Psychological Factors Affecting the Development of Handicrafts in Rural Areas of Zanjan Township

Change in lifestyle and rural employment vulnerability has caused a lot of attention to handicrafts due to the ease of their development. Handicrafts with special features such as: relying on local production factors, indigenous knowledge, being capital-accumulators, being labor-oriented, involving women in production, diversifying household income sources, reducing income risk, having deep and stable roots in the rich culture of the country, improving the welfare of rural households without destroying natural resources, has a pivotal role in employment and helping the sustainable livelihood of rural communities. In this regard, identifying and investigating the psychological characteristics of industrialists in order to develop and produce more, newer and higher-quality goods is very important. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the role of psychological factors affecting the development of handicrafts in rural areas. The statistical population of this research was 19,435 people who are the beneficiaries of the agricultural sector of Zanjan Township, among them, handicrafts producers were selected as the target population, and using a stratified proportional sampling method, the target sample was selected from the village level of Zanjan Township. The sample size was determined to be 200 people based on Cochran's formula. The questionnaire was used its face and content validity was examined by the opinion of subject matter specialists and the composite reliability was evaluated and approved in the range of .82 up to .92. The findings showed that psychological factors including risk-taking, self-confidence, foresight, and motivation have a positive and significant effect on the development of handicrafts.