Social and Economic Factors Influencing Developmental Orientation (Case of Study: Residents of Shahr-e Kord City)

Development is one of the basic and key issues of the social sciences that due to its importance and the particular status that it has in the transformations of human society, it has attracted the serious attention of many scholars. Given the fact that people’s attitudes usually influences their actions and behaviors, and also because attitudes are among the important factors that have an impact on development, since negative attitude about the consequences of development can cause people to resist it, therefore it is necessary to study what factors can affect people’s orientation towards development. The present study aims to investigate into social and economic factors that may be related to the developmental orientation of the residents of the city of Shahr-e Kord in the province of Chahar Mahal and Bakhtiari. The research method employed was survey and data gathering tool was questionnaire. The questions had face validity and their Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for reliability was above the 0.7 threshold. The research population consisted of all residents of Shahr-e Kord who were 15 years of age and above, of which, using the Cochran’s formula, 384 individuals were selected as the sample. The results showed that the average for developmental orientation was 2.87 of 5. Statistical analysis of the data showed that having external experiences (t= 4.37), gender (t= 5.34), place of residence (f= 5.7), religiosity (r= 0.18), educational level (r= 0.48), and media usage (r= 0.36) were significantly related to developmental orientation.