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IntroductionThe economical and psychological researches

during the past decades have granted special

attention the entrepreneur ship, its emerging

and maintenance conditions, in the context

where a direct connection with the

economical development had been hyphened.

The preoccupations in the economical

psychology aimed, preponderantly, the

finding of those psychological treats/factors

that are in some way or another implicated in

the augmentation and predicting of

entrepreneurial tendency.A remarkable number of researches (Gilad,

1982; Gartner, 1985; Perry 1990; Bygrave

1993; Kaufmann & Walsh 1995) evidenced

the capacity of Internal Locus of Control of

predicting the propensity of a person for

employing in a small business type

entrepreneurial activity. All extensive

research showed that an internal locus of control has been one of the psychological

characteristics most often used as predictive

of entrepreneurship (Perry 1990; and

Kaufmann &Walsh 1995). Also, a person

with an internal locus of control is more likely

to believe that environmental influences, such

as the economy, can be influenced rather than

passively accepted (Wheatly, Anthony, &

Maddox 1991; and Ward 1993). Moreover, a

correlation is believed to exist between

Entrepreneurs and the possession of an

internal locus of control (Sapp and Harrod

1993). In the actual situation of global

economical crisis, the economical growth and

the future prosperity are seriously doubted,

owing both to the great number of SME who

bankrupted, and to the dramatic decrease of

the newly established SMEs.

PurposeRomania recorded during 2004 -2008 one of

the highest growth rates in the European

Union, registering in the last quarter before

the crisis a net increase of 8.9% and a budget

deficit of 1.2% of GDP One of the main

sources of economic growth was consideredto be consumption financed by bank loans.

The national government has tried to respond

to the crisis situation with a set of public

policies designed to reduce social and

economic impact. The immediate effect was

rather the opposite: more than 300,000 SMEs

have been closed and the number of

unemployed reached almost one millionpeople. For this situation seem to be

responsible factors of "objective" nature as

well as factors of psychological nature.

Among factors of "objective" nature might be

included low efficiency of public policies

initiated in response to the economic crisis

and the changing attitude of banks in terms of

investment and consumption loans. Amongpsychological factors there is the mass -

media reaction in Romania regarding the

global crisis, which has sent in printed and

audio-visual media messaged mostly of

"catastrophic" type, with increased negative

character. Most television stations have rather

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preferred the approach of "tabloid" manner in

the presentation of economic and social

effects of me crisis.

Therefore we have decided to

experimentally evaluate the possible

interaction effect of factors such as

exposure to negative media messages

regarding the state of the economy and

personal perceptions on source/value of

money regarding young people Tendency

to invest in a small business.

Method

In order to evaluate the possible effect of factors such as exposure to negative media

messages regarding the state of the economy

and personal perceptions on source - value of

money regarding the young people tendency

to invest in a small business, we used an

experimental method, 2x2 factorial design

with independent groups.

ParticipantsA total of 273students from the Faculty of

Economics, specializing in Management and

Finance-Banks were recruited and completed

Rotter's Locus of Control Scale, student's

form. After applying, there were eliminated

the students who had obtained scores over or

equal to 13 points, respectively those

considered to have an external LOC,

maintaining a total of 181 study participants

with scores below 13. We thus obtained a

sample of 181 students, made up of 62% girls

and 38% male, average age 21.4 years (SD =

3.22).

From the theoretical point of view they should

follow a strong tendency to engage in

entrepreneurial activities and a low tendency

to passively accept an external situation and

the precarious state of the economy.

ProcedureThe 181 pre-selected participants were

randomly divided into four experimental

groups (scenarios) within a 2x2 type between

subject design experiment Out of these 152

students actually participated in the

experiment.

Experimental Variables In the framework of the experiment two

independent variables were manipulated, with

2 levels each, respectively:

VII: Source of money (money won at lottery

versus money derived from credit) ; VI2:

media messages (containing strongly negative

economic information versus neutral

economic content)

Experimental scenarios:

Scenario 1: Subjects watched a video with

duration of 12 minutes, which contained a set

of news about the economic situation in

Romania, with strongly negative news. Later,

the viewing subjects decided by filling in a

questionnaire, how much money they should

invest in a small business under the conditions

that they would have won at the lottery sum

of 300,000 lei (about 70,000 Eur).

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Scenario 2: Subjects watched a video with

duration of 12 minutes, which contained a set

of news about the economic situation in

Romania, with strongly negative news. Later,

the viewing subjects decided by filling in a

questionnaire, how much money they should

invest in a small business under the conditions

that a bank would have preselected them for a

very advantageous loan of 300,000 lei

(approx. 70 000 Eur).

Scenario, 3: Subjects watched a video with

duration of 12 minutes, which contained a

story about the ocean, with neutral content.

Later, the viewing subjects decided by filling

in a questionnaire, how much money they

should invest in a small business under the

conditions that they would have won at the

lottery sum of 300,000 lei (about 70,000 Eur).

Scenario 4: Subjects watched a video with

duration of 12 minutes, which contained a

story about the ocean, with neutral content.

Later, the viewing subjects decided by filling

in a questionnaire, how much money they

should invest in a small business, under the

conditions that a bank would have preselected

them for a very advantageous loan of 300,000

lei (approx. 70 000 Eur).

ResultsThe 152 students were exposed to the four

experimental scenarios and the Dependent

Variable DV level was measured on a ratio

scale (amount of Invested money express in

thousand Lei

Table 1: Descriptive Statistics for all

experimental groups

A Source of money (2) x Media messages (2)

analysis of variance was used to test

differences between means for significance.

Figure 1 shows the mean DV for the two

experimental factors and reveals that the

effect of F2 Media messages was much larger

for Invested money (DV) than it-was the

effect of Fl Source of money.

For the analysis of null hypothesis for the

main effects of the 2 factors and for the

interaction effect there has been used Two-

Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), with

results shown in Table 2.

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Table 2: Tests of Between -Subjects Effects

The main effect Fl Source of money was not

significant, F(l,148)=2.271, p=0.577, so no

experimental evidence that Invested money

amount differ in relationship with Fl Source

of money factor. The main effect F2 Media

messages was significant, F(l,148)=6.806,pO.GT, proving evidence that Invested money

amount differ in relationship with tip of media

message exposure: the level of investment

temptation is significant superior for Neutral

messages scenario of F2 (Table 3).

Table 3: F2 Estimates

The variability associated with the interaction

of the two independent variables is not

significant,F(l,148)=2.271, p=0.134, so no experimental

evidence that Invested money amount differ

in relationship with Source of money x Media

messages interaction

DiscussionsInitial assumptions based on existing theories

and previous researches have been infirmed.

Thus, we

expect for young people with internal LOC

the negative message versus neutral messageto produce an insignificant difference,

individuals having alleged ability to consider

the external environment as controllable and

adjustable. Average of potentially invested

amounts by the exposed subjects to "negative

media messages" was significantly lower than

average of amounts invested by the subjects

exposed to the "media message neutral" of

factor F2 (p 0.001). Also, we expect that

young people have a significantly greater

tendency to invest money without cost and

without risk taking, like win the lottery,

against those who would fund a possible

investment by bank credit. For F1 the primary

effect is insignificant (p 0.05). Lack of main

effect Fl most likely causes no interaction

effect. It is plausible to think that mostly

negative economic news create a strong

emotional display, causing negative attitudes

regarding the entrepreneurship tendency. The

existence of such an emotional display could

later or simultaneously make the effect of one

factor or another to become insignificant. It

seems reasonable to believe that both

reduction of consumption, and the dramatic

decrease in number of small businesses

opened in Romania in 2009-2010 (both with

values significantly higher than the EU

average) is partially influenced by dominant

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paradigm and negative media messages in

Romania. This conclusion emphasizes the

possible need for a realistic/

positive public communication strategy,

public-financed and distributed by public and

independent media channels, to mitigate the

"psychological crisis" of investment and

consumption.

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