Attitude formation has been thought to require the characteristics of acquiring and accepting new information. However, some evidence exists to suggest that even though comprehension may be reduced by distracting stimuli, this distraction can actually aid persuasion. In order to test such a hypothesis, two experimental groups were tested under different conditions. Group A listened to an emotional message about segregation, and was tested for comprehension and attitude change. Group B was also exposed to the same persuasive message, but during the message presentation, subjects were shown 35mm color slides containing visual stimuli irrelevant to the message. Results indicated that the distracting stimuli produced a significant reduction in recall of information, while also producing a significant opinion shift.

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The Stanford Five-City Project is a large experimental field study of community health education for the prevention of cardiovascular disease. It will provide data on fundamental questions in cardiovascular disease epidemiology, communication, health education, behavior change, and community organization, and will also test the ability of a potentially cost-effective program to prevent cardiovascular disease at the community level. This paper describes the purposes, hypotheses, design, and methods of the Five-City Project as a reference for future papers describing results. It is hypothesized that a 20% decrease in cardiovascular disease risk will lead to a significant decline in cardiovascular disease event rates in two treatment communities compared with three reference communities as a result of a six-year intervention program of community-wide health education and organization. Risk factor change will be assessed through four surveys of independent samples and in a repeatedly surveyed cohort. Cardiovascular disease event rates will be assessed through continuous community surveillance of fatal and nonfatal myocardial infarction and stroke.

A longitudinal pilot study gathered data on the onset and prevention of smoking, alcohol, and drug abuse among 526 students from two junior-high-schools in California. Over two school years, students who were trained to resist social pressures toward tobacco, alcohol, and drug use began smoking at less than one-half the rate of those who did not receive special training. Frequent alcohol and marijuana use was also less prevalent among the students who received such training.