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Biomedical subjects

N P Spanos

Publications and source records attributed to N P Spanos.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

Effects of judicial instructions and case characteristics in a mock jury trial of battered women who kill.

This study examined the effects of judicial instructions on the outcome of a mock jury trial that involved a woman who pleaded self-defense after killing her abusive spouse. Jurors were instructed to adopt either an objective or a subjective standard of reasonableness when reaching a verdict. Within objective/subjective instruction conditions, half of the juries viewed a case in which the woman killed her abuser while he was attacking her (confrontational) and the remaining half viewed a case in which she killed him while he was asleep (no confrontation). Juries in the subjective conditions returned significantly more not guilty verdicts than jurors in the objective conditions. At the individual juror level, participants hearing subjective instructions were significantly more likely to rate the defendant as not guilty than jurors given objective instructions when the abuse was nonconfrontational.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Cognitive-behavioral interventions for children's distress during bone marrow aspirations and lumbar punctures: a critical review.

Children with cancer often have difficulty coping with the invasive medical procedures that are part of diagnosis and treatment. Bone marrow aspirations and lumbar punctures are painful and cause some children severe anxiety and distress. The increased risk and expense of general anesthesia and the relative ineffectiveness of sedatives and anxiolytics has prompted clinicians to examine nonpharmacologic methods for controlling pain and distress. This report critically examines intervention studies that focus on cognitive-behavioral strategies such as distraction, imagery, or hypnosis for reducing procedural distress in children with cancer.

Analgesia↗
PubMed1994

Multiple identity enactments and multiple personality disorder: a sociocognitive perspective.

People who enact multiple identities behave as if they possess 2 or more selves, each with its own characteristic moods, memories, and behavioral repertoire. Under different names, this phenomenon occurs in many cultures; in North American culture, it is frequently labeled multiple personality disorder (MPD). This article reviews experimental, cross-cultural, historical, and clinical findings concerning multiplicity and examines the implications of these findings for an understanding of MPD. Multiplicity is viewed from a sociocognitive perspective, and it is concluded that MPD, like other forms of multiplicity, is socially constructed. It is context bounded, goal-directed, social behavior geared to the expectations of significant others, and its characteristics have changed over time to meet changing expectations.

Amnesia↗
PubMed1994

Past-life identities, UFO abductions, and satanic ritual abuse: the social construction of memories.

People sometimes fantasize entire complex scenarios and later define these experiences as memories of actual events rather than as imaginings. This article examines research associated with three such phenomena: past-life experiences, UFO alien contact and abduction, and memory reports of childhood ritual satanic abuse. In each case, elicitation of the fantasy events is frequently associated with hypnotic procedures and structured interviews which provide strong and repeated demands for the requisite experiences, and which then legitimate the experiences as "real memories." Research associated with these phenomena supports the hypothesis that recall is reconstructive and organized in terms of current expectations and beliefs.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Close encounters: an examination of UFO experiences.

Ss who reported UFO experiences were divided into those whose experiences were nonintense (e.g., seeing lights and shapes in the sky) and those whose experiences were intense (e.g., seeing and communicating with aliens or missing time). On a battery of objective tests Ss in these 2 groups did not score as more psychopathological, less intelligent, or more fantasy prone and hypnotizable than a community comparison group or a student comparison group. However, Ss in the UFO groups believed more strongly in space alien visitation than did comparison Ss. The UFO experiences of Ss in the intense group were more frequently sleep-related than the experiences of Ss in the nonintense group. Among the combined UFO Ss, intensity of UFO experiences correlated significantly with inventories that assessed proneness toward fantasy and unusual sensory experiences. Implications are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Response expectancies and interpretations as determinants of hypnotic responding.

Ss rated the extent to which they expected to respond to each of the suggestions on a hypnotizability scale both before and after the administration of the preliminary hypnotic induction procedure. After the induction, Ss also rated the extent to which they planned to respond actively and passively to each suggestion. Contrary to strong versions of response-expectancy theory, the extent to which Ss planned to adopt an active interpretation predicted behavioral and subjective indexes of hypnotizability even after controlling for the effects of postinduction expectations. In addition, an active interpretation significantly predicted response to suggestion for which Ss held weak and uncertain expectations. The relationship between expectation and hypnotizability was found to be fan-shaped rather than linear. Implications are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Hypnosis, reporting bias, and suggested negative hallucinations.

We examined the role of reporting bias in hypnotic negative hallucinations by using a paradigm in which reporting bias was assessed independently of perceptual change. In Experiment 1, highly hypnotizable subjects reported significant loudness reductions when tested for hypnotic deafness. Later, however, these subjects biased their reported loudness reductions in the absence of perceptual change, and their reporting bias scores were almost as large as their hypnotic deafness reports. Subjects also biased their ratings of strategy use. In Experiment 2, ratings of blindness given in response to a hypnotic negative visual hallucination suggestion were significantly correlated with reporting bias scores obtained in this paradigm. Although hypnotic blindness and hypnotic deafness correlated significantly, the partial correlation between these variables was nonsignificant when reporting bias scores were statistically controlled. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

EEG alpha methodologies and hypnotizability: a critical review.

This paper reviews empirical studies that assessed the relationship between EEG alpha indices and measures of hypnotic responding. Although there are confirmatory reports of such a relationship, these findings have not been corroborated in repeated attempts at replication. The research is characterized by poor design and statistical procedures that fail to control for various extraneous factors. Although a few positive findings have been tentatively identified, they await replication. Taken together, the available evidence suggests that hypnotizability is not systematically related to alpha.

Alpha Rhythm↗
PubMed1990

Detection of simulated hypnotic amnesia.

Highly hypnotizable nonsimulators and high- and low-hypnotizable simulators of hypnosis were administered a hypnotic amnesia suggestion and tested for recall and recognition of a previously learned word list. Simulators exhibited higher levels of recall and recognition amnesia than nonsimulators. Most important, simulators recognized "forgotten" words at lower levels than expected by chance significantly more often than did nonsimulators. Implications for the detection of simulated amnesia in clinical samples are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Effectiveness of maximally different cognitive strategies and expectancy in attenuation of reported pain.

Ninety-six Ss rated pain during baseline and posttreatment exposures to cold pressor pain. Between trials, Ss in four groups were trained to use one of four cognitive coping strategies involving (a) imaginal reinterpretation, (b) imaginal distraction, (c) nonimaginal reinterpretation, or (d) nonimaginal distraction. Two additional groups were given: (e) an expectation for analgesia but no coping strategy and (f) no treatment. The four coping strategies produced equivalent attenuation of pain ratings and equivalent expectancies for analgesia. Expectancy control Ss expected analgesia, but reported no significant pain reductions. No treatment control Ss neither expected nor achieved any significant pain reductions. Among cognitive strategy groups, the Ss absorption added significantly to the variance in pain reduction above and beyond the effects of expectancy. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1989

Psychosocial variables associated with willingness to donate organs.

Questionnaires were administered to 108 university psychology students to investigate attitudes and behaviour related to organ donation. Three groups (committed, uncommitted and opposed) were identified. A multivariate analysis of variance showed that, compared with uncommitted donors, committed donors felt better informed about organ donation, had discussed donation more often with family members and knew more people who had signed donor cards. The subjects in the opposed group and those in the uncommitted group cited different reasons for not signing a donor card. Empathy, religious beliefs and attitudes about death did not affect willingness to donate. Analyses of the interaction between willingness to donate one's own organs and willingness to donate those of a family member revealed a monotonic increase in willingness to donate the organs of a family member as the type of recipient became more personally relevant. Our findings indicate that when health care professionals request donor organs the potential recipients must be presented to the potential donors in a personally relevant manner. Educational programs must be developed to train medical personnel in how to effectively ask for organs without coercing the potential donor or invading the privacy of the potential recipient.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Cognitive mediators in the reduction of pain: the role of expectancy, strategy use, and self-presentation.

Eighty subjects underwent three trials of cold-pressor pain. The first cold-pressor trial served as a baseline. Next, subjects in a neutral (no expectancy information) condition were taught a distraction strategy (shadowing letters) before one cold-pressor trial and an imagery strategy before the other. Subjects in other conditions received positive expectancy information about one of the strategies and negative expectancy information about the other. Negative information reduced expectancy ratings and decreased the magnitude of reported pain reductions. Both pretested levels of social desirability and degree of absorption in strategy use made contributions to the prediction of pain reduction that were independent of expectancy ratings. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Hypnosis, suggestion, and placebo in the reduction of experimental pain.

Two experiments compared placebo and hypnotic analgesia in high and low hypnotizable subjects. Experiment 1 demonstrated that hypnotic and placebo analgesia were equally ineffective in low hypnotizables, but that hypnotic analgesia was much more effective than placebo analgesia in high hypnotizables. Experiment 2 replicated these results, but also included low and high hypnotizables who were given a nonhypnotic suggestion for analgesia. Both the low and high hypnotizables in this group reported greater suggested than placebo analgesia and as much suggested analgesia as high hypnotizable hypnotic subjects. Both experiments found substantial discrepancies between the amount of pain reduction subjects expected from the various treatments and the amount of pain reduction they actually reported following exposure to those treatments. In Experiment 2, subjects in all treatments who reduced reported pain engaged in more cognitive coping and less catastrophizing than those who did not reduce pain. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1989

Effects of instructional set on attributions of nonvolition during hypnotic and nonhypnotic analgesia.

Fifty highly hypnotizable subjects were assigned to four treatment groups or a no-treatment control group and then underwent two pain stimulation trials. Half the treated subjects were administered hypnotic analgesia, half waking analgesia. Within hypnotic and nonhypnotic treatments, half the subjects were given actively worded analgesia instructions, half passively worded instructions. Subjects in the four treated groups reported equivalent pain reduction and equivalent use of coping imagery, although hypnotic subjects rated themselves as more deeply hypnotized than did nonhypnotic subjects. Both hypnotic and nonhypnotic subjects given passive instructions rated their pain reduction as occurring involuntarily, whereas those given active instructions reported that their pain was reduced through their active use of coping strategies. These findings support sociocognitive formulations of hypnotic responding that view ratings of involuntariness as reflecting contextually guided interpretations of behavior.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

The effects of contextual information and gender on the prediction of hypnotic susceptibility.

Council, Kirsch, and Hafner (1986) obtained empirical support for the hypothesis that significant correlations between questionnaire measures of absorption and hypnotic susceptibility are an artifact of subjects' beliefs about their own hypnotizability. We tested this hypothesis in a two-session experiment. During Session 1, subjects completed questionnaire measures of absorption, mystical experience, daydreaming frequency, and paranormal beliefs. During Session 2, subjects were tested for hypnotic susceptibility. Subjects were also exposed to one of three information manipulations: They were told about hypnotic testing either before or after filling out the questionnaires or were not told about hypnotic testing. The information manipulation moderated the prediction of susceptibility by the questionnaire measures for women, but not for men. For women, scores on the absorption questionnaire predicted susceptibility only when subjects were informed about hypnotic testing. In the told-after condition, this effect generalized to all of the remaining questionnaire measures. For men, none of the questionnaires was a reliable predictor of susceptibility.

Adult↗