SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL PREDICTORS OF THE PERSON'S ORIENTATION TOWARD ADOPTION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES

The article is concerned to the problem of socio-psychological determination of techophilia and techophobia. The current theoretical approaches toward studying person's attitudes toward new technologies are identified. Cognitive, affective and behavioral components of person's attitudes toward new technologies are described. The dimensions "technooptimism-technopessimism" and "technofilia - technophobia" are analyzed. The results of several empirical studies are presented (N = 192, N = 230; N = 526). It has been shown that person's attitudes toward new technologies are affected by involvement in communications with other users. Social representations of Russian youth about social impact of new technologies are ambivalent: technological advancement is related not only with comfort, but also with social degradation. It is revealed that, in opposite to the evaluation of nanotechnologies, the evaluation of safety of genetically modified food is closely related with social identity. Among predictors of technooptimism are trust toward counterparts of technological progress (scientists, dealers, experts, state agencies), future orientation (ZTPI), reward for application (SAS), low religiosity (SAS), and low authority/respect (MFQ). The results show that technooptimism and future orientation are less important for using new technologies than present hedonistic orientation, estimation of pleasure and easiness of new technology using. The further research directions in the field are proposed.