Better late than never? For many gift givers, that’s just not true. They figure that giving a late gift is the ultimate sin—more embarrassing than giving no gift at all.

If you’re one of those people, new research conducted by us with Atar Herziger, an assistant professor at the Israel Institute of Technology, and Rebecca Walker Reczek, a marketing professor at Ohio State University, may offer welcome news: The recipients of those late gifts don’t mind nearly as much as you expect.

From Christmas to other gift-giving events like birthdays, our findings suggest that gift givers exaggerate the negative consequences of failing to give an on-time gift. This is because, in general, people expect that their actions are going to be scrutinized by others much more closely than they actually are. The reality is that most recipients are simply glad to be receiving a present and pay far less attention to the timing.

A parent trap

For example, we conducted two studies involving real gift-giving for two occasion-based holidays: Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. In both studies, we gave participants a choice between sending a high-value gift box to their parent that would arrive after the holiday, or a lower-value gift box that would arrive beforehand.

In both studies, we found that a substantial majority of participants opted to send the lower-value gift that would arrive on time. In other words, people’s concerns about tardiness led them to choose lower-value gifts.

If lateness can’t be avoided, we also found that gift givers felt they could signal care for the recipient in other ways. For instance, gift givers were able to decrease their concerns about relationship harm from a late gift if they were able to put more effort into the gift itself—say, by constructing a gift basket with a number of thoughtfully curated items (versus sending an equivalent prepackaged gift basket).

Better late than never

If givers overestimate the harm from sending a late gift, what about not sending a gift at all? In an additional study, we asked participants to imagine either giving or receiving a birthday gift, and varied whether a gift was sent at all—and if sent, whether it arrived on time or late.

We found that gift recipients did anticipate significantly greater relationship harm from not receiving a gift at all compared with receiving one late, even if the gift was several months late. This suggests that, although givers overestimate relationship harm, recipients themselves do tend to be less forgiving when others fail to give a gift at all.

With all of this in mind, gift givers might be able to rest easier this holiday season if they realize that even if they can’t get everybody their gifts on time, the receivers will probably be more forgiving than expected.

Cory Haltman is an assistant professor of marketing at Indiana University and Grant Donnelly is an associate professor of marketing at Ohio State University. They can be reached at reports@wsj.com .