Effects of hypnosis on verbal and non-verbal creativity

60 female volunteers, 30 hypnotizable and 30 unhypnotizable, screened on 2 measures of hypnotizability, were assigned to a hypnosis, simulation, or waking motivated treatment condition to assess whether hypnosis has a differentially enhancing effect upon verbal and non-verbal creativity test performance. Verbal and figural components of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (Torrance, 1974) and the Sounds and Images Test (Cunnington & Torrance, 1965) were the principal dependent variables. Postexperimental measures of absorption and effortless experiencing were also obtained. A 2 x 3 independent groups ANOVA did not sustain the prediction of an interaction effect between S hypnotizability and the presence of hypnosis on 3 composite measures of verbal and nonverbal creativity. Although there was an absence of treatment effects, hypnotizable Ss consistently achieved higher scores on the Torrance scoring categories, and their performance was statistically superior on a composite index of overall creativity. Absorption and effortless experiencing measures were also significantly higher for hypnotizable Ss than for unhypnotizable Ss.