Modifying shyness-related social behavior through symptom misattribution.

An experimental misattribution paradigm proved to be a significant intervention treatment of altering social participation among dispositionally shy women. When specific arousal symptoms previously associated with their social anxiety were misattributed to a nonpsychological source, high-frequency noise, these extremely shy women behaved as if they were not shy. Their verbal fluency and interactional assertiveness resembled that of not-shy comparison women given the same treatment. Moreover, their scores on these measures were significantly elevated from the low levels recorded by shy controls who had been led to expect shyness-irrelevant "side effects" from their exposure to noise. A male partner (a confederate) accurately perceived whether or not the women in the two control groups were shy, but he misjudged as "not shy" the shy women in the misattribution group. The greater enjoyment of the interaction by those in this latter group, despite high-frequency noise bombardment, was also reflected in their stronger preference for further affiliation than that shown by either comparison group. The continuously monitored heart rate data provide grounds for speculation as to the relationship of physiological arousal and behavior. However, a paradoxical placebo finding emerged when it appeared that the non-shy women in this same misattribution condition experienced a higher level of arousal, and this anxiety-like arousal was associated with preferences for nonaffiliation.