Hypnosis and reporting biases: Telling the truth

We examined the malleability of verbal reports by manipulating pressures to comply in an hypnotic context, but independently of hypnotic procedures. In both experiments, hypnotizable subjects received a baseline and an hypnotic-deafness condition wherein they were required to rate the intensity of a pure tone 10 s following completion of the tone. In Experiment 1, subjects biased their reported loudness reductions in response to a trial 3 demand instruction, but not to a similarly distracting, though nondemanding, instruction. In Experiment 2, half of the demand instruction subjects received bogus polygraphic feedback challenging the veracity of their loudness ratings. The results here indicate that all demand instruction subjects biased their initial trial 3 reports; however, only those receiving polygraphic feedback recanted their initially biased trial 3 responses. The findings suggest that reporting biases, reflecting purposeful deception, play a critical role in hypnotic responding. (C) 1998 Academic Press.