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ROLE OF COGNITIVE EFFORT
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from their consciousness. Although proponents of the social-cognitive
theory (e.g., Lynn, Rhue, & Weekes, 1990; Spanos, 1986; Spanos &
Chaves, 1989) reject the idea of dissociation, they reach a similar posi-
tion about subjective effortlessness. They argue that the experience of
effortlessness in hypnosis results from participants’ motivated tenden-
cies to interpret hypnotic suggestions as not requiring active planning
and effort. From this perspective, the experience of effortlessness stems
from an attributional error: Rather than acknowledging their involve-
ment in enacting the suggestion, hypnotic participants tend to misat-
tribute their responses to situational factors.
In summary, according to both the dissociated-experience and
social-cognitive theories of hypnosis, hypnotic participants’ experience
of effortlessness is an illusion. These theories hypothesize that high
hypnotizable participants are actually exerting considerable cognitive
effort to generate their responses.
In contrast, proponents of the dissociated-control theory (K. Bowers,
1992; Miller & Bowers, 1993; Woody & Bowers, 1994) argue that the expe-
rience of effortlessness is not an illusion. They explain hypnotic respond-
ing in terms of levels of control. At the top of the hierarchy is the executive
control function, which is usually responsible for managing lower sub-
systems of control. Volitional responding during most ordinary circum-
stances results from the executive-level monitoring, assessment, and
subsequent initiation of the appropriate subsystems of control to carry out
the task. In hypnosis, however, there is an alteration of control processes,
such that suggestions are hypothesized to initiate subsystems of control
more directly, with minimum involvement of the executive control func-
tion. Thus, according to this theory, high hypnotizable participants actu-
ally generate their responses with relatively low cognitive effort.
To test these alternative theories of hypnosis, then, we need to study
whether the greater responsiveness of high hypnotizable participants
is associated with a higher level of cognitive effort. A series of studies
mainly by K. Bowers and his colleagues used experimental manipula-
tions designed to demonstrate that hypnotic responsiveness does not
depend on effortful control or other deliberate cognitive strategies.
One strategy is to look at whether hypnotic responding uses up cogni-
tive resources, as shown in performance on a concurrent task. For
example, Miller and Bowers (1993) showed that, unlike a cognitive-
behavioral stress-inoculation procedure, hypnotic analgesia did not
impair performance on a concurrent, cognitively demanding task (see
also Green & Lynn, 1995). A second strategy is to prescribe high versus
low effort strategies for enacting suggestions and contrast the resulting
responses to clarify the role of effort. For example, Hargadon, Bowers,
and Woody (1995) showed that hypnotic analgesia was just as effective
for high hypnotizable participants in the absence of deliberate cogni-
tive strategies like engaging in counterpain imagery (see also Comey &
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