The role of affect in the entrepreneurial process

Research findings indicate that the feelings and moods individuals experience (i.e., their affect) influence many aspects of cognition and behavior. Extending these findings to entrepreneurship, I suggest that affect influences several aspects of en-trepreneurs ’ cognition and, hence, important elements of the entrepreneurial process. I propose a theoretical framework for understanding the role of affect in key aspects of entrepreneurship (e.g., opportunity recognition, resource acquisition). An extensive body of research indicates that affect—feelings and emotions—exerts strong ef-fects on cognition—the processes through which information is entered into memory, processed, and retrieved for later use (e.g., Forgas, 1995, 2000; Isen, 2002). Taken as a whole, this litera-ture indicates that the interface between affect and cognition is both continuous and pervasive. In addition, it is reciprocal in nature so that, a