Kirsch (2000) - The Response Set Theory of Hypnosis, Lay Summary
Summary:
The author inverts the traditional model of volition. We don't mistakenly see hypnotic responses as automatic. We mistakenly see everyday actions as voluntary.
Terminology:
Research into suggestibility finds the top 3 predictors of responsiveness are:
Non-hypnotic suggestibility (do they comply in a non-hypnotic context)
Response Expectancy
Motivation (Do they want to comply?)
Response expectancy?
Humans evolved to rapidly predict events to respond more quickly so we don't just deal with "stimulus" and "response." We prime rapid responses with 'stimulus expectancies' (our prediction of what we expect to perceive) and 'response expectacies (our prediction of how we're going to respond.
Stimulus expectancies accelerate response to ambiguous situations by:
Predicting reality (baseball players predict the ball path before the ball has left the pitcher's hands by how they throw)
Preframing meaning: It puts novel situations in a familiar 'box' we know how to handle.
Consider the class old/young woman illusion. If you stand in a gallery titled "pictures of young victorian woman" and see the image briefly, your mind will rapidly filter the 'off' details to see a young woman and miss the ambiguity (you could also see an old woman).
Response expectancies accelerate response by pre-initiating conditioned reactions. If I take a pill, I expect to get better, meaning:
I'm more likely to take the pill (I expect good outcomes)
I generate physiological changes and behaviors in line with expectation (I expect the pill to reduce pain, and I feel less pain)
@binaural-histolog uses Simon Says to describe (in part) hypnosis, and I see the connection here. It's a balance between using stimulus and response expectancies to condition rapid response (so you get the point) but engaging inhibition quickly enough to stop yourself if Simon Doesn't Say.
What is "Volitional?"
This is unstated in the text, but there is a background understanding of a naive model of action: that we either choose to do something (volitional) or we're triggered to do something (automatic)
The author provides evidence against "State" theories of hypnosis and classes himself with the Sociocognitive Non-State theorists, who believe that hypnosis isn't an abnormal state but an unconventional use of otherwise normal mental processes (expectancies being a big one) that convinces us that a response is automatic (not-volitional, coming from "outside" or "within" or "from the unconscious).
Neo-dissociation-ists posit multiple 'parts of mind' and believe that the hypnosis response is volitional, but the part that is doing the choosing is hidden from the part that is 'aware'
Spanos (another sociogonitive researcher) suggested that hypnotic responses are volitional, but we hide our intention from ourselves (without explaining how)
The author suggests that all activity is initiated automatically, and we only decide in context whether it was 'our choice' or not
So if we previously intended to do something, it's in line with our self-definition and previous actions, socially accepted, and we like the outcome, we're more likely to look at the event and say "I did that" as opposed to "that just happened."
In everyday examples, I'm reminded of very young children who clearly take an action, are chastised, than say: "It was an accident."
And we have parallels in common experience. If someone puts themselves in all the preconditions to do "Bad Thing X," don't intend to do it, but then do it... they say "It wasn't me, I didn't mean to..." but we understand at some level that it kind-of is.
The authors give various examples of complex behaviors like "facilitated writing" that are entirely self-generated (think Ouija board) but we don't think so. Just like Ouija boards, the initiation comes from us, but we don't inhibit it and pre-contextualize it as coming from 'outside of us,' and so the movement feels possessed.
He then proceeds to tie in 'dual-aspect monism,' that every psychological event has a physiological mirror—they're too sides of the same coin—so by changing expectancies and beliefs, we change something physiologically that has effects that are real but incredibly subtle and difficult to separate.
My Lay Hypnotist Take
I don't know if I'm convinced of the 'hard' take on this approach, but it better-explains what I've seen in hypnosis. The common practice of doing 'set pieces' (magnetic hands and fingers, etc.), then, isn't about 'warming up' a state but creating the frame that "My body can be affected by suggestions." It's about creating stimulus expectancies ("He's going to do something that puts me 'in trance'", then using their response to shift that frame through "I can be hypnotized" to "I am hypnotized" to "in hypnosis, I do X."
Looking forward to reading more.