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Behavior: The Eyes Have It

A new index of personality

John Dean is a one. A famous opera singer is a five. Manhattan Psychiatrist Herbert Spiegel, who invented the eye-roll scale in the first place, is in the middle, between a two and a three.

To Spiegel, 63, a clinical professor at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, measuring the eye roll is no mere cocktail-party game but "a pivotal clinical sign" of how susceptible a person is to being hypnotized. Even more surprising, he says it is also a rough index of some basic personality traits, including suggestibility and gullibility.

Spiegel's test: hold the head level and...

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