Oakley and colleagues (2021) suggest that a classic scale – HGSHS:A,
aiming to measure hypnotic suggestibility – can be used to measure direct verbal suggestibility
(DVS). According to the authors, DVS is a trait that can be measured
both with and without hypnosis. I find this initiative highly welcome.
However, I wish to give several examples why it is time to develop
entirely new scales instead. Rather than trying to explain more
phenomena with a single scale or concept, researchers should take a cue
from research that points to a far more nuanced picture of
suggestibility than a construct like DVS allows. There may be no single,
unified phenomenon that can be measured with a single scale. The old,
time-tested scales should be treated neither as sacred nor final. They
require up-to-date, critical analysis of what exactly they measure, with
an eye to how they can be further improved.