SUGGESTION (Lat. suggcstio, intimation, suggestion, from suy Li( rere, to suggest, supply, from sub, under + ycrerr, to carry). A term used in four different senses in psychology. (1) In its broadest significance suggestion is a hint, a prompting, the insinuation of an idea into consciousness. An orator may suggest, e.g. im patience to his audience by a shrug of his shoul ders. (2) Suggestion is used more narrowly as a synonym for association (q.v.). The idea of Spain suggests (or 'associates with') war, Nvar suggests Cuba, Cuba suggests sugar, etc. (3) Still more specifically, suggestion implies a pe culiar mode of creating belief. One may, e.g. create by suggestion the belief that a piece of metal is hot by handling it as if it were burning one. (4) Finally, suggestion indicates a means of directing the consciousness and the movements of a hypnotized subject. The operator is said to `suggest' to his subject that he see an object which is not in reality present, or that he react to an imaginary situation. The first two detinithms con template suggestion simply as an incentive to 're production' ( seeltEPRODUCTION or I DEAs ) ; the last two as a determinant of belief, under usual or 'nor mal' and under unusual or 'abnormal' conditions. Between the third and the fourth uses of the word no strict line of demarcation can be drawn. (See IIrPixoTtsm.) The tern) is most accurately employed in one of these narrower senses, as an influence upon belief. Belief (q.v.) may appear either as a mood of acquiescence (one believes, e.g. when one is told that 2 + 3 = 5), or as a conviction following upon deliberation (one be lieves the conclusion reached by a series of `sound' arguments). Just how suggestion may occasion belief under unusual circumstances, as in hypnosis, psychologists are not entirely agreed, but two theories have been worked out in detail. (1) The first (Wundt's) maintains that
in hypnotic suggestion there is a 'constriction' of consciousness. Few ideas enter at once; only those that are aroused directly by association. 'Foreign' ideas are barred out. The narrowing of the field of consciousness implies, according to the theory, an increased clearness and in tensity in the ideas attended to. This fact is explained physiologically by hyperiesthesia of a limited cortical area and a corresponding amps thesia in the other areas. The result is that whatever comes to mind is peculiarly vivid and forcible and stands free from contradicting ideas. This is synonymous with belief. (2) The other theory (Lipps's) sees the essence of suggestion in an unusual inhibition of experience which, if it could come before the mind, would destroy belief (e.g. a hypnotized person believes the operator's statement that he is a king. or a cat, because his past experience is in abeyance: it is beyond his control: he is unable to criticise or to oppose any statement made). The theory rejects physiologien1 explanations and substitutes 'un conscious ideas.' Both theories agree that lack of conflieting ideas is essential. There is no room in hypnotic suggestion for deliberation and choice. To this we must add a feeling element, in the mood of acquiescence BIBLIOGRAPHY. Baldwin. Story of the MindBibliography. Baldwin. Story of the Mind (New York, 1898) ; Moll, Hypnotism, (London, 1891) ; Wundt, Pltilosophische Studien viii. (1893) ; Lipps, Zur Psychologie der Suggestion (Leipzig, 1897).