A laboratory experiment, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, involved 243 U.S. undergraduate students and employed a 2 (gain-framed vs. loss-framed) × 2 (high vs. low threat) plus control group pretest-posttest experimental design to assess the combined effects of frame (gain vs. loss) and level of threat of public service announcements (PSAs) about marijuana on attitudes, beliefs, and intentions related to marijuana, as well as the relationship of message condition to ratings of PSAs. Results suggest that loss-framed messages may lead to greater perceived threat, as well as reactance, and gain-framed messages may lead to a greater reduction in positive attitudes toward marijuana than loss-framed messages. Finally, frame and threat may interact in a complex way. Further research is suggested to replicate these findings. A substantial body of carefully crafted and systematic research studies examining both content and features of messages increasingly informs mass media prevention efforts, including the development of public service announcements (PSAs). Although the significance of messages on commercial broadcast stations may be diminishing with the increasing role and impact of new media, many of the basic questions addressed by this research are likely to apply across media channels. Nonetheless, important questions about what makes a message effective in changing an individual's attitudes or behavior remain to be answered. In this paper, the authors focus on two theoretically derived strategies that offer possibilities for developing persuasive messages: framing and threat.

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Two giants of American philanthropy, the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, have had a complicated history in South Asia. The sources are considerable, but mainly on the grant-giver side, with little attention to the impact of the grants. The Rockefeller Foundation started its grants to India in 1916 and through 1947 worked mainly in the field of medicine. Later it broadened its interests to include agriculture and humanities. It curtailed most of its India interest in 1973. The Ford Foundation entered India in the 1950s. Douglas Ensminger, its representative, became the most powerful foreign representative of the foundation, calling himself a “change agent” and enjoying unusual access to Prime Minister Nehru. He presided over the expansion of Ford Foundation technical assistance, with over 100 foreigners working for it in India by 1970. Thereafter it decided to cut the number of foreigners working in India and change its mode of operation to one of grant giver. The golden age of the foundations was in the 1950s and 1960s, when they played a most important role; thereafter significant changes occurred.

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