Compliance testing can look like giving someone an instruction (that they do not have to follow, and that the abuser is not entitled to give) and seeing if they will follow it.
And the more the target complies, they more authority they are giving to the person they are obeying, even if unintentionally. They are ceding their own authority over themselves to this other person.
And victims are often conditioned to do so by the abuser or those who enable the abuser because they experience backlash and punishment if they don’t.
Or if they have low distress tolerance, the tension alone is difficult to bear. They may not see the abuser as breaking the peace (which is what is true), they may see themselves ‘going with the flow’ as keeping it.