EXPERIMENTS WERE DESIGNED IN THIS RESEARCH TO DISCOVER (1) THE VARIOUS CONDITIONS WHICH MITIGATE THE DISTURBING EFFECTS OF ADVERSIVE EMOTIONAL CONTENT USED AS A MOTIVATING STIMULUS AND (2) TECHNIQUES OF MOTIVATING THE STUDENT SO THAT LONGER PROGRAMS OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS COULD BE MADE INHERENTLY INTERESTING AND MORE EFFECTIVE. THE FIRST EXPERIMENT WAS TO DETERMINE WHETHER THE INCLUSION OF RELEVANT EMOTIONAL CONTENT, IN A SERIES OF SELF-INSTRUCTIONAL MANUALS ON DRIVING, WOULD AFFECT LEARNING AND RETENTION OF THE MATERIALS. SUBJECTS WERE NINTH-GRADE DRIVER EDUCATION STUDENTS. THE INTENSITY AND ORDER OF PRESENTATION OF THE EMOTIONAL STIMULI WERE VARIED SYSTEMATICALLY SO THAT RESULTS COULD BE COMPARED WITH FINDINGS OF EXISTING RESEARCH, AND SO THAT HYPOTHESES COULD BE GENERATED FOR PREDICTING HOW TO MANIPULATE EMOTIONAL STIMULUS VARIABLES FOR MAXIMUM STUDENT MOTIVATION. IN THE SECOND EXPERIMENT AN ATTEMPT WAS MADE TO EXTEND THE FINDINGS OF THE FIRST EXPERIMENT. EXPERIMENT ONE HAD FIVE INTENSITY CONDITIONS AND THREE ORDERS. EXPERIMENT TWO HAD TWO LEVELS OF INTENSITY AND TWO PLACEMENT ORDERS. IN LIGHT OF THE FINDINGS, A REVISED THEORETICAL POSITION WAS TAKEN WHICH INDICATED TWO CONDITIONS FOR FACILITATING LEARNING--THE AROUSAL OF SOME EVALUATIONAL TENSION AND THE COGNITIVE LINKAGE OF THE TENSION TO THE STIMULUS SITUATION AND TO THE RESPONSES TO BE LEARNED. (JC)