Credible vs non-credible threat

In game theory, a threat is non-credible if it will never be executed. In real life, things are more nuanced.

Len Fisher’s Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life contains an amusing story in footnote 136 that illustrates:

When I was a visitor at a Cambridge college in the United Kingdom, I came across a story…that took place in the Victorian era between a college master and the college chaplain. A discussion had developed over port an walnuts as to whether priests or judges had more power. The chaplain argued that priests have more because “a judge can only say, ‘You are going to be hanged,’ but a priest can say, ‘You are going to be damned.’” “Ah,” crackled the unbelieving master, “but when a judge says, ‘You are going to be hanged,’ you are hanged.

So far as the believer was concerned, only the hanging threat was credible. To some believers, though, both threats would be equally credible.

The moral of the story is that credibility is in the eye of the beholder. Building credibility is an art of shaping beliefs and changing perceptions.

For more, check out this post on 5 ways to make your threat appear credible.