Decision time as information in judgment and choice

•Decisions take time to make and the decisions of others are no exception.•Prior research focused on the intrapersonal effects of time on choice.•This paper demonstrates that there are also interpersonal consequences.•We show that people perceive the decision time of others in terms of doubt.•These inferences of doubt affect choices in various strategic interactions.

People often observe others’ decisions and the corresponding time it took them to reach the decision. Following a signaling perspective, we demonstrate that people derive information from the time that others needed in reaching a decision. Specifically, the findings of multiple experiments and a field study using data from the television show The Voice reveal that decision times are perceived as indicative of the degree of doubt that the decision maker experienced. In turn, these inferences of doubt reliably affected people’s preferences such as with whom to collaborate and negotiate, even when the collaboration would yield a normatively inferior outcome. These results are incompatible with the idea that an alternative will be chosen only on the basis of its outcomes. We portray a model that incorporates others’ decision times as a component of the choice process. Implications for how choices are affected by both outcomes and signals are discussed.