Recently, research has examined interpersonal factors that influence the maintenance of depression. Data suggest that depressives tend to alienate others in their social environment. This study examined rejection effects following repeated exposure to a stranger whose depressive symptomatology increased, decreased, or remained unchanged. Female undergraduate subjects (N=64) watched a series of three videotaped interactions between two female confederates. One of the conferederates, the target subject, enacted different levels of depression. The enactments, which defined four experimental conditions, were of consistent depression, increasing depression, decreasing depression, and consistent nondepression (normalcy). One-half of the subjects assigned to each condition expected to be paired with the target subject in four future sessions, the other one-half expected to be paired with co-participants in the study. The results revealed that rejection responses as reflected in reluctance to engage in future encounters with, and negative perceptions of, the target subject were generally strongest toward the unchanging and deteriorating depressive, less pronounced toward the improving depressive, and least apparent toward the normal persons. Expectation of involvement with the target subject, versus nonexpectation, was for the most part associated with a trend toward less rejection in all four experimental conditions of depression. (Author/NB)