Psychological Constraints in Technology Transfer

Imperfect information, time and cost constraints risk, uncertainty, indeterminacy, high expectation, fatalistic attitude, non-flexibility, perception of item and perception of social community views in an individual entrepreneur leads to-cognitive dissonance which ultimately forms a major, constraint in adopting a particular technology. The psychological constraints as follows;

i. Imperfect information
 
         (a)    irrelevance perceived
         (b)   inability perceived
         (c)    uncertainty perceived

ii. Mental obstructs
 
         (a)    perceived knowledge
         (b)   obstacle
         (c)    disliking to item

iii. Perception of item
 
         (a)    social/group/community views
         (b)   social experience, values, social knowledge and beliefs

iv. Perception of social/ community views
 
   (a)    beliefs
  (b)   experience
  (c)    attitude
  (d)   values

v. Risk and uncertainty

(a)    inputs uncertainty
(b)   credit uncertainty
(c)    crop uncertainty
(d)   economic indeterminacy

vi. Expectation

 (a)    personality variables (abilities, beliefs, attitudes, motives)
(b)   situational variables
(c)    interactional variables

vii. Fatalism

      (a)    dependence on fate/lack of ambition
(b)   lack of motivation
(c)    lack of aspiration
     (d)    non-flexibility
     (e)   no consciousness that situation contains any opportunity
(f)    society may not value, opportunism, speculation, entrepreneurialism

viii. Dissonance
 
 (a)    lack of commitment to change agencies
(b)   lack of marketing opportunities
(c)    insecurity to adjust in future activities
(d)   no ambition of need
(e)   lack of achievement motivation
(f)     negative cultural background and experience
(g)    acceptance of a place in life society
(h)   no eagerness to define precisely the problem(s), the need(s), and the opportunity (ies)

The psychological constraints in technology transfer have been presented in Figure. The facts shown in the figure reveal that the transfer of agricultural technologies is considerably resisted by a host of psychological factors. A farmer in making his decision to adopt a technology tries to arrive at a satisfying choice among acceptable alternatives.

A combination of psychological forces governs the behavior of an individual as he proceeds, cowards his decisions on the technology whether rationally or otherwise. These forces affect him individually at the conscious and subconscious levels Indeed, the psychological forces within a decision-maker affect his behavior throughout the entire integrated
process of arriving at a choice, and of course, the ability of an individual to control these forces is limited.
 

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