NORC has a long tradition of studying public reactions to major tragedies and acute social problems. In the 1950s, NORC conducted an extensive series of local studies of public reactions to natural and human disasters--including airplane crashes, earthquakes, and floods. In the 1960s, NORC carried out several studies of response to urban riots.

The first NORC study assessing national response in times of crisis was conducted during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when President Kennedy imposed a naval blockade around Cuba and when America, it seemed, stood at the brink of nuclear war with the former Soviet Union. At that time, NORC fielded a study documenting emotional reactions to the crisis, as well as changes in respondents’ activities and respondents’ evaluations of the President’s actions. The study of responses to the Kennedy assassination came next, followed by a study on responses to the massive 12-hour power failure in the Northeast region of the United States on November 9^th, 1965. A summary of the 1965 study was printed by the New York Times 11 days after the power failure, saying in part, "Team of 100 interviews to question 1,560 in 3 states on personal reactions…. The questions fall broadly into categories headed actions, feelings, knowledge of the facts, and worries."