In the third study, participants were asked to imagine giving or receiving a gift late—however, in some conditions, the gift required significant effort to put together, and in others, it was low effort. Researchers found that gift givers who imagined putting in more effort expected there would be less of a negative reaction to a late gift. While this proved to be true for gift recipients, givers again overestimated how much harm a late gift would cause.

In the fourth study, the researchers tested how much the degree of lateness matters by asking people to imagine giving and receiving a gift on time, two days late, two weeks late, or two months late. In general, recipients said harm to the relationship was roughly the same whether a gift was two days late or two weeks late, but it was slightly higher if it was two months late. However, gift givers estimated harm to be much higher in all the late conditions, and it increased substantially as the gift got later and later.

In the last study, researchers tested whether it was best to send a gift late or not at all. Participants were asked to imagine either giving a gift on time, two months late, or not at all, or to imagine receiving a gift under one of those three conditions. Once again, gift givers overestimated the harm of being late or not sending a gift. However, recipients felt that it was more harmful to the relationship to not get a gift at all than to get one late.

“Our work . . . suggests that sending a gift late will result in fewer giver worries about the state of the relationship than not sending a gift simply because it is going to be late,” the researchers wrote.