Threat is an intuitive attention-getting device for political learning.

Evidence

The idea of threat as an attention-getting device makes common sense. Hit it over the head with a two-by-four and you can get the attention of even a mule. Nothing focuses the mind so well as the prospect of one’s own hanging. And so on. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1662

Categorization

• CANDY: A quotable line about how threat focuses the mind as well as a hanging does.