Afraid of Saying No to an Invitation? Don’t Be

Turning down an invitation can be difficult.

We all know the situation:

It was a tough week. Your social batteries are empty and all you want to do is lie on your couch and watch your favorite TV show. When a friend texts you and invites you over for dinner, you hesitate. You'd prefer to turn down the friendly offer and have some much-needed me-time, but what if your friend will be sad or angry if you say no? Will it hurt the friendship? Will they turn you down the next time you require some company and invite them over? After half an hour of ruminating, you finally text back with an only half-truthful “Sure, I’d love to!”

Why is it so hard for us to decline an invitation?

A new psychological study, now published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology” (Givi and Kirk, 2023), focused on answering this question.

The perceived negative consequences of turning down an invitation

The research started with a pilot study in which the authors found that 77 percent of people had, at least once, accepted an invitation to an event they did not want to attend because they were afraid that negative consequences would arise if they said no to the invitation. So, it is really common for people to accept an invitation even if they do not want to attend.

The main study was based on the idea that people who get invited may overestimate the negative feelings that inviters may have about them if they turn down the invitation. To investigate this hypothesis, the scientists conducted five different experiments.

The experiments on turning down an invitation

In experiment 1, 406 participants were asked to imagine being either the inviter or the invitee in a couple of different situations (such as an invitation to go see an exhibit at a local museum). Overall, two main expected ramifications of turning down an invitation were found:

1. Immediate negative consequences (such as the inviter being angry or disappointed after getting the message that the invitation was turned down).
2. Delayed negative consequences (such as not accepting future invitations from the person who turned down the invitation).

In line with the hypothesis, invited participants overestimated the occurrence of both types of negative consequences.

In experiment 2, experiment 1 was replicated, only this time the scientists investigated real-life invitations instead of imagined ones as in experiment 1. This was done because sometimes people do not react realistically in imagined situations. Comparable to experiment 1, participants overestimated how much negative feeling the inviting person had about an invitation being turned down.

Experiment 3 was similar to Experiment 1, but a new group of participants was included, so-called “observers” who read the invitation scenarios but were not involved in them. In this experiment, both invitees and observers overestimated the negative consequences of turning down an invitation, consistent with the first two experiments. The fact that invitees and uninvolved observers judged the situation similarly has some interesting implications. It suggests that the overestimation of negative consequences is not because people have an exaggerated sense of self-importance of the inviter (e.g., “I am so important to that person, so they would be very sad if I turn them down”). If it were that way, the invited person should have expected more negative consequences than the uninvolved observer.

In Experiment 4, participants were asked to consider an invitation from a real friend. Moreover, participants in the invited group had to answer some questions about what they thought the inviter might think after the invitation was turned down. These questions focused on two types of thoughts:

1. Focus on act of declining: How much would the friend focus on the act of declining the invitation?
2. Focus on internal thoughts: How much would the friend focus on the thoughts that went on in your head when you were declining?

Once again, participants in the invited group overestimated the negative consequences of turning down an invitation. Moreover, participants in the invited group also overestimated how much the inviters would focus on the act of declining. Thus, if we turn down someone else’s invitation, they likely think less about the act of declining than we may worry.

In the fifth and last experiment, the scientists asked participants to assume both roles: invited person and inviting person. Participants who first acted as invitee and then as inviter overestimated the negative consequences of turning down an invitation. However, when people first acted as inviter and then as invitee, they had a realistic view and did not overestimate the negative consequences.

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It is not as bad to turn down an invitation as we may think

The results of the study by Givi and Kirk (2023) have a clear message: People overestimate the negative consequences that turning down an invitation will have. So, the next time you need some me-time and would rather not go see this fascinating new exhibit at the local museum, do not think too much about whether your friend who invited you will be angry or sad. Likely, they will not feel that way and just accept that you have other plans right now. Thus, there is no need to be afraid to say no to an invitation.