Nicholas Spanos

Nicholas Peter Spanos (1942 – June 6, 1994), was professor of psychology and director of the Laboratory for Experimental Hypnosis at Carleton University from 1975 to his death in a single engine plane crash on June 6, 1994. Spanos conducted multiple studies that challenged common beliefs. He tried to distinguish the difference between common beliefs about hypnosis and what was actually occurring. These studies conducted by Spanos led to the modern understanding that hypnosis is not an altered state and is actually suggested behaviors that the participant chooses to go along with or not. Along with this, Spanos conducted studies regarding dissociative identity disorder in which he stated that multiple personalities are not a product of trauma but are based on social norms.

Biography He was an American by birth and received his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Boston University. He practiced at Medfield State Hospital and with Boston Psychological Associates before joining the Department of Psychology at Carleton in 1975. He wrote 183 journal articles and 19 chapters for textbooks during his career there. He also wrote for Skeptical Inquirer. and another dealt with dissociative identity disorder, which tries to explain why some people have multiple personalities. Through his studies Spanos took an alternative approach to most psychologists and John Chaves and Bill Jones stated that he believed these two areas are, "rule-governed social constructions established, legitimated, and maintained through social interaction.

Hypnosis

Nonstate position Spanos hypothesized that the behaviors and experiences associated with hypnosis are acted out in accordance with the social context and expectations of the hypnotist and the setting by the person undergoing hypnosis even though they may be sometimes experienced as involuntary. He argued persistently and demonstrated in over 250 experimental studies that hypnotic acts are strongly influenced by the definition of the contexts in which they occur as well as by the cognitive interpretation of the person hypnotized. Spanos argued against Hilgard’s (and others') belief that hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness or a "special" or dissociated state of consciousness. Spanos worked for almost thirty years on this theory, first at the Medfield Foundation with Theodore X. Barber, John Chaves and others, and later at Carleton University in Canada. He proposed that exhibiting multiple identities is a social role based upon the norms of a given culture, that it is an attention seeking behaviour reinforced by therapists through hypnosis, which Spanos describes as "highly reminiscent of Catholic exorcism procedures." According to Spanos, hypnosis, spirit possession, and multiple personalities are similar phenomena that represent socially controlled behavior rather than special dissociative or trance states; like other social behaviors, they are learned through observation and interaction within a culture. The sociocognitive explanation for dissociative identity disorder is accepted by some but rejected by others who believe that multiple personalities result from severe trauma and cause a distinct psychological state, citing the fact that the majority of DID patients did not face hypnosis as part of their treatment and that phenomena like spirit possession and hypnosis have not been observed to cause essential diagnostic criteria such as amnesia.

Selected bibliography Spanos, N. P. (1994). Multiple identity enactments and multiple personality disorder: A sociocognitive perspective. Psychological Bulletin, 116, 143–165. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.116.1.143 Spanos, N. P. (1996). Multiple Identities & False Memories: A Sociocognitive Perspective. Washington: American Psychological Association.

Footnotes