Word: state
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Health Center under the direction of Dr. Martin T. Orne, an instructor in the Psychiatry Department of the Medical School, a teaching fellow in the Social Relations Department and member of Mental Health Center. The primary purpose of the study has been "to elucidate the nature of the hypnotic state," to discover exactly what hypnosis can and cannot do. Over 200 Harvard and Radcliffe students are participating in these tests along with students from other local schools. The results of these studies have tended to remove much of the mysterious fog that surrounds hypnosis and to clear up many...
...like nature. Such experiences as falling asleep in a lecture, getting totally absorbed in a book, or sleep-walking occur quite frequently. In hypnosis "the individual gets permission to function at this level," and he is more able to tolerate logical inconsistencies than he would be in the waking state...
...situation," Dr. Orne set up two groups of hypnotic subjects. Two separate lectures on hypnosis were given in an introductory psychology course. In one the erroneous impression was given that catalepsy of the dominant hand (the hand stays put wherever it is placed) is typical of the hypnotic state. This point was omitted entirely in the other lecture. Volunteers were then selected from both groups and hypnotized. (As a control measure, the hypnotist was not told which lecture the subjects had attended until the session was concluded...
Thus an important adjunct to understanding the hypnotic state is the preconceptions of the person who is to be hypnotized. A person in hypnosis will behave the way he thinks a hypnotized subject should behave. This will be modified by implicit and explicit cues from the hypnotist...
...control this confusing element in hypnotic research. Contrary to many ideas, the individual even in the deepest hypnosis is aware of his actions to some degree. And since an individual is conscious of his actions, these demand characteristics may be major determinants of his behavior in the hypnotic state...