Do You Have Fear Of Saying ‘No’
Are our fears of saying ‘no’ overblown?
Everyone has been there. You get invited to something that you absolutely do not want to attend – a holiday party, a family cookout, an expensive trip. But doubts and anxieties creep into your head as you weigh whether to decline.
You might wonder if you’ll upset the person who invited you. Maybe it’ll harm the friendship, or they won’t extend an invite to the next get-together.
Should you just grit your teeth and go? Or are you worrying more than you should about saying “no”?
An imaginary faux pas
We explored these questions in a recently published study.
In a pilot study that we ran ahead of the main studies, we found that 77% of our 51 respondents had accepted an invitation to an event that they didn’t want to attend, fearing blowback if...