Social constructionism and role-playing theory!

Social constructionism and role-playing theory

This theory suggests that individuals are playing a role and that really there is no such thing as hypnosis. A relationship is built depending on how much rapport has been established between the "hypnotist" and the subject (see Hawthorne effect, Pygmalion effect, and the Placebo effect).

Generally, during the communication process people can become more receptive to suggestion, causing changes in the way they feel, think, and behave. Some psychologists such as Robert Baker claim that what we call hypnosis is actually a form of learned social behavior, a complex hybrid of social compliance, relaxation, and suggestibility that can account for many esoteric behavioral manifestations.Psychologists, such as Sarbin and Spanos, have suggested that strong social expectations are played out by subjects, who believe they are in a state of "hypnosis", behaving in a way that they imagine a "hypnotized" person would behave.

Nicholas Spanos states "hypnotic procedures influence behavior indirectly by altering subjects' motivations, expectations and interpretations" and hypothesized that the behaviors associated with hypnosis are acted out knowingly by the person. He alleged that there are two reasons that cause people to misconstrue their state of consciousness as hypnosis. One of the reasons being that people believe that their behavior is caused by an external source instead of the self. The second is related to the way hypnotic rituals are performed. The hypnotist says certain things which are first interpreted as voluntary and then later on in the procedure as involuntary. An example being "relax the muscles in your legs" and then later "your legs feel limp and heavy".

Much experimental work has demonstrated that the experiences of supposedly hypnotized subjects can be dramatically shaped by expectations and social nuances. In short, individuals are choosing to act out a role and experiencing effects based on their expectations and subtle methods of communication, the mechanism by which these take place have in part been socially constructed and are not based on the idea of an altered state of consciousness.