As Mary Poppins always said, "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down," and there are a lot more situations where that wisdom applies than one might initially think.
For instance, most of us don't really like being told what to do. Sure, some guidance is greatly appreciated if we're totally lost, but that's far from the only times we really get it, thanks to how many signs there are everywhere.
But while people can practically make a sport out of disobeying every sign they see, some are better at convincing us to follow them than others.
Obviously, we're likely to pay attention to a sign that says, "Don't touch this or you'll die in a really painful way," but we're about to see that even lower-stakes examples can charm us into compliance.