Suggestibility is a concept which was earlier understood as a scale to understand whether or not people were ‘hypnotizable’. It was believed that the ones who accept suggestions (hypnotizable) were highly suggestible and the ones who don’t were less suggestible (not hypnotizable).John Kappas through his researches was able to show that almost everyone accepts suggestions, provided the suggestions are given in a way that the listener is comfortable receiving. People take in and process information in different ways. Hence he re-defined suggestibility as the way in which people receive and interpret information. He elaborated by saying that people can receive and interpret information in two ways:
LiterallyInferentiallyThe literal are the kinds who take information as it is, at face value. For e.g. to a literal even if you sarcastically say something good, they believe it to be true by taking it at face value and feel good about it. They may even say thank you for it. Not to say that they are stupid, but they simply take information literally.
On the other hand, say you genuinely give a compliment to an inferential, that person might interpret that you want something from them.Having said this, we are not 100% literal or 100% inferential; we are a mixture of both; but it is likely that we could be more of a literal type or more of an inferential type.This understanding of suggestibility can be very useful in our day to day life; let’s take an example of a couple wherein the husband has less knowledge and interest in the kitchen. The wife before leaving the house tells him to put the milk in the refrigerator. So, he takes the information literally and does exactly what is told, without realizing that even vegetables are kept outside and that need to go in the refrigerator as well. As a result of which, there is a conflict in the evening when the wife sees spoilt vegetables.On the other hand, say the husband is very inferential when it comes to the subject of travelling, and his wife is planning to go out of town; she might mention that she is yet to fold her clothes.
So as a result, he ends up folding her clothes, packing her bags, along with listing the number of places she could go to, and so on. This behaviour might irk the wife because she never asked for it. Over here, the husband has interpreted too many things already.So at one place he was literal and at the other inferential.In order to explain suggestibility better, John Kappas came up with two scales. These scales were derived based on questionnaires.
Since Kappas believed that suggestibility gets fixed at the age of 14; the questionnaires focus on questions before the age of 14. We no longer subscribe to this idea. It is observed, in interactions and in therapies that with time suggestibility shifts. This shift takes place depending on certain factors, namely:TrustLevel of interestMental exhaustionSuggestibility is an important topic which which has a huge impact on our interactions and in therapies. It takes almost half a day to cover in workshops and hence an article may not be enough to provide you with complete information. Yet, this is an introduction which we hope you have found useful.