Hypnosis – A Party Trick or a Serious Therapeutic Method?

Hyp­notic re­spon­ding might be due to at­te­nu­ated frontal lobe func­tio­ning after the hyp­notic in­duc­tion. Little is known about whe­ther per­so­na­lity traits linked with frontal func­tio­ning are as­so­ciated with re­spon­siveness to hyp­notic sug­ge­s­tions. We as­sessed whe­ther hyp­notic sug­ge­s­ti­bi­lity is re­lated to the traits of self-con­trol and im­pul­si­vity in 154 par­ti­ci­pants who com­pleted the Brief Self-Con­trol Scale, the Self-Re­gu­la­tion Scale, the Bar­ratt Im­pul­siveness Scale (BIS-11), and the Har­vard Group Scale of Hyp­notic Suscep­ti­bi­lity (HGSHS:A). BIS-11 non-plan­ning im­pul­si­vity cor­re­lated po­si­tively with HGSHS:A (Bon­fer­roni-cor­rected). Fur­ther­more, in the best model emer­ging from a step­wise mul­tiple re­gres­sion, both non-plan­ning im­pul­si­vity and self-con­trol po­si­tively pre­dicted hyp­notic sug­ge­s­ti­bi­lity, and there was an in­ter­ac­tion of BIS-11 motor im­pul­si­vity with gender. For men only, motor im­pul­si­vity tended to pre­dict hyp­notic sug­ge­s­ti­bi­lity. Hyp­notic sug­ge­s­ti­bi­lity is as­so­ciated with per­so­na­lity traits linked with frontal func­tio­ning, and hyp­notic re­spon­ding in men and women might differ.