for analgesia. ⋯ Both experiments found substantial discrepancies between the amount of pain reduction subjects expected from the various treatments and the amount of pain reduction they actually reported following exposure to those treatments. In Experiment 2, subjects in all treatments who reduced reported pain engaged in more cognitive coping and less catastrophizing than those who did not reduce pain. Theoretical implications are discussed.
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We examined the influence of visual information on a decision task that was administered to an individual with monocular visual conversion disorder. Findings indicated that his performance was influenced by the visual information and by motivation instructions. The findings are discussed in terms of a model of hysterical blindness that recognizes the interplay of cognitive and motivational processes.
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Eighty subjects underwent three trials of cold-pressor pain. The first cold-pressor trial served as a baseline. Next, subjects in a neutral (no expectancy information) condition were taught a distraction strategy (shadowing letters) before one cold-pressor trial and an imagery strategy before the other. ⋯ Negative information reduced expectancy ratings and decreased the magnitude of reported pain reductions. Both pretested levels of social desirability and degree of absorption in strategy use made contributions to the prediction of pain reduction that were independent of expectancy ratings. Theoretical implications are discussed.