Brodt and zimbardo (1981) found that shy women who were bombarded with loud noise and told that it would leave them were subsequently when interacting with a handsome male.

The first blank space should be filled with: "with a dry mouth, increased heart rate, and slight tremors".

The second blank space should be filled with: "less shy".

Brodt and Zimbardo stated that an anxiety-evoking stimulus, like shyness, which subsists over a prolonged period of time, becomes part of a person's personality. For study purposes, they labeled this as a "disposition". They proposed that it is commonly believed that this "disposition" is self-motivated by the individual rather than a response to the particular stimulus.

However, attributing the target arousal (shyness) to another "neutral" stimulus is a way to "head off" the unwanted behavior.

In the experiment, they told the shy woman that they wanted to test the effects of loud noise on health, completely distracting her from the belief that loud noise tends to make her shyer. As a result, the level of shyness, while talking to the male who was next to her during the experiment, was reduced.