Perceived threats to freedom can generate anger, counterarguing, and efforts to restore autonomy.
Brehm's 1966 theory. Meta-analytic evidence finds modest effects from strongly freedom-threatening language, with substantial boundary conditions, so reactance is a real mechanism rather than a general explanation of resistance.
In practice
- A warning label written in strongly controlling language can raise consumption among the group it was aimed at, though the effect is modest and conditional.
- A team told a tool is mandatory finds reasons it does not apply to them, and the same team asked to trial it adopts it.