Is hypnotizability linked to risky behavior?

In their daily lives, humans may encounter many situations that may expose them to varying degrees of risk, or in other words, situations in which their choices may increase or decrease the possibility of an adverse event occurring. . In these situations, different people may be more or less inclined to engage in risky behaviors, such as gambling or investing large sums of money.

Some previous studies suggest that a person’s risk-taking tendencies might be linked to the degree to which they are responsive to hypnosis, also known as hypnotizability. However, the relationship between these two human characteristics remains poorly understood.

Researchers at the University of Pisa in Italy recently conducted a study exploring this relationship, using a psychological task probing risky behaviors and a hypnotic susceptibility test. Their findings, published in Letters in neurosciencehighlight different associations between risk perception and the propensity to take risks among people who obtained a low, medium or high score on the hypnotilizability test.

Hypnotizability, broadly defined as a tendency to adapt one’s perceptions, memories and behaviors following hypnosis and hypnotic suggestions performed even while conscious, is considered a stable trait. This means that this characteristic generally does not tend to change much over time.

“Some neurophysiological and behavioral correlates related to hypnotizability suggest that the level of hypnotizability, measured by standard scales classifying individuals as low (low), average (medium), and highly hypnotizable (high), may be related to the propensity for risk and risk-taking.” Francy Cruz-Sanabria, Ugo Faraguna and their colleagues wrote in their journal.

“To study whether hypnotizability modulates risk propensity and behavior, we recruited healthy participants, classified according to the Stanford Hypnotic Sensitivity Scale (form a) and compared the low (n = 33), the medium (n = 19) and high (n = 15) experiential and behavioral risk perception and propensity variables via the domain-specific risk taking scale and the balloon analog risk task,” continued the team.

Cruz-Sanabria, Faraguna, and colleagues conducted a series of experiments involving 67 participants who had previously completed an assessment of hypnotic susceptibility, using the Italian version of a well-established test for measuring hypnotizability. These participants were asked to complete two different tasks.

First, they completed a questionnaire asking them to rate specific behaviors based on the degree of risk they perceived, the extent to which those behaviors could have benefited them, and how likely they were to engage in them. Subsequently, they participated in 90 trials of the balloon analog risk task, a behavioral task designed to assess individuals’ propensity to engage in risky behavior.

During the balloon analog risk task, participants are presented with three types of balloons, characterized by their different colors. By pressing a key on a keyboard, the subject can inflate the balloons presented, allowing them to win 1 euro.

Money accumulates each time they inflate the balloon, but when a balloon explodes, all accumulated funds are lost. Participants can decide at any time to transfer the money they have accumulated to a “virtual bank” for security, or to continue inflating the balloons to increase the profit.

Notably, balloons of different colors have a different probability of exploding, but this information is not shared with participants at the start of the task. The researchers analyzed the study participants’ behavior during this task (i.e., how many times they pressed the button to inflate the balloons and how often they transferred money to the bank), in conjunction with their responses to the questionnaire and their evaluation under hypnosis. sensitivity test.

“The results indicated that different levels of hypnotizability are not associated with different risky behaviors and experiences, with the exception of higher expected financial benefits from risky behavior in periods of depression,” Cruz-Wrote Sanabria, Faraguna and their colleagues. “However, risk profiles related to hypnotizability were identified through correlational analyses. In fact, high levels presented a negative association between risk perception and propensity to take risks, while medium and low presented a positive association between risk propensity and expected benefit.”

Overall, Cruz-Sanabria, Faraguna, and colleagues found that individuals’ hypnotizability does not necessarily predict their risk perception and risk-taking behavior in tasks that involve making risk-related decisions. Nevertheless, researchers were able to delineate different risk-related profiles, which appear to be associated with distinct patterns of risk perception and risk behavior.

Specifically, they found that participants who scored high on the hypnotizability scale tended to engage in more automatic behavior than those with average or low scores. In contrast, those scoring medium or low on the hypnotizability scale seemed to focus more on the potential benefits of risky actions, suggesting that when they engaged in risky behavior, they did not do so automatically, but rather as a conscious choice.

The team’s sample of participants was not particularly large, but additional studies could help validate these findings. In the future, this work could also pave the way for additional research focused on the link between hypnotizability and automatic behaviors, potentially leading to interesting new findings.

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