Turn-taking and reply timing
In spoken talk, replies tend to come within a fraction of a second; whether text reply timing affects attraction has not been studied well.
Evidence: PlausiblePlausible: One study, or indirect evidence from a nearby question. This is the weakest level among the claims below.
What the research shows
A study of recorded everyday conversation in ten languages, and a review, find that people tend to answer within a fraction of a second and avoid talking over each other. In one paper, quicker replies in live talk went with feeling more connected, and listeners judged the same conversation as more connected when replies were quicker; the differences were under about a quarter of a second, too short to control deliberately. Studies of reply delay in typed messages were found only for customer-service chat and student email, not dating. What you can take from it: in conversation, take your turn and leave room for theirs; a rule to delay text replies has no evidence behind it.123
What dating marketing says it shows
Cited from a public source: Rio, B., Judge, R., Nice Guy Mistakes (bobbyriotraining.com)
Sales material for a dating course lists being too available, for example by texting or meeting up, among the mistakes that cost interest. Advice built on this idea often tells you to wait before replying to a message so that you seem busy and in demand.4
What doesn't follow
The timing research concerns fractions of a second in spoken talk, so it says nothing either way about delaying a text, and no adequate study shows that a deliberate delay raises attraction.
Limits
Recorded conversations in ten languages with few conversations per language, and a review by one of that study's authors. The connection result is one paper on live spoken talk. The typed-message studies are scripted vignettes in customer-service and teacher-student settings. No dating or text-message study was found; absence of evidence is not evidence of no effect.
Sources
Each numbered mark above opens the evidence behind that statement: the label, what it does not show and where it comes from.
Evidence: Supported with caveatsIn recorded everyday conversation, people in all ten languages studied tended to answer within a fraction of a second and avoid talking over each other, and the average gap between speakers differed across languages by only a few hundred milliseconds.
Why this label
Several studies agree, with stated limits such as student samples or lab settings. Demonstrates: a 10-language study (Stivers 2009) found a shared pattern of avoiding overlap and keeping silence between turns short, with languages differing in average gap within a range of 250 ms of the cross-language mean; a review (Levinson 2016) describes responses as remarkably rapid. This is about gaps of well under a second in spoken talk. Marketing framing: advice that a slow or delayed answer signals confidence or keeps her chasing, for example the 'cat and the string' analogy in dating-frameworks-c12 and the warning about being 'too available' in dating-frameworks-c14; the studies here say nothing about deliberately slowing replies.
What it does not show
- Stivers 2009 compared a small number of conversations per language, mostly informal recorded talk; per-language sample sizes were not checked.
- No large independent replication was found for the cross-language gap figures.
- Spoken face-to-face and phone talk only, not typed messages or dating contexts.
- Levinson 2016 is a review by an author of the 2009 study, so the two are not independent.
Who it applies to
A pattern across groups of people, not a statement about any one person.
Sources
- Stivers, T., Enfield, N. J., Brown, P., Englert, C., Hayashi, M., Heinemann, T., Hoymann, G., Rossano, F., de Ruiter, J. P., Yoon, K. E., Levinson, S. C. (2009). Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- Levinson, S. C. (2016). Turn-taking in Human Communication – Origins and Implications for Language Processing, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Evidence: PlausibleIn conversations between friends and between strangers, quicker replies from a partner went with feeling more connected, and observers judged the same conversation as more connected when the replies were quicker.
Why this label
One study, or indirect evidence from a nearby question. Demonstrates: Templeton et al. (2022) asked pairs to talk and rate felt connection; faster response times predicted connection across and within conversations, mainly through how fast the partner responded to the person, on a time scale below about 250 ms that people cannot consciously control. A third-party listening task showed the same timing difference changed judged connection. The felt-connection results are associations from live talk; only the third-party task manipulated timing. Marketing framing: reply speed as a status game, where waiting longer is said to show higher value (see dating-frameworks-c12 and dating-frameworks-c14); the study measured fractions of a second in live speech, so it cannot support that advice either way.
What it does not show
- Single paper from one research group; no large independent replication found.
- Live spoken conversation, not texting, so it does not show that minutes or hours of delay affect connection.
- Participant demographics and effect sizes were not seen in the abstract.
- Association with felt connection does not show that speeding up replies would create connection.
Who it applies to
A pattern across groups of people, not a statement about any one person.
Source
- Templeton, E. M., Chang, L. J., Reynolds, E. A., Cone LeBeaumont, M. D., Wheatley, T. (2022). Fast response times signal social connection in conversation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Evidence: PlausibleThe few studies of reply delay in typed messages look at customer-service chat and student-to-instructor email rather than dating, and none shows that deliberately delaying a reply raises attraction.
Why this label
One study, or indirect evidence from a nearby question. Demonstrates: in an online chat experiment (Lew et al. 2018) the effect of an agent's response latency on how observers judged the agent depended on whether the replies actually responded to what was said (contingency); in an email vignette experiment (Martin et al. 2017) the instructor's response time (10 hours or 14 days) was the only manipulated factor that significantly influenced liking, while the importance of the assignment did not. Neither involved romantic interest. Marketing framing: waiting before replying to a text keeps her interested (common framing, unattributed); see also dating-frameworks-c14 on being 'too available'. The studies do not test this.
What it does not show
- Observers read scripted vignettes; they were not people in a live exchange.
- Customer-service and teacher-student settings, not dating or friendship; the 10-hour versus 14-day contrast is far from typical texting gaps.
- Martin 2017 appeared in a regional communication association's annual; its peer-review standard was not checked.
- Direction and size of the latency effect in Lew 2018 were not seen in the abstract.
- No study of dating-app or text reply timing and attraction with adequate design was found; absence of evidence is not evidence of no effect.
Who it applies to
A pattern across groups of people, not a statement about any one person.
Sources
- Lew, Z., Walther, J. B., Pang, A., Shin, W. (2018). Interactivity in Online Chat: Conversational Contingency and Response Latency in Computer-mediated Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.
- Martin, J. C., Tatum, N. T., Kemper, B. (2017). Thanks for the quick reply!”: Email Chronemics and Instructor Liking, Pennsylvania Communication Annual.
Evidence: Marketing claimBobby Rio's 'Nice Guy Mistakes' page promises three mistakes and points to seeming needy, showing too much interest early, and being too available (texting, meeting up).
Why this label
Something a seller says about their product, without published evidence. Related research: kindness-confidence-dominance, reciprocal-liking, effort-investment. Early clear interest generally helps liking in research, so 'too much interest' is contestable.
What it does not show
- Sales page
- The page does not number the three mistakes; the list is inferred from its text
- Three mistakes, not the six in the product spec
Who it applies to
One person or case only.
Source
- Rio, B., Judge, R. (undated). Nice Guy Mistakes, bobbyriotraining.com.