The rebuff phenomenon refers to the finding that although people generally enter interpersonal influence situations intending to use prosocial compliance-gaining strategies, they turn to less prosocial ones if their initial strategy is rebuffed. Both anger- and goals-based explanations have been generated for this phenomenon; the purpose of this paper was to merge both into a testable model. To test the model, an experimental study was conducted in which subjects interacted with a confederate who either did or did not cooperate with instructions. Anger, goals, and message valence were measured throughout the interaction. Results suggest that anger provides a good explanation of the rebuff phenomenon, but goals do not.
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