Hypnosis and Suggestion

Hypnosis is one manifestation of a broader human capacity called phenomenological control: an evolved ability to deceive oneself to support socially useful beliefs. This capacity allows people to strategically construct subjective experiences that misrepresent reality despite contradictory evidence, in order to meet goals. It is so effective that researchers studying it have often been deceived, mistaking participants' constructed experiences—such as feeling energies or special states—for the mechanism itself. Phenomenological control is used in spirit possession, spiritual experiences, esoteric martial arts, everyday life, and psychology experiments.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Hypnosis is shown to be one of many ways a general capacity for phenomenological control shows itself. Phenomenological control is an evolved capacity to deceive ourselves so as to support socially useful beliefs. It allows one to strategically construct subjective experiences that misrepresent reality despite contradictory evidence in order to meet goals. It is so good at its evolved function that researchers of it have often found themselves being deceived: The participants in their studies feel energies, special states or parts of themselves that are taken to be constitutive of the mechanism of construction rather than what the mechanism constructs. Key points:•Hypnosis is just one context in which phenomenological control is used; others include spirit possession, many spiritual experiences, esoteric martial arts, everyday experiences and psychology experiments•Phenomenological control is a metacognitive trick one plays on oneself: No other abilities are gained nor lost•For example, hypnosis does not improve memory, strength, nor attentional capacity•It can nevertheless be clinically useful in, for example, making pain go away by itself, precisely because it involves the motivated transformation of subjective experience•No special state is needed to explain how or when phenomenological control is used•There are enduring individual differences in the capacity for phenomenological control that have yet to be explained