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Journal of A bnormal Psychology1974, Vol. 83, No. 3, 268-277

OPENNESS TO ABSORBING AND SELF-ALTERINGEXPERIENCES ("ABSORPTION"), A TRAIT RELATED

TO HYPNOTIC SUSCEPTIBILITY1

AUKE TELLEGEN 2

University of Minnesota

GILBERT ATKINSON

Youngstown State University

A questionnaire containing items of varied content believed to be related tohypnotizability was administered to 481 female subjects. Two subsamples of142 and 171 subjects, respectively, also completed Block's Ego Resiliency andEgo Control questionnaire scales and measures of hypnotic susceptibility.Analysis of the combined questionnaire data yielded three replicated higherorder factors: the familiar dimensions of Stability and Introversion and athird factor, Absorption. Absorption is interpreted as a disposition for havingepisodes of "total" attention that fully engage one's representational (i.e.,perceptual, enactive, imaginative, and ideational) resources. This kind ofattentional functioning is believed to result in a heightened sense of thereality of the attentional object, imperviousness to distracting events, and analtered sense of reality in general, including an empathically altered sense ofself. Only Absorption was consistently correlated with hypnotizability. Ab-sorption appears to be of interest for the study of hypnosis and personality.

One of the most important advances in thestudy of hypnosis has been the developmentof standardized and reliable measures of in-dividual differences in hypnotic susceptibility.Scales of this kind, for example, the StanfordHypnotic Susceptibility Scales (Weitzenhoffer& Hilgard, 1959, 1962), are direct measuresof a subject's responsiveness to a series ofspecific suggestions. It is not surprising thatpsychologists have wanted to clarify thenature of hypnosis by investigating possiblerelations between these relatively stable buthighly specific and circumscribed measures ofsusceptibility and broader dimensions of per-sonality. Several such studies have appearedand have been reviewed fairly recently byBarber (1969)and Hilgard (1965).

For the present purpose, these past studiescan be divided into two groups. In one groupof studies existing inventories were used, onthe whole with negative results. Scales frominventories such as the California PersonalityInventory, the 16 Personality Factor Scale,Guilford-Zimmerman, Minnesota MultiphasicPersonality Inventory, and the Maudsley

1 This research was supported in part by NationalInstitute of Mental Health Grant MH 18856-03.

2 Requests for reprints should be sent to AukeTellegen, Department of Psychology, Elliott Hall,University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MinnesotaS54SS.

Personality Inventory failed to show appreci-able and consistent relations to hypnotic sus-ceptibility. As Hilgard pointed out, the resultsof these studies suggest the possibility thatthese inventories do not adequately samplecontent areas that are related to susceptibility.In fact, there is growing evidence that pur-portedly multidimensional inventories, suchas those just mentioned, are primarily satu-rated with two major dimensions (Block,1965; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1969; Nichols &Schnell, 1963; Sells, Demaree, & Wills, 1971).Eysenck has labeled these two dimensionsStability versus Neuroticism and Introversionversus Extraversion. It appears, then, thathypnotic susceptibility might not be stronglyrelated to either Stability or Introversion.

The second group of studies is more prom-ising. In these studies special inventories wereconstructed consisting of items describing"hypnotic-like" experiences that occur indaily life or attitudes and tendencies thatwere thought to be specifically related tohypnotic "talent." The initial work was doneby Shor (Shor, 1960; Shor, Orne, & O'Con-nell, 1962) and was followed up and extendedby Ernest Hilgard's associates (e.g., As,1963; As & Lauer, 1962; As, O'Hara, &Hunger, 1962; Lee-Teng, 1965) and byothers (e.g., Roberts & Tellegen, 1973). The

268

ABSORPTION AND HYPNOTIC SUSCEPTIBILITY 269

measures in question were analyzed on thelevel of either items or scales, and in severalof these studies the relation to measures ofsusceptibility was directly investigated. Theresults were generally positive, if not withoutexception (Barber & Calverley, 1965).

As a result of these investigations, valuableinformation was obtained regarding char-acteristics related to hypnotizability. How-ever, the findings resulting from these studiesremain tentative and are for several reasonsin need of further clarification. For example,the analyses were not conducted within thecontext of known major personality dimen-sions as reference variables. Each of thestudies in question is also subject to severalof the following limitations: a restricted itempool, a small number of subjects, reliance ona priori scales rather than on scales derivedfrom an empirical dimensional analysis ofthe items, inclusion in the same dimensionalanalysis of variables representing differentmethods (producing results dominated bymethod dimensions), and failure to cross-validate.

These considerations suggested that afurther investigation should address itself tothe following three interrelated questions:First, how many and what kind of primarydimensions are present in a pool of itemsthought to be related to hypnotic suscepti-bility and representing a broad range of con-tent? Second, how are these primary dimen-sions related to already established majoror higher order dimensions of personality:Will the former be subsumed by the latter,or will one or more new major dimensionsemerge? Third, having confirmed a final setof maior dimensions, what is the relationbetween each of these and hypnotic suscepti-bility?

METHOD

MeasuresResearch questionnaire ((W). A 71-item, self-re-

port questionnaire was assembled (which will bereferred to as 03) covering a wide range of con-tent. Thirty of the items were taken from Lee-Teng(Lee, 1963; Lee-Teng, 1965), who had borrowedmanv of her items from Shor (1960) and As (e.g.,As, O'Hara, & Hunger, 1962). The selected itemshad either been found to be related individually tohypnotic susceptibility (As, 1963) or to belong to

scales showing that relationship (Lee-Teng, 196S).To conform to the format of Q3, these 30 itemswere reworded from "you" questions into declara-tive "I" statements. Several items were furtherchanged so as to refer to a disposition (as did mostof the other Q3 items) rather than to a particularincident in the subject's past. Some items were alsoshortened. Another 18 items were chosen from apreviously constructed "Trust Rating Scale" (Roberts& Tellegen, 1973) on the basis of individual cor-relations with hypnotic susceptibility. These 18items are the only ones written in the form of anadjective followed by a parenthetical defining sen-tence, for example, "ALOOF (maintains distance be-tween self and others)." The remaining 23 items werenew.

Q3 was considered to represent at least the fol-lowing five content areas: Absorption, Dissociation,Trust, Impulsiveness, and Relaxation. Any item,however, that seemed promising was includedwhether or not it could be assigned unequivocallyto a particular category. Q3, then, was not designedto measure a fixed set of a priori dimensions. Onthe contrary, its internal structure was to be anobject of exploratory analysis. The results of thisanalysis are presented in the Results section of thispaper, at which point the content of the question-naire is presented in more detail.

Measures of stability-nturoticism and introversion-extroversion. Recently, Block (1965) published whatis probably the most intensive validation study inthis country of measures of the stability and intro-version dimensions which he renamed Ego Resiliencyand Ego Control, respectively. Twenty items wereselected from Block's pool of Ego Resiliency itemsto form a Stability-Neuroticism scale. Items withextreme endorsement frequencies or with contentlikely to elicit objections (Butcher & Tellegen, 1966)were avoided.

In two samples to be reported in the present paperthe Ego Resiliency scale had alpha reliability co-efficients of .58 and .59, respectively. A 20-item EgoControl or Introversion-Extraversion scale was as-sembled in the same way, and its reliability in thesame two samples was .78 and .71, respectively.These reliabilities, while rather low for individualmeasurement, were satisfactory for purposes ofdimensional analysis.

Group Scales of Hypnotic Susceptibility (GSHSand GSHS-A). The GSHS is a modified version ofthe Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility(Shor & Orne, 1962) and is described in detail byRoberts and Tellegen (1973). The GSHS, like theHarvard Scale, is a standard hypnotic inductionprocedure which may be administered to severalindividuals simultaneously (between 20 and 40 in thepresent investigation). The GSHS was used in oneof the samples, while the GSHS-A (Atkinson, 1971)was used in another sample. The total scores d»rivedfrom these two scales had identical compositions,with the exception that one of the GSHS motoricitems was replaced in the GSHS-A by two hypnoticdream items. A further difference was the use of a

270 AUKE TELLKGEN AND GILBERT ATKINSON

tape-recorded induction with the GSHS-A, whereasthe GSHS induction was done in person.

The alpha coefficients of the total score were .89and .88, respectively, for the GSHS and GSHS-A.In a subsample of 40 subjects a correlation of .80 wasobtained between GSHS total score and scores basedon behavior ratings made by an independent ob-server during administration of the scale.

Measure of hypnotic depth. Field (1965) developeda self-report Hypnotic Depth Scale which allows thesubject to itemize in detail the subjective changesthat took place during a preceding hypnotic session.The scale consists of those 38 items, out of an initial300-item pool, which correlated highest with hyp-notic susceptibility.

While a subsequent factor analysis of the 38items (Field & Palmer, 1969) suggested that fourfactors could be distinguished, the same data alsoindicated the presence of a substantial general factor.The Field scale was administered to one of our sub-samples. The correlations among the four factorscales were all high (about .60) and were, therefore,combined in one overall Hypnotic Depth score.Only the overall score, which had an alpha co-efficient of .92, is reported.

SubjectsThe subjects were female undergraduate college

students enrolled in the introductory psychologycourse who volunteered to participate for coursecredits. A total of 481 subjects took part in thestudies to be reported.

For purposes of analysis and presentation, dif-ferent groups of subjects must be distinguished towhom different sets of measures were administered.All 481 subjects completed Q3, and they are referredto as the total sample. One subgroup of 142 sub-jects, to be called Sample 1, completed in additionto Q3 the Ego Resiliency and Ego Control scales,the GSHS, and the Hypnotic Depth Scale. A secondsubgroup of 171 subjects, Sample 2, were given Q3,the Ego Resiliency and Ego Control scales, and theGSHS-A.

RESULTS

Identification of Primary Factors in Q3: Con-struction of Factor Scales

The first analysis was conducted in orderto replace the original 71 items of Q3 by asmaller number of homogeneous scales, eachrepresenting an empirically denned "primaryfactor." The 71 items were factor analyzedin the total sample by the method of principalaxes, using squared multiple correlations ascommunality estimates. The first 13 principalaxes, which accounted for 99% of the com-mon variance, were rotated to a normal vari-max solution. An alternative set of 13 rotatedvarimax factors was obtained using unities in

the diagonal. This set proved to be very simi-lar to the first set but could be subsumedslightly better under the five a priori cate-gories and was adopted for purposes of con-structing the primary factor scales.

The primary factor scales consisted of un-weighted items assembled by assigning eachitem to one factor scale according to its high-est loading, provided that this loading ex-ceeded .30. Two of the resulting scales werediscarded, one because its content defiedinterpretation, the other because it consistedof only two items. The 11 remaining primaryfactor scales had coherent and distinct con-tents and acceptable internal consistencies.The alpha reliability coefficients ranging be-tween .48 and .74 in Sample 1 and between.S3 and .80 in Sample 2 are shown in Table 1.

Before reporting their use in subsequentanalyses, all scales are identified, and atleast one item from each scale is reproduced.The 11 factor scales obviously represent amore detailed breakdown of the content ofQ3 than the one provided by the five a prioricategories. The classifications are neverthelessrelated, and each a priori category is usedas a heading for the scale or scales that pri-marily emerged from its items.

A bsorption

Scale 1: Reality Absorption (a tendencyto become immersed in movies, acting, nature,voices, past events, etc.):

The sound of a voice can be so fascinating to methat I can just go on listening to it.

While acting in a play, I have sometimes reallyfelt the emotions of the character and have "be-come" him (her) for the time being, forgetting, asit were, both myself and the audience.

I can sometimes recollect certain past experiencesin my life with such clarity and vividness that it islike living them again or almost so.

Scale 2: Fantasy Absorption:

If I wish, I can imagine (or daydream) somethings so vividly that they hold my attention in theway a good movie or story does.

I can tell a story with elaborations to make itsound better and then have the elaboration seem asreal to me as the actual incident, or almost so.

I am sometimes able to forget about my presentself and get absorbed in a fantasy that I am some-one else.


Dissociation

Scale 3: Dissociation:

If I wish, I can imagine that my body is so heavythat I could not move it if I wanted to.

Scale 4: Sleep Automatism:

I know that at some time I have walked in mysleep.

Trust

Scale 5: Openness to Experience:

I enjoy—or would enjoy—getting beyond theworld of logic and reason to experience somethingnew and different.

Scale 6: Devotion and Trust:

It gives me—or would give me—deep satisfactionto devote myself to someone I care about.

TRUSTING (generally believes in other people's goodintentions; is not afraid of having to depend uponothers).

Scale 7: Autonomy-Skepticism. (Items de-cribe an opposite of "Trust.")

I would much rather stick to my own ideas thanbe guided by others.

SKEPTICAL (tends to have persistent intellectualdoubts about claims and assertions made by others).

Scale 8: Optimism-Placidity:

OPTIMISTIC (has faith in the future).Regardless of what happens around me, I stay

and feel pretty much the same.

Scale 9: Aloofness-Reserve (another op-posite of "Trust."):

I prefer not to "open up" much, not even tofriends, but to maintain a certain distance.

Impulsiveness versus Control

Scale 10: Caution vs. Impulsiveness:

When faced with a decision I usually ponder andweigh all aspects carefully.

Relaxation

Scale 11: Relaxation:

When I want to take a nap during the day I canmake myself go to sleep in very little time.

Identification oj Major Factors in Q3

The purpose of the next analysis was toidentify the more inclusive or higher orderdimensions of our questionnaire by means of

a factor analysis of the 13 scales now avail-able, that is, the 11 primary factor scales andthe Ego Resiliency and Ego Control scales.(It may be useful to point out that the 11primary factor scales, while derived fromorthogonal factor analysis, are not necessarilyuncorrelated. While each item was assigned toa scale representing a particular primaryfactor because its highest loading was on thatfactor, it was allowed to have nontrivialsecondary loadings on other factors as well.Consistent patterns of secondary loadingscould give rise to substantial correlations be-tween primary factor scales and thus reveala higher order structure.)

The 13 scales were analyzed separately inSamples 1 and 2. Using squared multiplecorrelations as communality estimates, threeprincipal axes were found to account for ap-proximately 100% of the common variancein both samples. Normal varimax rotationswere carried out and the results are presentedin Table 1. The table shows that the rotatedfactors are highly similar in the two samples.The factor tables, moreover, exhibit an al-most ideal simple structure, with each variablehaving a high loading on one factor only.

As for the interpretation of the three fac-tors, two are familiar ones. One, the secondone listed in Table 1, shows salient loadingson Block's Ego Resiliency scale as well as onthe Optimism and Relaxation scales andclearly represents the Stability dimension. Thethird factor in Table 1 is characterized bysalient loadings on Block's Ego Controlscale and on the Aloofness and Caution scales,identifying it as the Introversion dimension.Inclusion of the Ego Resiliency and Ego Con-trol scales as markers enabled us, therefore,to subsume 4 of the 11 Q3 scales under famil-iar constructs.

The remaining Q3 scales identify a thirdmajor factor, the largest one in the presentanalysis and appearing first in Table 1. Thescales with the highest loadings in both sam-ples on this factor are Reality Absorption,Fantasy Absorption, Dissociation, and Open-ness to Experience, with Devotion-Trust andAutonomy-Criticality showing somewhat lowersalient loadings. We labeled this factor "Open-ness to Absorbing and Self-Altering Experi-ences" or "Absorption."

272 AUKE TELLEGEN AND GILBERT ATKINSON

TABLE 1VARIMAX FACTOR MATRICES BASED ON THIRTEEN BASIC SCALES

ANALYZED SEPARATELY IN Two SAMPLES

Scale

1. Reality Absorption2. Fantasy Absorption3. DissociationS. Openness to Experience6. Devotion-Trust7. Autonomy-Criticality4. Sleep Automatism8. Optimism-Placidity

11. RelaxationEgo Resilience

9. Aloofness-Reserve10. Caution vs. Impulsiveness

Ego ControlFactor Contribution

Factors in Sample 1

I

756958574145———————

2.34

II

———————665056———

1.22

III

——————————645464

1.36

»

60503450192211462748433053

4.91

alpha

67686663485156635858797078

Factors in Sample 2

I

736256SI523837——————

2.12

II

———————654862———

1.31

III

— ,———

• — .—————625564

1.32

h>

54473144291815432543423152

4.75

alpha

69674874625168665159726871

Note. Decimals are omitted from factor loadings and communalities. Loadings smaller than ,35 in absolute value are not listed.Alpha = alpha coefficient of reliability. N for Sample 1 =142; A" for Sample 2 = 171.

RELATIONS BETWEEN Q3 AND HYPNOTICSUSCEPTIBILITY

The relations between the three majorquestionnaire factors and hypnotic suscepti-bility were analyzed. Factor scores werecomputed for each of the three majorfactors by means of multiple regression esti-mates which combined the 13 questionnairescales in appropriately weighted composites.Separate sets of regression formulas werederived from Samples 1 and 2.

For purposes of comparison, we alsopresent results obtained with criterion-basedor "empirical" questionnaire predictors ofhypnotizability. These measures were devel-oped in two ways. One approach involved atraditional item analysis. Q3 items correlating.20 or higher with hypnotic susceptibilitywere combined without special weights into ascale. Separate scales were developed in Sam-ples 1 and 2. The second method involveddeveloping multiple regression equations pre-dicting hypnotic susceptibility from the 11primary factor scales. Again, two formulaswere derived separately in the two samples.All factorial and empirical measures werecorrelated with hypnotic susceptibility inboth samples. In other words, factor scoresand scores on the criterion-based measureswere not only computed and correlated with

hypnotizability in the derivation sample butwere also cross-validated in the other sample.

The results are presented in Table 2. Thetable shows correlations with the hypnoticsusceptibility scales in Samples 1 and 2 andwith Field's Hypnotic Depth Inventory inSample 1. The correlations show a clear pat-tern. Of the three factor scores, only Absorp-tion shows positive correlations (of .27, .42and .43, respectively) with indicators of hyp-notizability.

Interestingly, the two kinds of criterion-based measures, which were specifically de-signed to predict hypnotic susceptibility, wereon cross-validation not superior to the Absorp-tion factor measure. The possibility stillexisted that the criterion-based measures pre-dicted a component of hypnotic susceptibilitydiffering from the one predicted by Absorp-tion. This possibility was investigated by com-puting from the available cross-validationresults partial correlations between the two-criterion based measures and all three mea-sures of hypnotizability, with the contributionof Absorption partialed out. The mean partialcorrelation in the two samples was .02. Thusthe unique contribution of the criterion-basedmeasures proved negligible and Absorption,by the same token, proved sufficient for repre-senting those individual differences tapped by


Q3 that were related to hypnotic suscepti-bility. It may also be noted that the correla-tions involving the criterion-based measuresshow the expected shrinkage relative to thecorrelations in the derivation samples. Sincethe factor estimates, on the other hand, arenot criterion based, they do not show suchcorrelational shrinkage.

Finally, two 20-item scales (about the samelength as the empirical scales) were con-structed using items which did not belong tothe Absorption group and which were allkeyed in the affirmative direction. In bothsamples the two scales were correlated withthe hypnotizability measures. The mean cor-relation was .11, showing that the relationshipbetween responses to Q3 items and hypnoticsusceptibility cannot be attributed simply tovariations in "acquiescence," that is, a gen-eral and relatively indiscriminate tendency toendorse items of varied content.

CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION

Relative to the investigations referred toearlier (e.g., As & Lauer, 19.62; As, O'Hara,& Munger, 1962; Lee-Teng, 1965), the pres-ent findings appear to provide an extensionand clarification. For example, in Lee-Teng'sstudy, it was found that three out of five apriori scales correlated significantly with hyp-notic susceptibility. Items belonging to these

scales were incorporated in our questionnaire;thus it could be determined that Lee-Teng'sRole-Playing, Trancelike Experiences, and Im-pulsivity scales contained several items repre-senting aspects of Absorption. Lee-Teng'sImpulsivity scale, on the other hand, also con-tained a number of Caution versus Impulsive-ness items, now identified as belonging to theIntroversion dimension.

It is of particular interest that our question-naire, while covering a wide range of contentdrawn from various sources, yielded, never-theless, only one major dimension other thanStability and Introversion. This dimension,Absorption, encompasses a substantial por-tion of Q3's varied content; it exemplifies thecombination of substantive divergence andstructural convergence that is suggestive of amajor dimension or, in Eysenck's terms, a"combinatorial" trait (Eysenck & Eysenck,1969).

How should the Absorption factor be inter-preted? Some tentative notions are here pro-posed which we hope will have some heuristicvalue and which are based on the item con-tent of scales with salient Absorption load-ings. Our working assumption is that itemresponses often represent essentially correctself-descriptions; the status of this assump-tion appears to have improved of late (e.g.,

TABLE 2CORRELATIONS OP FACTOR MEASURES AND CRITERION-BASED

MEASURES WITH HYPNOTIZABILITY

Item

Factor measuresI : Absorption

II: Stability

III: Introversion

Criterion-based measuresItem composite

Scale composite

Sample 1

Hypnotic Sus-ceptibility

27*(27)13

(16)-14

(-14)

29**(51)29**

(42)

Hypnotic Depth

42**(41)16

(20)-03

(-06)

39**(55)39**

(48)

Sample 2

Hypnotic Sus-ceptibility

43**(42)

-02(-05)-18

(-16)

37**(51)35**

(49)

Note. Decimals are omitted from the correlation coefficients. The correlations observed in the derivation sample are listed inparentheses underneath the correlations in the cross-validation sample. AT for Sample 1 = 142; N for Sample 2 = 171.

*p <.01.


Hase & Goldberg, 1967; Jackson, 1971;Payne & Wiggins, 1972).

Our point of departure is the frequent refer-ence of Absorption items to episodes of aspecial attentional object relationship whichcan be described by such terms as "absorp-tion" and "fascination." These terms suggesta state of "total attention" during which theavailable representational apparatus seems tobe entirely dedicated to experiencing andmodeling the attentional object, be it a land-scape, a human being, a sound, a rememberedincident, or an aspect of one's self.

Phenomena of this kind, while apparentlyoverlooked by contemporary academic treat-ments of attention, perception, and memory,have been described and discussed widely inliterature on meditation, expanded awareness,peak experiences, mysticism, esthetic experi-ence, regression in the serivce of the ego,altered states of consciousness, and in theliterature on drug effects. For example, Mas-low (1968) spoke of the "fascination" and"complete absorption" that characterize peakexperiences. Schachtel (1959), to whom Mas-low refers, described the "allocentric" per-ceptual mode as involving "totality of interest[p. 221]," and openness to the object in all itsaspects with all one's senses, including one'skinesthetic experience. We suggest, in a simi-lar vein, that the attention described in Ab-sorption items is a "total" attention, involv-ing a \ull commitment oj available perceptual,motoric, imaginative and ideational resourcesto a unified representation oj the attentionalobject.

If we consider this kind of attentional pro-cess to be at the core of Absorption, then thefollowing phenomena might be seen as inher-ent correlates:

A Heightened Sense oj the Reality oj the At-tentional Object

Even when the attentional object is con-structed from memory, it is experienced aspresent and real. It is assumed that an al-ready fully engaged representational systemcannot, in addition to representations of thefocal object, maintain salient qualifying"meta-cognitions," that is, thoughts about theprimary representation, such as "this is only

my imagination" or "this is not really hap-pening."

Imperviousness to Normally DistractingEvents

The absorbed individual often seems not tonotice external events that would normallydraw attention. This too could be seen asinherent to having an already fully committedrepresentational system.

An Altered Sense oj Reality in General and ojthe Self in Particular

Absorbed attention is highly "centered"(in a roughly Piagetian sense) and amplifiesgreatly the experience of one part of reality,while other aspects recede from awareness.Consequently, the vivid subjective reality ex-perienced during episodes of absorbed atten-tion may well, in retrospect, during more"decentered" normal states of wakefulness,impress one as "altered," "unreal," or"imaginary."

It should, perhaps, be noted that in atleast one interpretation of imagination,namely Sartre's classical phenomenologicalstudy (Sartre, 1940; see also Spiegelberg,1969, v. II) the element of unreality is treatedas a core feature. According to Sartre theimaginative attitude poses its object under anegative aspect, as, for example, not here ornot existing, or, using the word that laterbecame central in his philosophy, as a "noth-ing." Thus the imaginative attitude as dennedby Sartre involves precisely those negatingmetacognitions that are incompatible withabsorbed attention, even if it is directed to amemory object. It would seem, then, thatSartre's concept of imagination has more incommon with a retrospective sense of alteredreality of the kind just described than withabsorbed imagination.

If some aspect of the self, for example,one's breathing or the weight of one's hand,happened to be the object of immersed atten-tion, then an alteration of self could takeplace and be experienced as such in retro-spect. (Here and throughout we are referringto the "self-as-object," a region of one's con-structed reality, rather than to the "self-as-process" [cf. Hall & Lindzey, 1970].) Ifthere is a marked discontinuity between the


usual self and the self during an episode ofabsorbed concentration on some aspect of theself, then we may, indeed, speak of a "dis-sociative experience" of the kind suggestedby several of the Fantasy Absorption andDissociation items.

Absorbed attention can also result in analtered self when the attentional object issomeone else. Full representation of someoneelse's activities and experiences often involvesthe enactive or "body-english" componentof absorbed attention. The resulting kinesthe-tic feedback enhances empathic participationand an experience of equivalence of the at-tentional object and one's self. This identifica-tion with the object, in turn, implies a tem-porary alteration of one's usual self of thekind described in some Reality Absorptionand Fantasy Absorption items.

One might add that self-altering identifica-tions appear to be possible with a very widerange of animate and inanimate .things andthat their occurrence may not be entirelydependent on enactive representation. Ob-jects of absorbed attention acquire an im-portance and intimacy that are normally re-served for the self and may, therefore, ac-quire a temporary self-like quality. Theseobject identifications have mystical overtones.And, indeed, one would expect high-absorp-tion persons to have an affinity for mysticalexperience, even if true unio mystica is, itself,a rare attainment.

These varied phenomena are seen as state-like manifestations of the cognitive-motiva-tional trait Absorption. The cognitive compo-nent of this trait appears to include theability to operate diverse representationalmodalities synergistically so that a full but uni-fied experience is realized. This imaginativeand integrative aspect is, perhaps, captured bythe term "syngnosia," (analogous to "synes-thesia" which may be one of its components).It is reminiscent of the Freudian mechanismof "condensation" and may be an importantingredient of creativity, particularly image-oriented, artistic creativity.

Another cognitive aspect involves the em-pathic quality and versatility of the repre-sentations of high-Absorption persons. Itseems plausible that this ability to realize

diverse states of being could be cultivatedand elaborated into role-playing skills in themore specific interpersonal and theatricalsense.

The motivational-affective component wouldseem to consist in a sentient and tolerant"openness to experience" (Fitzgerald, 1966),a desire and readiness for object relationships,temporary or lasting, that permit experi-ences of deep involvement. The content ofseveral Absorption markers, including theOpenness to Experience and Devotion-Trustscales, is suggestive in this respect.

While absorbed attention is in itself un-reserved and "wholehearted," Absorption alsoreflects a distinctive cognitive style and maygenerate unconventional and idiosyncratic ap-praisals. For this reason, high-Absorptionpersons may feel the need for cognitive inde-pendence that is reflected in one other vari-able with low but consistent Absorptionloadings, the Autonomy-Skepticism scale.

Finally, a valid conception of Absorptioncannot contradict its independence of Stabil-ity (or Ego Resiliency) and Introversion (orEgo Control). Whether endowed with muchor little Absorption, a person may eithershow the adaptability of Block's Ego Resilientsubjects or the vulnerability to stress associa-ated with low Resiliency. Similarly, he mayexhibit the restraint and reflectiveness charac-teristic of high Ego Control or the impulsive-ness Block found associated with low EgoControl (Block, 1965).

Of the three dimensions, Stability, Intro-version, and Absorption, only Absorption isconsistently associated with hypnotic suscep-tibility. The strength of this association isonly modest and would of course have beengreater had the present Absorption measureand the hypnotic susceptibility scales onlyreflected the capacity for absorbed attention.However, method factors undoubtedly affectboth kinds of measures and attenuate therelations between them (e.g., Lee-Teng,196S). The assessment of Absorption can un-doubtedly be improved by developing addi-tional methods. Efforts in that direction arepresently underway. As for measures of hyp-notic susceptibility, these indicators, too,surely reflect more than a capacity for ab-


sorbed attention. In the case of the usual hyp-notic phenomena the hypnotic "essence" is,according to Orne (19S9), partially obscuredby various "artifacts" such as the responseto demand characteristics. The influence ofsuch factors has also been documented byBarber and his co-workers (e.g., Barber,1969). Even if Absorption belongs to theessence of hypnotic susceptibility, nonhyp-notic artifacts would attenuate the relation-ship between the present measures of the two.

The present data are, nevertheless, clearenough to indicate that hypnotic perform-ance, in part, reflects the trait Absorption. Tosome extent, then, it is possible to view hyp-notic phenomena as experiential and behav-ioral manifestations of a certain kind ofthought process, namely, the imaginative, en-active, and self-altering representation of anattentional object. For example, the immobili-zation of an arm following a suggestion thatit is stiff and rigid or chasing a fly in responseto the suggestion that one is buzzing aroundannoyingly could be explained as the observ-able manifestations of an imaginative and en-active thought process by which the subjectfully immerses himself in the representationof a rigid arm or of his annoyance over abothersome insect. In these cases, at least tothe extent that they are expressions of Ab-sorption, there is no direct compliance withexplicit or implicit demands to act in acertain way; there is compliance only withrespect to the choice of attentional object.

Thus we conclude that Absorption, inter-preted as a capacity for absorbed and self-altering attention, represents an essentialcomponent of hypnotic susceptibility. The lit-erature on hypnosis, in fact, often refers tohypnotic characteristics which have an affin-ity with aspects of Absorption. A few illus-trative examples are cited briefly. White haselaborated Braid's concept of mono-ideism(see Sarbin, 1950), a concept reminiscent ofthe centering of attention which we have asso-ciated with Absorption. Hilgard (1965) hasassigned a central role to dissociation in theexplanation of hypnosis, and, as suggestedearlier, some such concept appears also to beintrinsic to Absorption. Sarbin's interpreta-tion of hypnosis in terms of imaginative skills

or capacity for organismic involvement (e.g.,Sarbin, 1950; Sarbin & Coe, 1972) againrefers to an important aspect of Absorption.Recently, Barber and DeMoor (1972) andSpanos (1971) have likewise emphasizedgoal-motivated fantasy as an important aspectof hypnosis. Shor's (1962) concepts of depthof role-taking involvement, depth of trance,and depth of archaic involvement would seemto have approximate counterparts in theAbsorption facets of, respectively, enactiverepresentation, heightened sense of reality,and devotion-trust.

Most directly pertinent to the present find-ings, however, is the intensive interview studyby Josephine Hilgard (1970). Hilgard docu-mented the occurrence among her subjects ofdeep involvements in a variety of experiencesand activities and advances the concept of"imaginative involvement." The nature of theinvolvements of Hilgard's subjects corre-sponds to the content of the Absorption fac-tor, particularly that of its two strongestmarkers, the Reality Absorption and FantasyAbsorption scales. Hilgard, furthermore, foundthe frequency of involvements to be relatedto hypnotic susceptibility, just as we found tobe the case for Absorption. Her findings, then,are clearly supported by the present trait-oriented psychometric investigation.

In general, the manifestations of Absorp-tion appear to encompass in one covariationalstructure several of the features emphasizedin different conceptions relating to hypnosis.Continued study of this trait should provefruitful for the study of both personality andhypnosis.

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(Received September 12, 1973)