The rapid inclusion of new technologies into educational curriculum has left some educators feeling ill prepared and anxious towards changes in teaching styles and curriculum necessary to put these innovations to use in their classrooms. It is imperative that we address this reluctance in order to provide inclusion of both faculty and students in the information revolution that began with the Internet and that continues to sweep the globe. Existing research takes primarily an external perspective to lack of technology usage in education; few studies have considered the psychological barriers that may contribute to technological and digital inequality within a University community. Real progress can be made in motivating technology resistant faculty by teaching them to differentiate between the characteristics of experts and novices, by providing them with the tools necessary to improve their self-efficacy to utilize new teaching technologies, and by providing the infrastructural support necessary to succeed. / text

Background: NFTs (non-fungible tokens) have raised much attention within last year’s media. Many uses can be addressed by and benefit from the underlying technology that enables NFTs. NFTs have already found applications in various industries and are representing a disruptive technological innovation. Nevertheless, the hype goes along with a lot of resistance. As NFTs gained some traction in the art market, this setting is a good example to demonstrate this controversy. The focus of this study lies on the driving forces behind resistance and acceptance in the context of the NFT Art market.    Purpose: This thesis investigates the perceptions of psychological and functional barriers regarding the innovation of NFT Art resulting in active innovation resistance.    Method: This study meets its purpose by conducting a qualitative, exploratory study using technology-mediated interviews for data collection. Participants included in the study were surrounding the NFT Art market displaying different perspectives, touchpoints and levels of engagement within the market. Interview participants were purposefully selected and contacted through online platforms. The interview followed a semi-structured approach using an interview guide that was inspired by the active innovation theory. The data analysis method related to grounded analysis by following the Gioia approach   Conclusion: Perceived functional barriers identified in relation to NFT Art are complexity-, co-dependence-, and norm barriers while perceived psychological barriers emerged due to information asymmetries, economic risks, and the image barrier. Next to the initially targeted innovation-specific factors, this study showed the impact of situation-specific factors when it comes to the emergence of barriers leading to active innovation resistance. The large impact of individual characteristics influencing the evaluation and interpretation of innovation-specific factors explains the controversial perceptions regarding the NFT Art market. Examples are perceptions about the value of the innovation, surrounding communities or environmental impact. Further, the research also revealed perceived opportunities relating to potential uses NFT Art offers for both artists and buyers. Here, the ideological value attached to the underlying technology contributed to this completion.

By following a climate-friendly diet, consumers have the potential to reduce climate change. However, despite the growing awareness of the climate-friendly food options that are available, consumers still choose foods with a high carbon footprint. Following a survey design, this study aimed to determine the extent to which four psychological processes (denial, conflicting goals and aspirations, tokenism, and interpersonal influence) limit consumers’ climate-friendly food choices in South Africa. Data were collected from 151 participants using the Climate-friendly Food Choices Scale and the Psychological Barriers Scale. Regression analysis indicated that conflicting goals and aspirations and denial were the two main psychological barriers to climate-friendly food choices. Overall the barriers were negatively associated with climate-friendly food choices. Gender did not produce a significant effect in the study. Different age groups varied with regards to the extent to which they experienced the psychological barriers, but they did not differ significantly with regards to how often they made climate-friendly food choices. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

Antropogena klimatförändringar, förkortat AK, är ett av nutidens stora miljöproblem. För att hantera AK är människors motivation och intention att agera klimatvänligt viktigt, eftersom avsaknad motivation och intention att adressera AK kan bringa negativa konsekvenser för samhället. Individers motivation och intention att agera klimatvänligt kan influeras av framing, vilket syftar till att betona specifika delar av verkligheten. Vilken framing som används kan vara avgörande ifall individer agerar klimatvänligt eller inte. Den konventionella framing som dominerar samhället grundas i att betona fakta och de negativa effekterna av AK. AK framställs som en inkräktande katastrof vilken bör hanteras via uppoffringar, förluster och kostnader. Konventionella klimatkommunikationen kan leda till passivitet hos individer och en önskan att undvika ämnet. Eftersom motivation och intention att agera klimatvänligt är betydande uppstår behovet att skapa en icke-konventionell framing som tar människors psykologiska barriärer i åtanke. Syftet med studien var att applicera Stoknes (2015) teori om de fem psykologiska barriärerna som hindrar en effektiv klimatkommunikation och hur dessa barriärer kan tas i åtanke för att uppnå en mer effektiv klimatkommunikation. Två olika framing alternativ i form av berättelser var fokus för studien. Frågeställningen var: Hur påverkar konventionell respektive icke-konventionell framing individers motivation och intention att agera klimatvänligt? För att testa berättelserna utfördes ett kontrollerat experiment och en sluten enkät utgjorde mätinstrument för att kvantifiera motivation och intention. Data från enkäten analyserades med Mann-Whitney U test och Cohen’s d test. En viss ökning av motivation och intention ägde rum, men det fanns inte en statistisk signifikant skillnad i motivation och intention att agera klimatvänligt efter deltagarna utsatts för en berättelse. Data antyder förändringar i motivation och intention skett för gruppen som tog del av icke-konventionella framing alternativet, och därmed bör fortsättningsstudier genomföras med normalfördelad population av betydligt större skala. Vidare kan potentiellt en annan vetenskapsteoretisk utgångspunkt nyttjas, specifikt flermetodsforskning. / Anthropogenic climate change, abbreviated ACC, is a major environmental problem. People’s motivation and intention to act climate-friendly is important in addressing ACC since lacking motivation and intention to address ACC can have dire consequences for society and the environment. Individuals’ motivation and intention to act climate-friendly can be influenced by framing, which refers to the practice of emphasizing certain aspects of reality. What type of framing is being utilized can be crucial regarding individuals acting climate-friendly. The conventional framing dominating society is based on emphasizing facts and negative consequences of ACC. ACC is portrayed as an encroaching disaster managed via sacrifices, losses, and costs. However, this can lead to passivity and a desire to avoid the topic. Since motivation and intention to act climate-friendly is important, the need for a non-conventional framing arises. The study's purpose was to create a framing that took psychological barriers into account based on Stoknes (2015) theories regarding climate communication and to investigate how it affected motivation and intention to act climate-friendly. The research question was: How do conventional framing and non-conventional framing affect individuals’ motivation and intention to act climate-friendly? Two framing alternatives made up of stories about ACC were tested during a controlled experiment, and motivation and intention were quantified utilizing a closed-ended questionnaire. Data were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test and Cohen’s d test. A slight increase in motivation and intention was measured, but no statistically significant difference existed in motivation and intention to act climate-friendly after the participants had been subjected to a framing alternative. Data suggests changes in motivation and intention to act climate-friendly occurred for the group subjected to the non-conventional framing, and thus further research should be conducted with a normally distributed population of a significantly larger scale. Furthermore, future studies could pursue mixed methods research.