Here’s the real reaction of your loved ones when you tell them “no”…
Refusing an invitation to a dinner or a party organized by friends is often frowned upon. At least that’s what we believe. “I once was invited to an event that I absolutely didn’t want to attend, but I went anyway because I was afraid the person would be upset if I didn’t – and that seems to be a current experience“, says Dr. Julian Givi, Professor of psychology at the University of West Virginia. Based on this observation, he conducted a pilot study with researchers from the American Psychological Association, to find out whether his fears were founded or not. .
For their research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the authors asked more than 1,000 pairs of friends to participate in a role-playing game: one played the role of the guest, the other played the role of the host. The guest is invited by his friend to dinner at a local restaurant run by a famous chef but he must decline the invitation because he already has plans and wants to spend a relaxing evening at home. The host imagines his reaction when his friend declines the invitation. At the end of the “role play”, the guests had to predict and note how their host would feel after a refusal according to 4 parameters: anger, lack of attention, disappointment and the impact on the relationship. For their part, the hosts noted their own feelings after refusing an invitation:
► Guests tended to negatively overestimate the hosts’ reaction on all 4 parameters. They often thought that this refusal would immediately have negative consequences on their relationship and that the friend would not invite them again.
► The hosts self-evaluated their feelings in a rather positive way, specifying that they understood the reasons mentioned by their friend.
“Our study shows that the negative consequences of refusal are much less severe than we expected,” specify the researchers. People tend to anticipate the worst reaction when they decline an invitation, but the hosts don’t seem that annoyed or resentful. It’s even a healthy and normal reaction to refuse invitations from time to time. ““Social” burnout is a reality, especially during the holidays, when we are often invited to too many events. Don’t be afraid to sometimes refuse invitations“, they continue. As long as you do it in the right way: give the real reasons (lack of money, desire to rest, etc.) rather than inventing a false pretext and trying to reschedule another date which “shows the other that refusal is not linked to a lack of desire”.
This experience, however, has limits and needs to be completed. Already, it only includes Americans and probably refusing an invitation does not have the same meaning in other cultures. Also, these results are self-reported: the reaction following a refusal is specific to each person and differs depending on the character (if the person is sensitive or not…) and the context (if the person often declines) . Finally, the researchers limited their work to “fun” and “light” everyday events. the results may not extend to larger events such as a wedding or birthday. In these cases, the negative consequences would likely be much more serious in the eyes of the host.