Positivity Makes for Poor Pitches: Affective Tone Conveyed by Entrepreneurs Shapes Support for Creative Ideas

Abstract

We propose and show that negative as opposed to positive affective cues in a business pitch enhance idea evaluation because people associate negative affect with scrutiny. In three experiments, we found that people invest more money in an idea when entrepreneurs express negative as opposed to positive affect. This effect holds for both gender of entrepreneurs and content-free affect. Cognition-based trust and inferences about entrepreneur’s analytical thinking mediated the effect. Our findings suggest significant implications for entrepreneurial passion in business pitches.