Kirk Publishes Essay

Colleen Kirk, D.P.S., associate professor of management and marketing studies, co-authored an article in the The Conversation titled “Are Fears of Saying ‘No’ Overblown?” Kirk, who studies psychological ownership and consumer behavior, paired with a researcher from West Virginia University for a series of studies that examined whether declining social invitations brings the negative consequences that people assume. Surprisingly, their findings showed that individuals are relatively unaffected when someone turns down an invite they’ve extended.

“Our findings suggest that when someone declines an invitation, they think the person who invited them will focus on the cold, hard rejection. But in reality, the person extending the invite is more likely to focus on the thoughts and deliberations that ran through the head of the person who declined. They’ll tend to assume that the invitee gave due consideration to the prospect of accepting, and this generally leaves them less bothered than might be expected,” the authors write.

Similar coverage appeared in Yahoo, Houston Chronicle, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Auburn Citizen,  Conroe Courier, and other sites.