This study examines the role-related conditions which generate a target's compliance with a source when threatened with genuine, severe punishment. Given the ethical restrictions of laboratory experimentation, cases of robbery are used as a data base. Compliance is affected by the source's capacity to punish, intent as to the use of force, and the target's capacity to oppose and ability to comply with the source's command. If the source is perceived as capable of inflicting threatened punishment and as making punishment contingent on opposition, and if the target perceives self as incapable of effective opposition and able to comply, the target will comply. Some implications of this research are discussed.