Researchers at the University of West Virginia presented the test subjects with different scenarios in which they received either fictitious or real invitations and had to turn them down or put themselves in the role of the host who was dumped.
In one of the experiments, some of the test subjects were invited to an exhibition in the museum by a fictitious friend. Afterwards, those invited had to imagine that they would cancel the meeting because they would rather stay at home.
They were then asked to rate how severe the impact would be on a scale. For example, how angry the host would be, to what extent the host would think that they are not important to you, or whether they would receive fewer invitations in the future because of this.
The other subjects were asked to act as if they had been asked out on a date. They also rated on a scale how they would feel if they were rejected.
Anyone who gets dumped doesn’t take it as personally as expected
The results showed that those invited tended to overestimate how affected the host would be by their rejection. It didn’t matter whether just one person was invited to the museum or whether other friends also received the invitation.
Another experiment was conducted with couples in which real invitations were declined. Here, too, it was found that those people who turned down the date assumed that their partner would be angrier and that the rejection would have a greater emotional impact than was actually the case.
The researchers’ conclusion: People think that a host would concentrate more on the rejection itself than on the reasons behind it.