Physiological Response to the Suggestion of Attitudes Specific for Hives and Hypertension

Abstract

A specificity-of-attitude hypothesis for psychosomatic disease was tested experimentally by means of hypnotic suggestion of attitudes. Twenty healthy male subjects were given two attitude suggestions on each of 2 days, with the order of presentation reversed on the second day. The two attitudes employed were those associated with hives (the subject felt that he was being unjustly treated and could think of nothing he wanted to do about it), and hypertension (he had to be on guard against bodily assault). It was predicted that skin temperatures would rise more with the hives suggestion than with that for hypertension and that diastolic blood pressure would rise more with the hypertension than with the hives suggestion. Systolic blood pressure, respiratory rate, and pulse rate were also measured. No predictions of differential effects of the two attitudes on these variables were made. The predictions were confirmed. Mean change, maximal rise, and rate of change of skin temperature during the hives suggestion were significantly greater than the corresponding changes during the hypertension suggestion. All three measures of change in diastolic blood pressure were significantly greater during the hypertension than during the hives suggestion. There were no differential effects of the two attitude suggestions on systolic blood pressure, heart rate, or respiratory rate. The experimental design also permitted an analysis of the variance associated with factors other than the two attitude suggestions. There were significant differences during the control periods but not during attitude periods between the first and second day of experimenting. Intersubject differences were also important during control periods but were less so for attitude periods. Some significant variability was associated with the order of presentation of attitudes and with the two experimenters.