On the etiology of the rebuff phenomenon: Why are persuasive messages less polite after rebuffs?

Abstract

The rebuff phenomenon is a robust empirical regularity that emerges from many compliance gaining studies, using widely varying methodologies. The effect is this: when a persuader is confronted with a rebuff, his/her next message will tend to be be ruder and more aggressive than the initial appeal. This could be due to repertoire exhaustion, or to a change in the persuader's standards for acceptable messages. The second possibility is hypothesized here, and results support that explanation. Lewin's field theory accounts for this outcome. Connecting the rebuff phenomenon to appraisal theory also would advance our understanding of sequential compliance gaining.