AbstractsPsychology

Experimental investigations of suggestion and suggestibility have been frequent ever since the last decade of the nineteenth century when research began almost simultaneously in the United States, France and Germany. Since then, suggestibility has been studied by workers in various fields: abnormal psychology, social psychology, sociology and individual differences. The exponents of the Nancy theory of hypnosis, who consider that the hypnotic trance is a "state of heightened suggestibility," of course studied suggestibility as an abnormal phenomenon. Murphy and Murphy (231, p.5) writing as social psychologists consider that the experimental study of suggestion marked the beginning of experimental social psychology. Various sociologists treat "mob suggestion," propaganda, and similar phenomena as illustrating the social aspects of suggestion. And those who take their cue from Alfred Binet in this field, treat suggestibility as a problem in individual differences. [...]