Entrepreneurship research has recognized the entrepreneur as catalyst to the new venture process. A popular stream of research not yet applied to entrepreneurship has been the study of the emotional intelligence of entrepreneurial venture leaders. This web-based exploratory study collected self-assessment data of emotional competencies on successful young entrepreneurs. Participating entrepreneurs reported that they demonstrated high levels of self-confidence, trustworthiness, achievement orientation, service orientation, change catalyst, teamwork and collaboration. Trustworthiness, the ability to maintain standards of honesty and integrity, was ranked highest among 18 emotional competencies measured. The importance of teamwork and collaboration in the new venture process is also emphasized in the findings.

Little research has examined the association between life satisfaction, selfrated health (SRH), and physical activity concurrently for middle school students. A convenience sample of 245 students in grades 7 and 8 was surveyed about physical activity, life satisfaction, and SRH using the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 2005 Middle School Youth Risk Behavior Survey. ANOVA analyses revealed significantly reduced life satisfaction for females who reported not engaging in vigorous physical activity during the past 7 days [p<.01, effect size (ES)=.75]. Significantly reduced life satisfaction was detected for both males (p<.001, ES=.66) and females (p<.0001, ES=.80) who reported not playing on sports teams. Additionally, logistic regression analyses showed the odds of reporting fair/poor SRH increased 5.4 times for males (CI=1.30-22.39, p<.05) and 30.9 times for females (CI=3.74-255.43, p<.001) who reported not playing on sports teams. Preliminary findings suggest physical activity and sports participation is associated with improved life satisfaction and SRH for middle school students. In addition, although some gender differences were observed, consistent findings for sports participation suggest sports participation may carry multiple social, mental, and physical benefits for youth.

In a large-scale field study of marathon runners, we test whether goals act as reference points in shaping the valuation of outcomes. Theories of reference-dependent preferences, such as Prospect Theory, imply that outcomes that are just below or just above a reference point are evaluated differently. Consistent with the Prospect Theory value function, we find that satisfaction as a function of relative performance (the difference between a runner's finishing time goal and her actual finishing time) exhibits loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity in both predictions of and actual experienced satisfaction. However, in contrast to Prospect Theory, we observe that loss aversion is partially driven by a discontinuity or jump at the reference point. In addition, we find that a runner's time goal as well as their previous marathon times simultaneously impact runner satisfaction, providing support for the impact of multiple reference points on satisfaction.

Decision strategies are often characterized as being intuition-based or analytically-based. The use of these strategies is proposed to be associated with individual differences in propensity toward using different decision making styles. A reliable self-report measure, the Decision Making Styles Inventory (DMI), consisting of 15 items on each of three scales was constructed. The items were found to differentiate among an "analytical", an "intuitive", and a "regret-based" emotional decision making style. The analytical and intuitive scales were found to predict differences in performance in a complex dynamic decision making task. On a decision making subtask, a greater general reliance on an analytical decision making style was found to lead to poorer performance. Greater reliance on a more intuitive approach had no effect on this subtask, but was found to predict better performance as workload levels increased. These findings suggest that human performance may be significantly influenced when either a more intuitive or analytical decision style is used. Implications for training the adaptive decision maker are discussed.

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