"Nahh, that wouldn't work"

I wizened up,

I don't think that's the word you want to use, unless you're talking about how you finally lost those 20 pounds by not drinking anymore.

FWIW, I think posts like this are more valuable the more they include real-world examples; it's kind of odd to read a post which says I had theory A of the world but now I hold theory B, without reading about the actual observations. It would be like reading a history of quantum mechanics or relativity with all mentions of things like the laser or double-slit experiment or Edding or Michelson-Morley removed.

This gets me to thinking - "Huh, why did I write that off so fast as not accurate?" And I think the answer is because I don't want the world to work like that.

I would also add fear as a potential reason for writing it off. As primates I suspect many of us may be inclined toward social submissiveness and hence would shy away from thoughts of threatening others.

I think that threats often do work. I have a landlord, who uses a letting agent that we pay for our utilities. The letting agent stinks, and our electricity bill just trebled from the spring quarter into the summer quarter. Summer is warmer and brighter than spring - I would expect my bill to decrease by at least 5%.

So far, so bad, except that I was away for six weeks of that quarter, and most of my housemates were travelling for at least 2 weeks - my bill should have halved on top of this 5% decrease. There's a disparity of an expected 47.5% of my previous bill with the observed 300% actual bill (or, being more conservative and taking us all as having been travelling for 2 weeks each, 80% of my previous bill). This isn't credible, and I'm not going to pay it.

My landlord likes the letting agent (presumably they're cheap). I expect shortly to be threatened with late-payment charges or even eviction. This expectation of a threat has already made two of my housemates pay the obviously unfair bill, despite us all being agreed that we do not owe the amount demanded.

I recently changed mobile telephone provider, despite being on contract with my previous provider ([blanked]) for another three months. I was told I must pay the balance of the contract, and told them to go whistle for it. Apparently their SOP is to just tank the customer's credit rating.

If I had been told this, the [blanked] would have easily been less valuable to me than my good credit rating. I wasn't told by $_PROVIDER, who now will not respond to my contacting them, but intend to pursue them to ensure that they don't do this. If they had threatened me, I would definitely have paid.

Threats seem effective.

EDIT: Deleted some personal information.

Possibly you encountered a self-deceptive social strategy that you were using.

In order to credibly say "I would never even THINK of threatening someone!", it may be useful to systematically flinch away from such anti-social thoughts, at least while you (unconsciously) believe the advantage in credibility is likely to be more beneficial than the advantages of getting your way via threats.

One thing I noticed is that Harry threatens people a lot. My initial reaction was, "Nahh, that wouldn't work."

I'm not going to echo requests for evidence so much as I will note that I would have enjoyed some examples to engage with to explore the concept of just what would and would not have worked.

Harry engages in plenty of behaviors that are similar to threats. That is, they are obnoxious power plays. Some of them are even threats proper. A significant feature of Harry's threats is that they tend to represent the declaration of a broad social political position - somewhere on the other side of a spectrum from, say, simple extortion. The difference being that if Harry was gagged such that he could not utter threats he may have carried out some (but not all) of the 'threats' as punishments or political attacks anyhow - I know I would have. Speaking with words just allowed both parties to save wasting utility on costly communication.

A quote of Harry's springs to mind. When Hermione and Malfoy threatened him regarding traitors he did not submit. Instead he noted that sometimes you actually have to exercise the power. It would seem that nobody has had cause to take that stance with Harry just yet.

If anyone feels qualified to judge social psychology experiments, and has access to SpringerLink through a library, this article was the first result on google scholar for "effectiveness of threats".

Do threats work on you? One of the reasons I expect threats to be ineffective is that when I am threatened, I am less likely to comply, even for significant costs. Or at least it feels like that, to be completely sure that no bias is obscuring my experiences I would have to make some statistics.

Or explaining to someone how clothing is a tool that changes people's perceptions of you, and by studying the basics of fashion and aesthetics, you can achieve more of your aims in life

Yes!

Or explaining to someone how clothing is a tool that changes people's perceptions of you, and by studying the basics of fashion and aesthetics, you can achieve more of your aims in life. Yes, it shouldn't be like that in an ideal world. But we're not in that ideal world - fashion and aesthetics matter and people react to it.

For the record, I don't think a world in which people were not influenced by aesthetic concerns would be an ideal one (or even fairly good).

I echo the objections to a lack of evidence. The story, while good, remains fictional evidence, and Harry's ability to threaten people effectively is extremely context-dependent. From what I recall, most of his threats are against people over whom he has some significant power (usually the ability to divulge information), who care significantly about his own interests independent of the threat, who at least partially agree with his underlying reasoning, and whom generally will not have their affinity for him lowered by the use of such threats.

It does make intuitive sense that threats would work in this context - these people often want to do what they are being coerced to do, at least in part. It does not follow that threats generally work in any other context.

An interesting start, but I would rather see this in Discussion -- it's not fully adapted yet, I think...

This may connect to the effect of self-fulfilling prophecies: We want a world with few threats, so we think that threats don't work, so we don't threaten people, so the world has fewer threats.

I have wondered a similar thing about the real-life efficacy of bribery.

I recommend threats, but not of violence. And not in anger. Those seem ineffective if you don't participate in organized crime or disorganized crime, respectively. Am I wrong? Because the part of me that cares doesn't want them to work, but I usually keep that part tied up in the basement.

I threaten with a smile whenever possible. It's not my fault they've backed me into a corner and selected my actions for me. I'm even nice enough to explain the situation and offer my help getting out of it, or some easy suggestions if they want to do it on their own.

Then there's the "You're...not very nice" I use when it's true. Somehow the people I don't think are nice always take it as a threat and act all scared.