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SUGGESTION

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Originally appearing in Volume V26, Page 50 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SUGGESTION . By the older See also:

British writers on See also:psychology the words " suggest " and " suggestion " were used in senses very See also:close to those which they have in See also:common speech; one See also:idea was said to suggest another when it recalled that other to mind or (in the See also:modern phrase) reproduced it. Modern studies in See also:mental See also:pathology and See also:hypnotism (q.v.) have led to the use of these words by psychologists in a See also:special and technical sense. The hypnotists of the See also:Nancy school rediscovered and gave See also:general currency to the See also:doctrine that the most essential feature of the hypnotic See also:state is the unquestioning obedience and docility with which the hypnotized subject accepts, believes, and acts in accordance with every command or proposition of the hypnotizes. Commands or propositions made to the subject (they may be merely implied by a gesture, a glance, or a See also:chance remark to a third See also:person) and accepted with this peculiarly uncritical and intense belief were called " suggestions "; and the subject that accepted them in this See also:fashion was said to be " suggestible." It has also been made abundantly clear, chiefly by the labours of See also:French physicians, that a high degree of " suggestibility " is a leading feature of See also:hysteria, and that this fact is the See also:key to the understanding of very many of its protean manifestations. It is also becoming widely recognized that the suggestibility of hypnosis and of hysteria is conditicned by a See also:peculiar state of the See also:brain, namely a cerebral or mental See also:dissociation, which in hypnosis is temporarily induced by the operations of the hypnotist, and in hysteria arises from some deficiency of See also:energy in the whole psycho-See also:physical See also:system. In respect to these points there is now a wide consensus of See also:opinion among the leading authorities; but as to the range and See also:scope of suggestion in our mental See also:life See also:great See also:differences of opinion still obtain. We may distinguish three See also:principal views. Firstly, it is maintained by a number of physicians (notably by See also:Professor See also:Pierre See also:Janet, whose profound studies of hysterical patients are justly celebrated) that all hypnotizable persons are hysterical and that suggestibility is a See also:condition peculiar to hysterical subjects. In view of the assertions in See also:recent years of several physicians of high repute to the effect that they find more than 9o% of all subjects hypnotizable, it would seem that this view can-not be maintained, and that this restriction of suggestion to hysterical subjects only, and the See also:stigmatization of suggestibility as in every See also:case a morbid symptom, are errors arising from too exclusive occupation with its manifestations in this See also:field. A second See also:group consists of writers who admit that suggestion may operate in normal minds, but who, while recognizing that it is not an essentially pathological See also:process, maintain that it is a process of very peculiar and exceptional nature that has little or no See also:affinity with normal mental operations. They hold that suggestion, whether it occurs in morbid or in healthy subjects, always implies the coming into operation of some obscurely conceived See also:faculty or region of the mind which is See also:present in all men, but which usually lies hidden or submerged beneath the flow of our more See also:commonplace mental activities.

This sub-merged faculty or system of faculties, which is held by these authors to be operative in all processes of suggestion, is variously designated by them the secondary or submerged stratum of consciousness, the subconscious or subliminal self (see SUBLIMINAL SELF). The writers of this group insist upon the more start-See also:

ling of the effects producible by suggestion, the more See also:pro-found changes of bodily and mental processes, such as See also:paralysis, contracture, hyperaesthesia, increased See also:power of recollection, hallucinations (q.v.), &c.; and they regard dissociation as the process by which the submerged and supernormal faculty (or faculties) that they postulate is liberated from the dominance of the normal waking self. A third view has been rapidly gaining ground and is now predominant. It connects itself with, and bases itself upon, the view of Professor Bernheim and his colleagues of the Nancy school of hypnotism. According to this view all men are normally suggestible under favourable conditions, and the hypnotic subject and the hysteric patient differ from the normal human being chiefly in that their normal suggestibility is more or less (sometimes very greatly) increased, owing to the prevalence of the state of cerebral dissociation. According to this third view, suggestion may be defined as the communication of any proposition from one person (or persons) to another in such a way as to secure its See also:acceptance with conviction, in the See also:absence of adequate logical grounds for its acceptance. The idea or belief so introduced to the mind of the recipient is held to operate powerfully upon his bodily and mental processes in proportion to the degree of its dominance over all other ideas or mental processes; and the extraordinary See also:character of the effects, both bodily and mental, of suggestion in hypnotic and hysterical subjects is held to be due to the fact that, in these conditions of mental dissociation, the dominance of the suggested idea is See also:complete and See also:absolute; whereas in the absence of such dissociation the operation of the suggested idea is always subject to some weakening or See also:inhibition through the See also:influence of many opposed or incompatible tendencies and ideas, even if these do not rise into explicit consciousness. This third view seems justified by the facts that no See also:sharp See also:line can be See also:drawn between the suggestibility of normal men and that of hypnotized or hysterical subjects, and that under favour-able conditions many of the most striking results of suggestion (e.g. hallucinations, contractures, inability to move, insensibility of various sense-See also:organs, and so forth) may be produced in subjects who present at the See also:time no other symptom of the hypnotic or hysterical condition. If, then, we recognize, as we must, that the alogical See also:production of conviction is the essence of suggestion, and that this frequently occurs in normal minds as well as in those suffering from various degrees of dissociation, it becomes necessary to define the conditions that favour the operation of suggestion in normal minds. These conditions are See also:resident, on the one See also:hand, in the recipient of the suggestion, and, on the other hand, in the source from which the suggestion comes. Of the conditions of the former class three seem to be of principal importance. (a) Defect of knowledge: the defect may be quantitative or qualitative, i.e. it may consist in the lack of knowledge or of firmly established beliefs about the subject of the proposition, or it may consist in the lack of systematic organization of such knowledge as the mind possesses.

The well-trained mind is relatively insuggestible,.firstly because it possesses large stores of knowledge and belief; secondly, because this See also:

mass of know-ledge and belief is systematically organized in such a way that all its parts hang together and mutually support one another. On the other hand, the See also:young See also:child, the uncultured adult, and especially the See also:savage, are See also:apt to be suggestible in regard to very many topics, first, because they have relatively little know-ledge; secondly, because what little they have is of a See also:low degree of organization; i.e. it does not See also:form a logically coherent system whose parts reciprocally support one another. Suggestion in such cases may be said to be conditioned by See also:primitive credulity or the suggestibility of See also:ignorance. (h) But the same person will not be found to be equally suggestible at all times under similar See also:external conditions. There are changes of mental state which, without overstepping the limits of the normal, condition varying degrees of increased suggestibility. A See also:man is least suggestible when his mind See also:works most efficiently, when he is most vigorous and most wide awake; every departure from this state, due to fatigue, bodily See also:ill-See also:health, emotional perturbation,49 drugs or any other cause, favours suggestibility. (c) Persons of equal degrees of knowledge or ignorance will be found, even at their times of greatest mental efficiency, to be unequally suggestible owing to differences of native disposition; one person is by nature more open than another to See also:personal influence, more easily swayed by others, more ready to accept their dicta and adopt their opinions for his own. Differences of this See also:kind are probably the expression of differences in the native strength of one of the fundamental instinctive dispositions of the human mind, an See also:instinct which is called into See also:play by the presence of persons of See also:superior See also:powers and the excitement of which throws the subject into an attitude of submission or subjection towards the impressive See also:personality. Considered from the See also:side of the See also:agent, suggestion is favoured by whatever tends to render him impressive to the subject or patient—great bodily strength or stature, See also:fine clothes, a confident manner, superior abilities of any kind, See also:age and experience, any reputation for special capacities, high social position or the occupation of any position of acknowledged authority; in See also:short, all that is summed up by the See also:term " personality," all that contributes to make a personality " magnetic " or to give it See also:prestige renders it capable of evoking on the See also:part of others the submissive suggestible attitude. A group of persons in agreemen t is capable of evoking the suggestible attitude far more effectively than any single member of the group, and the larger the group the more strongly does it exert this influence. Hence the suggestive force of the popularly accepted See also:maxims and well-established social conventions; such propositions are collective suggestions which carry with them all the immense collective prestige of organized society, both of the present and the past; they embody the See also:wisdom of the ages. It is in the See also:main through the suggestive power of moral maxims, endowed with all the prestige of great moral teachers and of the collective See also:voice of society, that the child is led to accept with but little questioning the See also:code of morals of his age and See also:country; and the See also:propagation of all religious and other See also:dogma rests on the same basis.

The normal suggestibility of the child is thus a principal condition of its docility, and it is in the main by the operation of normal suggestion that society moulds the characters, sentiments, and beliefs of its members, and renders the mass of its elements harmonious and homogeneous to the degree that is a necessary condition of its collective mental life. Normal suggestion produces its most striking effects in the form of mass-suggestion, i.e. when it. operates in large assemblies or crowds, especially if the members have but little See also:

positive knowledge and culture. For, when a belief is propagated by collective suggestion through the large mass of men, each falls under the suggestive sway of the whole mass; and under these conditions the operation of suggestion is further aided by the universal tendency of mankind to See also:imitation and sympathy, the tendency to imitate the actions of, and to experience the emotions expressed by, those about one. Conditions very favourable to mass-suggestion prevailed during the See also:middle ages of See also:European See also:history; for these " dark ages " were characterized by the existence of dense populations, among whom there was See also:free intercourse but very little positive knowledge of nature, and who were dominated by a See also:church wielding immense prestige. Hence the frequent and powerful operations of suggestion on a large See also:scale. From time to time fantastic beliefs, giving rise to most extravagant behaviour, swept over large areas of See also:Europe like virulent epidemics—epidemics of dancing, of flagellation, of See also:hallucination, of belief in the miraculous powers of See also:relics or of individuals, and so forth. In these epidemics all the conditions favourable to normal suggestion were generally present in the highest degree, with the result that in great See also:numbers of persons there were produced the more extreme effects of suggestion, such as are usually associated with the hysterical or hypnotic state. At the present time similar manifestations occur in a . modified form, as e.g. the popular pilgrimages to See also:Lourdes, See also:Holywell and other places that from time to time acquire reputations for miraculous curative powers. Auto-suggestion.—Although auto-suggestion does not strictly fall under the See also:definition of suggestion given above, its usage to denote a mental process which produces effects very similar to those producible by suggestion is now so well established that it must be accepted. In auto-suggestion a proposition is formulated in the mind of the subject rather than communicated from another mind, and is accepted with conviction in the absence of adequate logical grounds. Generally the belief is initiated by some external event or some bodily See also:change, or through some See also:interpretation of the behaviour of other persons; e.g. a man falls on the road and a See also:wagon very nearly passes over his legs, perhaps grazing them merely; when he is picked up, his legs are found to be paralysed. The event has induced the conviction that his legs are seriously injured, and this conviction operates so effectively as to realize itself.

Or a savage, suffering some slight indisposition, interprets the behaviour of some person in a way which leads him to the conviction that this person is compassing his See also:

death by means of magical practices; accordingly he lies down in deep despondency and, in the course of some days or See also:weeks, See also:dies, unless his See also:friends succeed in buying off, or in some way counteracting, the malign influence. Or, as a more See also:familiar and trivial instance of auto-suggestion, we may cite the case of a man who, having taken a See also:bread pill in the belief that it contains a strong purgative or emetic, realizes the results that he expects.

End of Article: SUGGESTION

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