Why can't a new user accept an answer on their question for 2 days?

Question

Just a quick note, I regularly encourage Answer acceptance and up-voting in comments on good answers and questions (however I still eeem a long way off Vox Populi [sad-face] ), however it has just been made apparent that a new user to the SE can post their first question (indeed they are encouraged too) however they can't accept an answer for 2 days!!

Sub Question, is this specific to an answer made by the OP, or is this a blanket rule for a newb, can't accept answers for 2 days or can't accept own answer for 2 days?

if it's the latter then this is a somewaht moot point, that makes sense to stop people spamming Q's & own A's for rep points.

However the former seems less intuative, especially as we have issues with answer acceptance anyway and also certainly on EE-SE we do seem to have quite a few sign up > ask question types, not a problem in itself but we should be encouraging Answer acceptance early, when a user posts their first Q, not later on, am I right?

Answer 1

I believe the 48 hour waiting period for accepting your own answer is true of any user, not just new users.

And you're right, the rule is there to prevent gaming of the system and also to encourage others to provide answers, too:

You must wait 2 days from the time you originally asked your question before you can accept your own answer. This gives other users a chance to answer the question in good faith, and earn the accepted answer.

From Jeff Atwood's answer on "Why must I wait 2 days before accepting my own answer?"