When people are threatened in this way they immediately begin to generate possible defenses against the coming attack. In fact, people will produce ideas that may never be directly useful or necessary during the coming attack. It is like a group of soldiers who have some time to prepare for the enemy. They may not know exactly what the enemy is going to do, so the soldiers get every weapon and construct every barrier they can. Maybe they won't use everything, but it's there if needed.
Threatened receivers perform the same kind of mental preparation.
It is crucial that receivers overprepare in this way. All that extra work is not really wasted even if is not actually used to defend against the coming attack. Make a Weak Attack . Now, if you think about it, an attack is simply an act of persuasion. An attack is an attempt by some source to change the thoughts, feelings, or behaviors of receivers.