Mowrer's term for the state of expectancy produced by carefully timed aversive stimuli was the "preparatory set," and it was foundational to his later thinking in both learning theory and clinical psychology.

In the fourth stage, called stabilization, the stutterer prepares practice assignments, makes preparatory sets and pull-outs automatic, and changes how they feel about themselves from being a person who stutters to being a person who speaks fluently but who sometimes stutters mildly.

This is done by "cancellations" (stopping in a stammer, waiting a few moments, and saying the word again); "pull-outs," or pulling out of a stammer into 'normal' speech; and "preparatory sets," or looking ahead for words they may stutter on, and using "easy stuttering" on those words.