When people pause before replying to a question, even for just a few seconds, their an-swers are supposed to be less sincere and believable than if they had replied immediately. And the longer the hesitation lasts, the less sincere the response appears.
Researchers conducted a series of experiments involving more than 7, 500 individuals. Participants either listened to an audio record, viewed a video or read an account of a person responding to a simple question. In each case, the response time varied from immediate to a 10-second delay. Participants then rated the sincerity of the response on a sliding scale. Across all 14 experiments, participants consistently rated delayed responses as less sincere re-gardless of the question.
The findings have wide connotations. Whenever people are interacting, they are judging each other's sincerity. These results can be applied to a wide range of interactions, going from workplace chats to couples and friends arguing. Further, in job interviews and in court hear-ings and trials, people are often tasked with judgments of sincerity. Here, too, response speed could play a part. In general, whenever there is a response that requires an answer, such as in a job interview, delayed responses can be thought as less sincere.
It would be unfair for the responder, such as a crime suspect, if the response delay was sorted by mistake into thought control or answer making up when it was in fact caused by a different factor, such as simply being distracted or thoughtful. The experiment also found that definitely instructing participants to ignore delayed response reduced, but did not com-pletely remove, the effect of delayed response on judgment of sincerity or guilt. Nevertheless, on the whole, a fast response seems to be regarded as more sincere, while a response that is delayed for even a couple of seconds may be considered a slow lie.
