French Norms for a Shortened Online Adaptation of the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A.

Abstract

This study presents the norms and psychometric properties for a shortened online adaptation of a French version of the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A (HGSHS:A). Assessment of involuntariness and subjective intensity was added to the traditional scoring. A total of 373 individuals completed an online hypnotizability screening test on their own computer. Participants received the HGSHS:A script through an audio recording lasting about 30 minutes. The results showed that the item difficulty and reliability of the short online HGSHS:A were consistent with the offline version of the scale and with the reference samples. Involuntariness and subjective intensity corrections improved significantly the accuracy in the measurement of the scale and helped to dissociate between different phenomenologies in hypnotic responding. These findings indicate that the short online HGSHS:A is a reliable tool for measuring hypnotizability. Moreover, we suggest that using complementary measures of involuntariness and subjective intensity helps to shed more light on hypnotizability as part of a multi-componential approach to hypnotic response.