Absorption: Tellegen and Atkinson’s trait measure

Absorption is a questionnaire trait: openness to immersive, self-altering experience. It is not an induction and not a stage of trance.

Key evidence

Tellegen and Atkinson’s 1974 Journal of Abnormal Psychology paper defined “openness to absorbing and self-altering experiences (‘absorption’)” as a trait related to hypnotic susceptibility. That is the citation for the name.

Later work asked whether the absorption–susceptibility link depends on the testing context (expectancy, how the scales are introduced). Kirsch and colleagues treated expectancy as a competing predictor. This page does not re-run that debate as a meta-analysis.

See hypnotic susceptibility for what the session scales measure.

Limitations

A high absorption score does not mean a person will pass Stanford items tomorrow.

What we don't know yet

How stable the absorption–susceptibility correlation is across contexts is an empirical question, not a slogan.

This page is informational only.