The relationship of hypnosis to academic psychology has through the years been similar to its relationship to psychiatry—sometimes popular and supported by those of prestige within their disciplines, sometimes in disrepute and carried on only by those on the fringes. This cyclical history is well known, and we suffer a little even today as we attempt to maintain interest in hypnosis within the scientific community, although many signs, such as the IBRO-sponsored conference in France in October 1967, indicate a more favourable contemporary attitude.

A forced-choice arithmetical estimation task was devised. The task included three units of 50 addition problems each. To each unit of the task a different payoff matrix was attached. Twenty Ss participated in the experiment. It was found that estimation under severe time limits was correct in about 70% of the items. No effects of the different payoff matrices was found. Ss showed perfect probability matching in their estimation behavior.

An experiment was performed to test the hypothesis, derived from equity theory, that equity and unfavorable inequity can act as a source of reward and punishment in addition to any reward provided by an individuals own outcomes. The results supported the hypothesis. It was also found that the choice behavior of females was more strongly influenced by equity and inequity than was that of males.

How can an investigator choose a good team of raters to use for measuring a continuous variable when each available rater produces only dichotomous responses? We formulate an underlying model, define an index of goodness for rater teams in terms of average mean square error of the estimate, develop a new estimator and derive the optimal rater terms. The optimal raters have characteristic curves which are linear in form and satisfy the requirements for a Guttman scale.

Submissive rat Ss, defined in terms of the dominance tube, were taught various mazes independent of the more dominant Ss of their groups. After being run in the mazes with the naive Ss, the groups were retested in the dominance tube. The results indicated a significant change from test to retest in the groups subjected to the learning tasks, while two control groups remained stable.