Development programmes often falter not for want of technical solutions but for underestimating human nature. People are not perfectly rational; they are shaped by trust, culture, fear of loss, and social context. Kahneman and Tversky’s Prospect Theory (1979), for which Kahneman later received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002, showed that people feel the pain of losses more deeply than the pleasure of equivalent gains — a tendency known as loss aversion.

Smallholder farmers offered a new crop, credit scheme, or development programme may hesitate, not because the opportunity is poor, but because they fear losing fragile security. Decisions are shaped not only by incentives but also by norms, identities, and relationships. Loss aversion and risk aversion are thus predictable human trait

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