Say you win a radio sweepstakes giving you two tickets to a sold-out concert the upcoming weekend. You eagerly text your friend and ask if they’d like to join.
Their response? “Maybe.”
Your mood immediately turns. You feel slighted rather than joyous as you’re left in limbo: Now you need to wait for your waffling friend to make a decision before you can figure out your plans for the concert.
I’m a consumer psychologist who has studied social decision-making for over a decade. And if you’ve experienced anything like the above anecdote, I can tell you that you’re not alone. People responding “maybe” to invitations is a common yet irksome aspect of social life. Recently, my co-authors and I published a series of studies examining what goes on in people’s heads when they aren’t sure whether to accept an invitation.
Leaving your options open
Social invitations can be a delicate dance, and people often misread what someone extending an invite wants to hear.
We consistently found that people overestimate an inviter’s likelihood of preferring a “maybe” over a “no.” Moreover, they fail to realize how much more disrespected people feel when they receive a “maybe” in response to their invitation.
Another pattern emerged: The more someone incorrectly assumed that a host preferred a tentative response, the more likely they were to respond with a “maybe” themselves.
Naturally, we wanted to figure out why this awkward dynamic plays out. We found that it’s largely due to something called “motivated reasoning.” Motivated reasoning occurs when a person interprets information in a biased way to arrive at a conclusion that aligns with their own wishes.
In other words, invitees convince themselves that inviters want to hear “maybe” instead of “no,” because a “maybe” is better for the invitee, allowing them to leave their options open. Saying “no” right off the bat eliminates one’s options and opens the door for FOMO, or fear of missing out, to emerge.
Just say ‘no’
That said, there were certain situations that made people more comfortable saying “no” to an invite.
In one study, we had recipients of an invitation put themselves in the shoes of the person extending the invite. This made them more likely to realize that they’d probably prefer a definitive answer. That is, it seemed to prevent motivated reasoning from emerging.
In another study, we had participants get invited to do something they didn’t want to do. We found that motivated reasoning then became irrelevant: They had no desire to keep their options open, so they were more likely to assume that a “no” was preferable to a “maybe.”
Interestingly, while invitations are a widespread aspect of social life, social scientists have only recently started studying them. For example, a 2024 study found that people tend to overestimate the negative consequences of saying “no” to invitations. They think it will upset, anger and disappoint inviters more than is the case. This could also be part of the reason that many people fail to realize that someone extending an invitation prefers a “no” to a “maybe.” Other research has explored whether people respond better to some reasons for declining an invite over others: saying you’re too busy, not great; saying you don’t have enough money to make it work, much better.
While navigating social situations can be tricky, our work suggests that being direct and definitive is sometimes best.
It might reduce your options. But it’ll keep those who invited you from being left in limbo – and maybe they’ll still think of you when the next concert comes to town.
Julian Givi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
