Why Having the Courage to Defy Makes us Happier (with Dr Sunita Sah)

Summary

The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos

Episode: Why Having the Courage to Defy Makes us Happier (with Dr. Sunita Sah)

Release Date: September 8, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the psychology and science of defiance—specifically, how saying "no" and staying true to your values in the face of social, professional, and cultural pressure is a critical contributor to personal happiness and wellbeing. Dr. Laurie Santos is joined by Dr. Sunita Sah, Cornell professor and author of The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes, who combines her own experiences with cutting-edge research to challenge the conventional assumption that conformity equals goodness. Together, they examine why it’s so difficult to defy, the personal and societal costs of compliance, and practical strategies for cultivating the courage to speak up.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Rethinking Defiance: A Positive Force

• Defining Defiance
  • Dr. Sunita Sah rejects the traditional (Oxford English Dictionary) view of defiance as merely challenging authority. She reframes it:
    "To defy is simply to act in accordance with your true values, especially when there is pressure to do otherwise. And that transforms defiance from this negative connotation to a positive, almost pro-social act in society today." (03:51 – 04:35)
• The Roots of Compliance
  • Sunita discusses being raised for compliance as a child of Indian immigrants in Britain, internalizing “compliance equals good, defiance equals bad.”
  • Dr. Santos relates, describing the evolutionary and social rewards for compliance, but highlights that “the problem comes when it’s actually bad for us to be so good and compliant.” (05:23 – 06:42)

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2. The Psychology of Why We Comply

• Social and Emotional Rewards
  • Compliance is often rewarded with approval and positive feelings (dopamine), making it a default behavior.
• Insinuation Anxiety
  • Dr. Sah introduces "insinuation anxiety," a unique discomfort arising when we worry that saying "no" will suggest we think poorly of someone—e.g., "that they cannot be trusted, are incompetent, biased, sexist, or racist."
    • This applies to trivial (bad haircut) and serious (medical errors) scenarios, and is a powerful silencer. (08:20 – 10:19)
• Dissonance and Wellbeing
  • Excessive compliance creates a gap between our stated values (integrity, honesty) and our actions, causing inner dissonance and harming our wellbeing.
    "If you’re constantly disregarding your values, then it does take a toll on us—psychologically, spiritually, emotionally, and even physically." (11:38 – 12:21)

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3. Beyond the Self: Societal Costs of Compliance

• Dangerous Silence
  • Non-defiance isn't just a personal problem: "History tells us there’s terrible consequences of just going along with things," leading to systemic oppression and injustice. (12:40 – 13:21)
• Case Study: Milgram Experiments
  • Dr. Sah and Dr. Santos revisit Milgram’s infamous obedience studies—noting participants weren’t "moral imbeciles" but ordinary people overwhelmed by social pressure and inner turmoil.
    • Quote:
      "They were showing signs of distress...they wanted to defy, but they didn’t know how." (24:32 – 25:06)

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4. The Stages of Defiance

• Agentic State vs. Tension
  • The “agentic state” is when we abdicate responsibility and obey orders automatically. But the presence of inner tension signals retained agency—a “strength, not a weakness.” Acknowledging this tension is the beginning of true defiance. (25:37 – 27:39)

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5. When Compliance Makes Sense: Conscious Compliance

• Safety and Efficacy Calculus
  • Dr. Sah distinguishes “conscious compliance” from automatic conformity. Sometimes, compliance is strategic for safety (physical, financial, psychological).
    • Two key questions: Is it safe enough? Will it have a positive impact?
    • The “defiance calculus” is personal—there are real costs to both speaking up and staying silent. (27:54 – 30:12)

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6. The Real Story of Defiance: Rosa Parks and Everyday Courage

• Re-examining Rosa Parks
  • Parks' act of defiance was not spontaneous, nor was it without immense cost (job loss, health repercussions), but for her, the potential positive impact was worth it.
    • "Defiance is often preceded by hundreds of moments of compliance."
    • Her decision illustrates the careful, personal calculus required for true acts of defiance. (34:49 – 37:25)

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7. Practical Strategies: Building a “Defiance Compass”

• Dr. Sah adapts political scientist James March’s questions into three steps for decision-making:
  1. Who am I? (Identify your values.)
  2. What kind of situation is this? (Assess safety and potential impact.)
  3. What does a person like me do in a situation like this? (Align actions to identity.)
• Quote:
  "For many of us, that distance between who we think we are and what we actually do is enormous. And we want to decrease that distance." (39:12 – 40:05)

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8. The Personal Side of Saying No

• Saying “no” for self-care is just as valid as saying “no” for big-picture justice:
  • Defiance can protect wellbeing and is meaningful even in small, personal contexts—such as declining new tasks to protect rest or boundaries.
  • "As soon as you say yes, you’re saying no to a lot of other things that could be of greater importance." (40:53 – 41:59)
• Dr. Sah introduces a medical framework for “informed consent” as a metaphor for real, authentic agreement (vs. compliance), listing five key elements:
  • Capacity, Knowledge, Understanding, Freedom to say no, Authorization. Authentic “yes” requires all five.

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9. Inspiring Examples and the Ripple Effect

• Dr. Sah’s Mother
  • Sunita recounts a formative childhood memory when her usually compliant mother spoke up against racist harassment—showing that “defiance is a practice, not a personality.”
    • Quote:
      "Defiance can have a ripple effect...Maybe it will affect other people too." (46:25 – 47:55)
• Such modeled acts of courage shape observers, especially children, cultivating future resistance and prosocial change.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "To defy is simply to act in accordance with your true values, especially when there is pressure to do otherwise."
  — Dr. Sunita Sah (03:51)

• "People always think about the costs of defiance...But what they don’t think about is the cost of compliance."
  — Dr. Sunita Sah (11:38)

• "Defiance is a practice, not a personality."
  — Dr. Sunita Sah (47:28)

• "For many of us, that distance between who we think we are and what we actually do is enormous."
  — Dr. Sunita Sah (39:51)

• Sunita’s Reflection on Her Mother’s Defiant Act:
  "That day, she showed me something different...Defiance can have a ripple effect, because her doing that affected me and I've carried it forward."
  (46:25–47:55)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Defining Defiance Positively – 03:51–04:35
• Insinuation Anxiety – 08:20–10:19
• Impact of Compliance on Values & Wellbeing – 10:29–12:21
• Societal Costs and History (Milgram/Obedience) – 13:26–13:57, 22:29–25:06
• Stages of Defiance & Agentic State – 25:37–27:39
• Conscious Compliance & Decision Calculus – 27:54–30:12
• Rosa Parks: The Full Story – 34:49–37:25
• Developing a Defiance Compass – 37:51–40:05
• Informed Consent Framework – 41:59–43:36
• Personal Story: Dr. Sah’s Mother – 43:46–47:55
• Practical Call to Action (Recap) – 47:55–49:04

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Actionable Takeaways

• Acknowledge the anxiety that precedes saying "no": it signals you're at a crossroads between your values and compliance.
• Use the “Defiance Compass”: Who am I? What is the situation? What does someone like me do here?
• Assess if it’s safe and worth it—sometimes strategic, conscious compliance is valid.
• Model and teach defiance: acts of defiance—big or small—can inspire others and help shift norms.
• Remember: Authentic consent isn’t possible unless you have the freedom to say no. Seek to make that zone for yourself and for others.

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Conclusion

Dr. Santos and Dr. Sah show that practicing defiance—in ways large and small—allows us to bridge the gap between our values and our actions, which is essential for deep, enduring happiness. Defiance isn’t always easy, and sometimes the costs are real, but even incremental moves towards saying "no" when it matters can benefit not just ourselves but our communities and society as a whole.

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For those navigating tricky decisions or seeking to act with greater integrity, this episode provides both the science and the storytelling to understand the value of standing up, even when it feels uncomfortable.

Transcript

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[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Pushkin It's September. Fall is here and that means back to school. My college students have already arrived on campus at Yale, so it's time to say goodbye to beach days with a good book and late summer nights, and hello to lecture halls, lesson plans and an ever growing list of priorities. The end of summer often feels bittersweet if we're not careful. Autumn life can start to move very quickly. So as we switch into this new season, I want to help you find a little more happiness. And that's why I want to spend the next few episodes sharing all the incredible insights I learned from stuff I had a chance to read on my summer break. In this upcoming season of the Happiness Lab, we'll be diving into some of my favorite new books from 2025. We'll hear from brilliant authors whose work can teach us lots of things that are relevant for feeling better, like how to make better decisions, how to improve our work life balance, and even how to turn scary things into sources of joy. And today we're focused on a question that I struggle with a How to say no more often and how to mean it. Today's installment of my favorite books of 2025 is by a physician turned organizational psychologist who's done some great research on how to stay true to yourself and your values, even when it feels easier to stay quiet and go with the flow.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

Hello, I'm Dr. Sunita Sa. I'm a professor at Cornell University and the author of the Power of no in a World that Demands yes.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

So I want to start with how you define defiance. What does that word mean to you?

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

If you look at the Oxford English Dictionary definition of defiance, it says to defy is to challenge the power of someone else, like openly and boldly. And I thought that was really too narrow and it doesn't really honor our agency. I don't usually disagree with the Oxford English Dictionary. You know, I grew up in the uk but in this case I did disagree. My definition of defiance is that to defy is simply to act in accordance with your true values, especially when there is pressure to do otherwise. And that transforms defiance from this negative connotation to a positive, almost pro social act in society today.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Sunita's work explores this kind of positive resistance. But she wasn't always such a champion of nonconformity. Sunita was raised by Indian immigrant parents in Yorkshire, England. Back then, she was way more focused on blending in than standing out.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

I grew up with a masterclass in compliance. I remember asking my dad when I was quite young, what does my name Sunita mean? And he said in Sanskrit, sunita means good. And I mostly lived up to that. And I interpreted being good as being polite, doing what I was told, not questioning authority and obeying. And so I thought anything that went against that was being defiant and that was bad. So I made this equation of compliance equals good and defiance equals bad.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Lots of people grow up with the same ideas about compliance that Sunita is describing. I know I did. I definitely Tried to be the obedient kid. I always wanted to please my parents and my teachers and pretty much every other authority figure in my life, which kind of makes evolutionary sense, right? Without some level of compliance, society would fall apart. So it's not surprising that so many of us feel a natural pull to conform.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

I mean, one of the reasons why I say that we're wired to comply is that we do get rewarded for compliance. You know, as children and even as adults in workplaces, we're expected to be a good employee, which means, again, doing what you're told and towing, you know, the party line, in a way. If you do what you're told to do, then people like it and it meets everybody else's expectations. It could give us a dopamine rise, it could make us feel great. But the problem comes when it's not good for us to comply, when it's actually bad for us to be so good and compliant. That's when the problems start arising in that our compliance is going to hurt ourselves or it's going to hurt other people. And here we need to learn how to defy, because if we've only been trained in compliance as children, then it becomes really difficult when we become adults to learn that skill set.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

You've talked about some of the dangers of compliance being at the personal level.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

What do you mean there?

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

My first career was as a physician in the uk. So at the personal level, you know, when I started looking at this, what really shocked me as a junior physician was, first of all, I was seeing patients agree to treatments and procedures that they didn't necessarily want or would be even good for them. I saw junior doctors like myself not being able to say anything when we noticed people making an error. And in fact, one survey found that nine out of 10 healthcare workers, most of them nurses, do not speak up when they see a colleague or a physician making a mistake.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

Wow, nine out of ten, that sounds very dangerous.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

I know. And these are life and death situations and people are struggling. I mean, it doesn't have to be like some of my research when I started delving into it in terms of compliance, even in very simple experiments from like a stranger coming along and offering you one of two different options and recommending the inferior one. In certain conditions, we see compliance as high as 85%, and people don't want this. If they're allowed to make the decision in private or if they're not giving any advice, then over 90% will choose the other option. So what is it? Why are we so compliant? And it's because of this aspect of being socialized that it's a good thing to do and just feeling very uncomfortable and feeling social pressure from other people.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

You, you just mentioned this idea of anxiety, and I know that's one of the other reasons you talk about for why people comply too much. Explain this idea of insinuation anxiety.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

Insinuation anxiety is a distinct type of anxiety that we feel when we become concerned that if we don't go along with somebody's order or suggestion or even expectation that it sends a negative evaluation of that person to that person. So it basically signals that the person cannot be trusted, is incompetent, is biased, is even sexist or racist. These are things we don't want to imply about anyone else. And so in order to not send this negative evaluation, we end up not saying anything. It keeps us compliant and silent. We end up going along with something that our boss tells us to do. We don't speak up when somebody says something that we think is wrong because it's so difficult for us to insinuate or imply that somebody cannot be trusted. So that aversive emotional state that we have is actually quite powerful. And it comes up in sort of small situations such as you could be at the hairdressers and they're saying, you know, trust me with this new cut. And they're cutting away and cutting away, and you're thinking, no, no, no, just stop. But you find it very hard if you're like me, to actually say stop. And then you might just even pay them and tip them and leave and then cry at home like what's happened? So it can happen in those small stake situations, but it can happen in those much larger stake situations. So it could be the reason why I mentioned that nurses don't speak up to physicians or doctors when they see them making a mistake. It could be why co pilots don't speak up to their pilots when they make an error, like in these life and death situations. This insinuation anxiety can be really powerful because it becomes so difficult for us and for some people more than others, becomes so difficult for us to send that negative evaluation to someone else to say that they can't be trusted or that they're wrong.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

I'm thinking of also some of the more personal costs, like kind of not just what it feels like, but what it does to our values too. So how does complying too much affect our values and our sense of purpose?

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

When we think about what our values are, we value so much integrity and honesty, but when it comes to our day to day behavior, we don't implement that. And so there's this gap between who we think we are and what we actually do. And that is what I'm trying to sort of decrease that gap between how much we believe our values to be influencing us and then how we actually behave. So if we value integrity or benevolence or justice or compassion, why is it that we can't behave in that way? And this is where we get that social influence. We don't know how to stay in alignment with our values. When it actually comes to that moment, we freeze or we just don't put our values into action. And we need to learn how to do that.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

And that seems to have a big.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

Effect on our happiness. You know, so much of what we know from the positive psychology literature is that it's kind of acting in alignment with our values that seems to really matter, or just kind of feeling just like, not this sense of dissonance that like I'm acting in this way that doesn't really fit with what I care about. So it seems like this act of complying too much must have some big implications for just our overall well being.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

Absolutely. I mean, people always think about the costs of defiance when they're thinking about, oh, you know, it's too hard because it's going to cost me my job, it's going to cost me a relationship. But what they don't think about is the cost of compliance. And if you're constantly bowing your head to other people, if you're constantly disregarding your values, then it does take a toll on us, you know, psychologically, spiritually, emotionally and even physically. So in like when you have that chronic compliance, it can eat away at your soul quite a bit. And I've spoken to people who have, you know, burnout, stress, anxiety, chronic inflammation, all of these things because they could not implement their values.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

And so those are some of the personal costs of kind of complying too much. What are some of the societal costs? And I'm guessing based on the fact that, you know, in your own clinical practice, you saw, you know, 90% of nurses not speaking up when they saw something going wrong, 80% of people kind of complying in these awful situations. Like, what's the real societal toll of that?

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

You know, it's huge because history even tells us that there's terrible consequences of just going along with things because we're afraid to speak up, or we don't know how to speak up even if we want to. And so society As a whole, we could just descend into high levels of compliance with things that we really feel very strongly about, but we can't enact. And that sort of suppression or oppression is something that nobody really wants or votes for in a way, but it comes along if we keep silent and we don't say anything or we don't take action.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

Any of your worst examples of compliance in history that have negatively affected us?

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

I mean, one of the sort of most infamous series of studies on compliance was the Milgram experiments. And that was really done to investigate why Nazis behaved the way that they did in World War II. And they came up with sort of phrases such as I was just following orders. And that is, I think one of the worst examples that we see time and time again is that, you know, this idea of I was just following orders, displacing our responsibility onto someone else.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Ah, yes, the Milgram experiments, a set of studies that are now infamous for revealing the dark side of human nature. The Milgram studies are often cited as proof of the dangers of blind obedience. But Sunita argues that they show something different. What does she think these notorious experiments really tell us? Well, we'll find out when the Happiness Lab returns from the break.

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[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Cornell Professor Sunit Desai is on a mission to teach the world how to defy better, how we can stick to our values, even when that might be awkward, scary or disappointing to others. Sunita first began studying Defiance as a young medical student, a career path that for her, perhaps ironically, was an act of compliance.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

I remember thinking at the time whether medicine was the right thing for me, and I got told, well you have the grades. What else would you do? It's the best thing you can do. And so I did follow everybody else's expectations, and even society's expectations that being a doctor is the best thing that you can do. And I went to medical school.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

But Sunita wasn't completely compliant. She still wanted to carve out something for herself. So she took some courses in psychology, the field she actually felt passionate about.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

That's when I came across Stanley Milgram's experiments that were conducted in the early 1960s at Yale.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

That's right. Milgram's legendary studies on the banality of.

[Podcast Host / Advertiser]

Evil were carried out at the very.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

Same institution where I teach today.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Like Sunita, I've always found Milgram's experiments to be endlessly fascinating, especially when you not only read about his studies, but actually listen to the original experimental recordings.

[Podcast Host / Advertiser]

Which they happen to have available in.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

The library at Yale. Here's a taste, that's all.

[Milgram Experiment Participant (Actor)]

Get me out of here. I told you I had heart trouble. My heart's starting to bother me now. Get me out of here, please.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

In her book, Sunita describes Milgram's most well known study. He brought 40 men between the ages of 20 to 50 into the lab. The men were recruited through newspaper ads and direct mail solicitations. They represented a wide range of occupations and education levels. In other words, the participants were what Milgram called ordinary individuals.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

Milgram really conducted these experiments because he wanted to investigate whether this phrase of I was just following orders was a psychological reality or not. And so he had participants come in, community members that thought that they were going to take part in a learning experiment, and whether giving someone an electric shock helps them learn and improves their memory far more than anything else.

[Milgram Experiment Narrator / Researcher]

One theory is that people learn things correctly whenever they get punished for making a mistake. The project is bringing together a number of adults of different occupations and ages, and we're asking some of them to be teachers and some to be learners. We want to find out just what effect different people have on each other as teachers and learners, and also what effect punishment will have on learning in this situation.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

And so the participants would come in and they would be introduced to someone else that they thought was a participant, but really was an actor who they saw being placed in another room and kind of strapped to something that looked like an electric chair.

[Milgram Experiment Narrator / Researcher]

What I'm going to do is strap down your arms to avoid any excessive movement on your part during the experience.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

And then they were taken to another room where they sat in front of this elegant machine. That had markings from 15 volts going up in 15 volt increments all the way to 450 volts. That was labeled XXX. Severe shock.

[Milgram Experiment Narrator / Researcher]

When you press one of the switches all the way down, the learner gets a shock. When you release it, the shock stops, you see, like that.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

So those participants were called teachers because they were reading out word pairs to the learner in the other room, the actor. And if the learner got the word pair wrong, then the teacher would have to give an electric shock and then increase in these increments.

[Milgram Experiment Narrator / Researcher]

Incorrect. You'll now get a shock of 75 volts. He kind of did some yelling in there. Continue please. Hard stone, head, bread work. Incorrect. You'll now get a shock of 105 volts. Just how far can you go on this thing? As far as is necessary. What do you mean as far as is necessary? Complete the test. Brave woman, soldier, dog, horse. Incorrect. 150 volts.

[Milgram Experiment Participant (Actor)]

That'S all. Get me out of here. I told you I had heart trouble. My heart's starting to bother me now. Get me out of here. Please continue. My hair starting to body. I refuse to go in. Let me out.

[Milgram Experiment Narrator / Researcher]

I. I think we ought to find out what's wrong in there first.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

And if they protested, the experimenter who was in the room with them with a lab coat on would give them four prompts which were, please go on. The experiment requires you to continue.

[Milgram Experiment Narrator / Researcher]

The experiment requires that you continue teaching. Well, the experiment might require that we continue, but I still think we should find out what the condition of the gentleman is.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

It's absolutely essential that you continue.

[Milgram Experiment Narrator / Researcher]

It's absolutely essential that you continue and.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

You have no choice. You must go on. And if after four prompts then they didn't want to continue, then the experiment would end. And in advance, a group of psychiatrists predicted that very few people would go up to 450 volts. But what Milgram found was that 2/3 of participants went up to the extreme dangerous shock of 450 volts. And he was astounded by those results. He was not expecting them at all. And he called the participants who obeyed and went up to 450 volts. The obedient participants and those who didn't, those that declined to give the electric shock, the defiant subjects. So again, now we're seeing defiance as actually a positive aspect. You know, it's a positive thing that you're not going to harm or potentially kill another human being by giving them shocks. But what fascinated me was I didn't think the people that went up to 450 volts were moral imbeciles, as Milgram described them, because if you look at what they were actually saying, they were showing signs of distress. They were questioning.

[Milgram Experiment Narrator / Researcher]

They're hollering, he can't stand. Or what if something happens to them?

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

They were stuttering.

[Milgram Experiment Narrator / Researcher]

The experiment requires that you continue teaching.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

And if you look at their nonverbal behavior as well, they were sweating, they looked like they were in distress. They had nervous laughter.

[Milgram Experiment Narrator / Researcher]

Wrong 75 orbs, Jim.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

And I recognized all those signs because there's many times I've been in those situations where I felt the same thing. And so I recognized these are people who actually want to defy, but they're finding it very difficult to do so.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah, it feels like they were just.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

Going through this awful feeling that I know well too, which is like they wanted to give a no, but they were giving a yes. And that just gave them so much dissonance. It just felt so yucky.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

Yeah, absolutely. How many times have we been in that situation where we want to say no and we just end up, like, swallowing our words? It's a horrible feeling.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

One reason that people comply that Milgram.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

Talked a lot about, is was this idea of the agentic state.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

What did Milgram mean by that, and.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

How should we understand it?

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

What Milgram meant by the agentic state was that we have become agents of somebody else, that we have given away all our responsibility and our power to someone else. Whatever they want, we are going to do, and we're going to comply. And it might be because we think they're an authority figure and know best, but sometimes we know best, and yet we give that away so easily. In some participants, he did notice that people really evaluated their behavior on how well they were following orders. But in many of the others, there was that actual tension there, which I call the first stage of defiance. That tension was clearly visible in that they wanted to defy, but they didn't know how. And that tension actually is a signal of our agency, because if we had given away all our power, then we wouldn't feel any tension. We would be in that agentic state that he's talking about. We would just go along with it. But if we feel that tension, that is actually a strength, not a weakness, because it alerts us to something is wrong here. And I wonder what that is. And that is what we need to focus on, not sweep it away just because we have some anxiety or doubt or that we're confused. It's really to focus on why is it that I feel that tension? Acknowledge it to ourselves and then tell somebody else about it. Vocalize it to the person that is asking you to do something that you don't think is the right thing to do. All you have to do is say, I'm uncomfortable with that. What do you mean by that? Can you clarify? You're still in a subservient position at this point, but you are making it known externally. This is not something you're comfortable with. If you then comply later on, you can't have that cognitive dissonance of saying, I was fine with it because you put it out there. And what's wonderful is that once you get to that final act of defiance, that tension that you have in the first stage, it just melts. It dissipates away.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

It also seems like this anxiety creeps up most in situations in which the defiance really maybe isn't safe or is at least perceived as not being as safe. And this is something you focused on.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

A lot in your book.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

You've talked about this idea of conscious compliance. What's that?

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

Conscious compliance happens in situations where there is a real risk for us that we're not safe to defy. It could be a risk to financial safety, psychological safety, or even our physical safety in a position. And conscious compliance is different from the type of compliance that we normally have, where we just kind of go along with things because of an external force that we slide into automatically without thinking. Conscious compliance is being really aware that in this situation, the costs are too big or the benefits are too small, and I'm going to just comply with this situation and go along with things because defiance is too risky, so I need to defer it for another moment.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

You not only recognize that you're experiencing this anxiety, you kind of have a meta awareness of your compliance and you kind of work through it and you're like, no, just this one's just not worth bringing it up because I'll get in trouble. I could get physically hurt. There are some situations where defiance really is dangerous.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

That's right. And like the two questions I have discovered that people often ask when they're deciding whether to defy or not, is, is it safe enough and will it be effective? Will it have positive impact? And in one study where I interviewed both nurses and nurse managers, the nurses would talk about both of those reasons. So either they didn't feel safe, they were going to lose their job. They didn't know the consequences of speaking up. But then there was another group of nurses that would say it's not because I feel afraid of anything, it's that I've spoken up many times in the past and nothing's happened. So these two questions are really useful to think about. Is it safe for me to defy and will it have positive impact? But it's also important not to then sort of rationalize that we should never defy because defiance is inherently risky. And so the questions we should ask is, is it safe enough and will it have enough impact? And it really comes down to something personal, our own sort of defiance calculus, in a way of what are the costs and what are the benefits? And is this the right time for me to defy? And is this the right way for me to defy? Because otherwise we just end up in conscious compliance forever. And that, as we know, can have costs too.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Every act of defiance carries a cost, but the big question is, when is the cost of staying silent even greater? After the break, Sunita will share some advice on how to ask ourselves that question, and we'll explore some remarkable examples of what happens when people choose to speak up. The Happiness Lab will be right back.

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[Dr. Laurie Santos]

As a kid, I was obsessed with one of America's iconic heroines, the civil rights activist Rosa Parks. I read her biography as a middle schooler and even wrote my seventh grade paper about her famous moment of defiance when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in violation of all the segregation laws at the time. Back then, this seemed like a tidy story, an empowering moment, neatly packaged, inspiring for kids like me. But the reality, which I didn't fully understand until much later, was far more complex. Organizational psychologist Sunita Sa believes that facing the full truth about moments of defiance like this will teach us something really important. We'll get to learn what it truly takes to stand up for our values.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

So what really intrigues me about Rosa Parks is that first of all her defiance has been misunderstood. People think that, you know, it was a spontaneous action that she made on the bus that day and that she did it because she was tired all over. But what Rosa Parks actually said is that she wasn't tired that day, at least no more tired than usual. She was quite young. She wasn't old, but it was time. This was the right time and the right place for her. And when we think about sort of defiance and compliance, defiance is often preceded by hundreds of moments of compliance. And this is something that we have to remember because we often beat ourselves up for being so compliant. But we actually learn from being compliant. We feel that tension that I talk about, which is stage one of defiance, and we often disregard it, but that tension stays. It doesn't go away if we just go along with things. We think it might go away, but it actually remains. And that's what happened with Rosa Parks, is that those moments of compliance where she had gone along with segregation laws on the bus, didn't leave her feeling good. She was very much connected with her values, but equality, they were very important to her. She was doing lots of work in this area. And so on that bus, she might have asked herself the questions that I mentioned. Is it safe? And will it have positive impact? Well, if we think about, is it safe? Actually, it wasn't safe for Rosa Parks to defy that day. It wasn't safe at all. She received a lot of death threats. She lost her job. She struggled with unemployment for 10 years. And the amount of stress that she experienced had a massive toll on her health. And so we have to think about these costs of defiance. They are real for a lot of people. And yet when she was asked 10 years later, would she do it again, she said yes, without hesitation. So sometimes the cost can be high. And this is a very personal question that we have to answer. Is it safe enough for us? Will it have positive impact? Will it have enough positive impact for her? It certainly did. And she knew that she had a community around her that would rally around, and maybe this could make a difference. And it really did make a difference, which was wonderful. But some people will stand for their values or sit down for their values, even if they know that it's unsafe and even though they can't predict whether it will have positive impact or not.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

So the Rosa Parks story really just shows us that defying authority can come with these real costs. You know, ultimately, it can be a very tough decision to decide, is this a moment in which I should defy or should I Just kind of keep on complying. And so what are some practical strategies that we can use to do this? I know in your book you referenced some questions from the political scientist James March that we can use as a guide. Walk me through some of these questions and how we might use them in a situation in which we're really not sure what to do.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

James March came up with three questions that we normally ask ourselves implicitly when we make a decision. And I adapted some of these questions and made it into what I call a Defiance Compass. And the questions are actually quite simple, but require some thinking. So the first one is, who am I? And that goes back to our values. What do you stand for? What's really important to you? And it is so important to figure out what your values are. And it's really helpful to do so as well, because the research shows that if you know your values, your intended behaviors are much more likely to follow. And clarifying our values has been shown to lead to a lower biological stress response. So lower cortisol levels, so very much helpful for our well being. So who am I? Is the first question in the Defiance Compass. Then the second question is, what kind of situation is this? So here we're looking externally and coming back to those two questions that we ask about the environment. Is it safe? And will it be effective for me to defy? And then the last question is, what does a person like me do in a situation like this? And this is a really powerful question because again, we're tapping back into our responsibilities, we're connecting with our values again. And yet we still also need the ability to defy the skillset to defy. So those two things are important in predicting whether we will act in alignment with our values or not. So when we start thinking, what does a person like me with these values of integrity, of fairness, of compassion, of equality, whatever our values are, what does a person like me do in this situation? Because the way that we act then goes back and has an effect on who we are. If we can't act in alignment with our values, then it really does change who we are. So if we're constantly saying to people that was not me, we might want to think about whether our actions are in alignment with who we think we are. Because I've learned for many of us, that distance between who we think we are and what we actually do is enormous. And we want to decrease that distance.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

So so many of the cases we've been talking about are these moments of like, when you don't say something but you really want to. And it seems to matter a lot, right? Like somebody says sexist or racist or somebody's making an active mistake.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

But a lot of the times when.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

I find it hard to say no to protect my values or when the values are about like me, right, like my time and my boundaries and it involves saying no, I don't want to take on that commitment because I want to protect my time, or no, I don't want to do that thing that you want me to do because, you know, it's not in my interest. But then that means I'm going to offend you or something like that. So any advice for the like, really personal ones? When the value isn't about some, you know, deeper value of honesty or kind of being a just person, but it's really just about like protecting the kinds of stuff that you need to feel happier.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

Well, that's actually protecting your well being. It's really important for you to function as a human. And so I wouldn't disregard that. Defiance doesn't need to be loud or aggressive. It can be something quite small, but that really honors your values. And in the same way with requests for our time or energy, all of this kind of aspect of, well, that's actually going to affect my well being, you know, that's not right for me, it's not right for my family, it's not right for my work. Like there's many things where as soon as you say yes that you're saying no to a lot of other things that could be of greater importance. And again, it's remembering that, that it's not just about thinking about what are the costs of saying no, thinking about what are the costs of saying yes in this situation. I also like to think about the difference between compliance and consent. And this came to me when I was a junior doctor when I learned about informed consent in medicine. And I think it's a really useful framework to also apply to other situations in our lives when we make decisions.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

Maybe just explain what informed consent is.

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

So informed consent in medicine requires five elements. You need first of all, capacity. So the brain capacity. You should not be under the influence of drugs or alcohol or be too sick. You need the ability to be able to make a decision. Second of all, you need knowledge. So you need information on that decision. But it's not enough just to be given the information you actually need. The third element, which is understanding, a thorough grasp of the risks, the benefits, the alternatives, all of those things. So you have capacity, knowledge, understanding. The fourth element is the Freedom to say no. Because if you don't have the freedom to say no, then that's merely compliance. It's not consent. And then the fifth element, if all the other four elements are present, is your authorization, your deeply considered true yes, if you want to say yes, or your true no, which is actually defiance. So consent and defiance are actually two sides of the same coin. You need to have those five elements that are present. If you with the capacity, knowledge, understanding, and freedom to say no still feel this pressure to say yes, you need to think about, is this really my true yes, or am I going along with something that I don't want to do? Is it a yes? That's not really a yes, because if so, that's just compliance. It's really good to be able to distinguish between the two so we don't slide into that automatic compliance just because we feel pressure or that's been our default response.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

So, based on everything you've learned about the psychology of defiance and when we need to do it, do you have any favorite examples of defiance? Like, who are your defiance heroes?

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

I would have to say my mom, you know, because she just embodies compliance. And a lot of people think about her as being really weak, but I just think she's so strong. I was about 7 or 8 years old. I was walking home with my mom from the grocery store, and she was pulling along her rickety shopping cart, which just looks like, you know, wheeled luggage, two wheels. It was quite a long walk back home, and we decided to go through a narrow alleyway that we actually call a Snicket in West Yorkshire in England. And I had always been told not to go through the Snicket when I was by myself, but I was with my mum, and we were tired, and so it was like, okay, fine, we'll go through this nicket. When we started walking through was when we saw them. It was a group of teenage boys, and they blocked our path, and they shouted out some racist things to us. Go back home. And the others were laughing. Now, my reaction to that was instant. I grabbed my mom's arm, and I looked away. I did not want to look at them directly in the eyes, and I just wanted to maneuver as fast as possible through the boys. And my mum did something different that day. I thought she would just go along with me, but she didn't. She stopped, and she looked at them directly in the eyes, and she said, what do you mean? And my heart started racing at this point, and I grabbed her arm even tighter, and I whispered to Her. Come on, Ma. And she looked at me and she said, no, which really surprised me. Then she put the shopping cart up vertical and she put one hand on her hip. My mom's quite petite. She's 4 foot 10 at most. And she was wearing her blue green sari. She had her hair in a neap plait at the back. And she looked at the boys again. And then she said, what do you mean, again? And there was complete silence. The boys didn't say anything at all. And then my mum said, hmm, you think you're such tough boys. Big strong boys, right? Clever boys. And again there was silence. And then one of the boys uttered, let's go. And they just dispersed. My mum grabbed the shopping cart and she walked as fast as possible through that alleyway. And I just stood there thinking what just happened? I would never have expected this from my mom. She was so compliant. She did all the cooking, the cleaning, the grocery shopping. I was found to be very quiet, subservient, meeting everybody else's needs. And that day, she showed me something different. She showed me that defiance is a practice, not a personality. She must have encountered those boys or people that looked like those boys many times before. She would come home from. From the store and she would be muttering away, and I thought it was because of the shopping cart that was, like, not great. But I think it was because she'd met people like those boys before, and that day she decided to do something different, perhaps because I was there. What I also found really fascinating about Rosa Parks is that she, as a child, had once seen her mother defy on the bus. Her mother didn't move for a white passenger, and the bus driver had threatened to throw her off. And her mother very quietly said, I don't think you will do that. And that was the end of it. And that also could have effect. It could have stayed with Rosa, just like when I experienced my own mother defying when I was a child really stayed with me. Defiance can have a ripple effect because her doing that affected me and I've carried it forward. And now that I'm telling the story, maybe it will affect other people too. Because what I'm hoping, with the book that I've written on defy, and with the work of building that skill set, of being able to defy, if we can teach it, if we can parent for it, if we can model it, that one day one of the teenage boys in the alleyway will turn around and tell his friends to stop doing this and to let us pass. So my immigrant mother wouldn't have to carry it alone. That is what I hope and I think it's achievable if we can all learn to defy.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

So next time a relative makes an off color joke that they expect you to laugh at, or your boss asks you to take on a task that conflicts with your boundaries, or some random Yale professor tells you to deliver shocks to someone trying to learn word pairs, take a moment to remember Sunita's advice. First off, acknowledge your anxiety. That yucky feeling is a good thing. It's a signal that something feels off. Then consider your values. How might they guide your actions in this situation? Next, vocalize your discomfort. And then if you feel safe enough and believe it could have an impact, go ahead and give your true no defy. The research shows you'll be happier for it. In the next episode, we'll continue our Back to School series with another one of my favorite books from 2025. We'll hear from an expert on how we can use our environments to shape our health and our happiness. And we'll hear his tips for how we can bring the healthiest places on the planet into our own kitchens. All that next time on the Happiness lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

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[Podcast Hosts Manny, Noah, Devin]

Why are TSA rules so confusing?

[Milgram Experiment Participant (Actor)]

You got a hoodie on. Take it off.

[Podcast Hosts Manny, Noah, Devin]

I'm Manny.

[Milgram Experiment Narrator / Researcher]

I'm Noah. This is Devin.

[Podcast Hosts Manny, Noah, Devin]

And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called no Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that. Why are you screaming at me? I can't expect. What to do now if the rule was the same, go off on me. I deserve it.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

You know?

[Dr. Sunita Sa]

Lock him up.

[Podcast Hosts Manny, Noah, Devin]

Listen to no Such thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

No Such Thing.

[Interviewer / Co-host]

This is an iHeart podcast.