In a new article, psychological scientists Maryanne Garry and Robert Michael of Victoria University of Wellington, along with Irving Kirsch of Harvard Medical School and Plymouth University, delve into the phenomenon of suggestion, exploring the intriguing relationship between suggestion, cognition, and behavior<\/strong>. The article is published in the June issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science<\/em>, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.<\/p>\n Over their research careers, Garry and Kirsch have both studied the effects of suggestion on cognition and behavior. Kirsch focused mostly on suggestion in clinical psychology, while Garry, whose work is supported by the Marsden Fund of New Zealand, was interested in the effects of suggestion on human memory. When the two got to talking, \u201cwe realized that the effects of suggestion are wider and often more surprising than many people might otherwise think,\u201d says Garry.<\/p>\n Across many studies, research has shown that deliberate suggestion can influence how people perform on learning and memory tasks, which products they prefer, and how they respond to supplements and medicines, which accounts for the well-known placebo effect<\/strong>.<\/p>\n But what can explain the powerful and pervasive effect that suggestion has in our lives? The answer lies in our \u2018response expectancies<\/strong>,\u2019 or the ways in which we anticipate our responses in various situations. These expectancies set us up for automatic responses that actively influence how we get to the outcome we expect. Once we anticipate a specific outcome will occur, our subsequent thoughts and behaviors will actually help to bring that outcome to fruition<\/strong>.<\/p>\n So, if a normally shy person expects that a glass of wine or two will help him loosen up at a cocktail party, he will probably feel less inhibited, approach more people, and get involved in more conversations over the course of the party. Even though he may give credit to the wine, it is clear that his expectations of how the wine would make him feel played a major role.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not just deliberate suggestion that influences our thoughts and behaviors \u2013 suggestions that are not deliberate can have the very same effects<\/strong>. As the authors point out, \u201csimply observing people or otherwise making them feel special can be suggestive,\u201d a phenomenon termed the Hawthorne effect. As a result, people might work harder, or stick to a task for longer. And this case is more worrying, says Garry, \u201cbecause although we might then give credit to some new drug or treatment, we don\u2019t realize that we are the ones who are actually wielding the influence.\u201d<\/p>\n It is for precisely this reason that the issue of unintentional suggestion has important implications for academic researchers. \u201cIn the scientific community, we need to be aware of \u2013 and control for \u2013 the suggestions we communicate to subjects,\u201d says Garry. The authors note that some recent failures to replicate previous research findings may ultimately be explained by such unintentional suggestion<\/strong>. \u201cRecent research suggests that some of psychological science\u2019s most intriguing findings may be driven, at least in part, by suggestion and expectancies<\/strong>,\u201d Garry observes. \u201cFor example, a scientist who knows what the hypothesis of an experiment is might unwittingly lead subjects to produce the hypothesized effect\u2014for reasons that have nothing to do with the experiment itself.\u201d<\/p>\n And the unintended effects of suggestion aren\u2019t just restricted to the laboratory \u2013 they cut across many real world domains, including the fields of medicine, education, and criminal justice. For example, converging evidence on eyewitness identification procedures demonstrates that the rate of false identifications is significantly higher when lineups are conducted by people who know who the suspect is than when the lineups are conducted by people who don\u2019t.<\/p>\n While research has provided clear evidence for the phenomenon of suggestion, there is still much more to learn about the underlying relationship between suggestion, cognition, and behavior. As the authors point out, researchers still don\u2019t know where the boundaries and limitations of these effects lie. \u201cAnd, if a \u2018real\u2019 treatment and a \u2018suggestion\u2019 lead to a similar outcome, what differentiates between the two?\u201d says Garry. Understanding these issues has important real world implications. \u201cIf we can harness the power of suggestion, we can improve people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Association for Psychological Science press release: A lucky rabbit foot. A glass of wine. A pill. What do these things all have in common? Their effects \u2013 whether… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[18,363,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3448,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3447\/revisions\/3448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/Pondering.jpg\" "\\"pondering\\"")
A lucky rabbit foot. A glass of wine. A pill. What do these things all have in common? Their effects<\/strong> \u2013 whether we do well on a test, whether we mingle at the cocktail party, whether we feel better \u2013 all depend on the power of suggestion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n