Hmmm. How would one go about creating an online Can You Be Easily Hypnotised Quiz that is accurate and fair but which also doesn’t give the wrong impressions? This week at the Hypnosis Technique Exchange, just such a query was posted. Our correspondent would like to create an online quiz to determine hypnotizeability with a series of yes-no questions.
My first reply is that you could contact the folks at HMI (Hypnosis Motivation Institute) http://www.hypnosis.edu and ask about the online rights to the tests developed by Dr. John Kappas. The form is a series of questions (yes-no) that are then scored to determing Physical Suggestibility and Emotional Suggestibility. In my experience, folks who score higher on the Physical Suggestibility tests tend to respond more readily to classic hypnosis approaches. However, I am still collecting data.
I use the first test of the Kappas sequence with my students along with a variation of the Stanford which is more interactive, and the Spiegel. I have found that the Stanford tends suggestibility tests tend to predict overall responsiveness – albeit, not hypnotizeability in and of itself. I do not use the Kappas sexuality suggestibility questionnaire with my students and so I can’t make a comment upon it.
In any case, it is a yes-no sequence so you might contact them about rights to use it.
I would suggest that you do NOT give folks the impression that any test score of this sort should be used by them to indicate whether or not they CAN be hyonotized. I believe that is an improper use of such tests (despite what some of the makers claim). Personally, I feel they might indicate more reliably what sort of induction would be more effective for some folks or what sort of language I might use to better engage a person’s imaginative involvement in the process.
Instead of building an online hypnotizeability test, you might consider an online streaming process that is fun and can engage the imagination and enhance their expectations at what they can accomplish . . . for instance, look at John Pullman’s playful online video . . . previously posted here . . . while it’s one of the easiest tests to get compliance with there is, it still engages the audience.
I hope this has been helpful.
All the best,
Brian
SPEED HYPNOSIS – Nov. 18-19, 2006
Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]Certified Hypnotherapist
President, Society of Experiential Trance
Associate Professor, NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan
http://www.BrianDavidPhillips.com
