November 5, 2024

·      What question about the reading for today did I prepare before class?

o   Why was it so important for Mesmer to convince others of hypnotism?

·      What key ideas did I hear in seminar today?

o   Mesmer – hypnotism

o   Social influence processes

o   Sometimes practices medicine

o   Mesmer claimed to have cured a blind teenage pianist that became blind again when the parents removed her from his care prematurely, with the parents charging him with improper conduct with the help of orthodox physicians

§  Mesmer responded to this by saying the parents were only upset due to the celebrity status of their daughter dropping after she received sight

o   This caused the patients to show some effects called

§  Social contagion – spread of ideas, attitudes, or behavior patterns in a group through imitation and conformity

§   Social facilitation – the strength or intensity of an act or behavior increasing when preformed in a group setting

o   Travelling practitioners of Mesmer’s teachings would show people having no reaction to painful stimuli, leading physicians and the like to become interested because of the lack of chemical anesthetics, pain was thought by many to be necessary

o   A respected Belgian psychologist didn’t agree; therefore, he went to the
Salpêtrière to see for himself, he thought the patients were expecting what was to be asked as the hypnotists telegraphed their actions

·      What substantive ideas or comments did I contribute in seminar today?

o   Active listening

·      What did I learn today that contributed to my understanding of psychology?

o   His findings were published in a book nobody really read, but Hippolyte Bernheim
(1840-1919), a young doctor from the practice thought it was pretty cool, so he
became a hypnotist

§  He postured that patients have a suggestibility trait

§  Suggestibility – “the aptitude to transform an idea into an act”