Science Quickly Why Defiance Can Be a Virtue
19 snips
Nov 5, 2025 
Join Sunita Sah, a Cornell professor and author researching compliance and ethical decision-making, as she explores the virtue of defiance. She discusses how societal conditioning can suppress our voices, making it challenging to assert our boundaries. Learn how Milgram's experiments highlight compliance even under distress. Sah reframes defiance as a value-aligned action, offering insights on how to develop this skill and even how parents can encourage defiance in their children. Discover the empowerment that comes from saying 'no' and standing firm in your beliefs.
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Childhood Of Obedience
- Sunita Sah recounts being socialized as an obedient daughter and student whose name meant 'good' in Sanskrit.
- That upbringing shaped her early compliance and curiosity about obedience experiments.
Milgram Reveals Obedience Under Authority
- Milgram's obedience study showed ordinary people inflict apparent harm under authority, with 66% going to the highest shock level.
- Sah notes participants showed resistance signs but lacked the skills to refuse authority.
Why People Stay Silent
- Sah identifies social pressure, confusion about consent versus compliance, and lack of defiance skills as barriers to speaking up.
- She introduces 'insinuation anxiety' as fear that refusal signals distrust of another person.
