Dissuade

Getting people not to do stuff is tricky. Trickier than getting them to do stuff, I think.

Partially you have the “pink elephant” problem – if I tell you “don’t think about a pink elephant,” what’s the first thing you think of? Heck, it’s the only thing. Your brain fixates on sentence subjects, not silly modifiers like “don’t.” So if I tell you not to touch the cookie jar, you become fixated on touching the cookie jar pretty quickly.

The second problem is that in simply telling people not to do something, you alert at least some number of people that The Thing was an option in the first place. A sign reading “Please Don’t Take the Unguarded Gold Coins from Behind the Counter” alerts people about the existence of unguarded bullion that didn’t already know about it.

But in any case, it’s harder to dissuade than persuade.