715: How to Stand Up for Yourself, with Sunita Sah

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Jan 13, 2025

Sunita Sah, an award-winning professor at Cornell and author of *Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes*, shares her insights on defiance and compliance. She discusses how defiance is a nuanced process rather than a snap judgement. Sunita explains the five stages of defiance and highlights the concept of ‘insinuation anxiety,’ which leads people to prioritize social harmony over personal values. Through personal anecdotes, she emphasizes the importance of standing firm in healthcare choices and asserts that true defiance aligns with one’s core values.

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ANECDOTE

CT Scan Story

Sunita Sah experienced chest pain and went to the ER.
Despite knowing a CT scan was unnecessary, she complied due to insinuation anxiety.

INSIGHT

Insinuation Anxiety

Insinuation anxiety is the fear that non-compliance signals distrust.
This anxiety pressures us to comply, even when we disagree.

INSIGHT

Obedience vs. Defiance

Defiance is the exception, while obedience is the rule.
Socialization often equates compliance with goodness and defiance with badness.

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Sunita Sah: Defy

Sunita Sah is an award-winning professor at Cornell University and an expert in organizational psychology, leading groundbreaking research on influence, authority, compliance, and defiance. A trained physician, her research and analyses have been widely published in leading academic journals and media entities including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Harvard Business Review, and Scientific American. She is the author of Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes*.

We often think of defiance as a snap judgement. Yet, it’s so much more nuanced and purposeful than it often appears. In this conversation, Sunita and I explore the common patterns of defiance and how we can all do a better job of standing up for ourselves.

Key Points

We follow bad advice – even when we know it is obviously bad – to avoid appearing unhelpful.
Defiance means acting in accordance with your true values when there is pressure to do otherwise.
True defiance is not a snap judgement; it’s a process.
Acts of defiance are preceded by many moments of conscious compliance, when defiance is deferred.
Five stages of defiance often emerge: (1) Tension, (2) Acknowledgement (to ourselves), (3) Escalation (vocalize to others), (4) Threat of non-compliance, and (5) Act of defiance.
Vocalizing our concern to someone else is a key pivot point on the journey to ultimately saying no.
Respond explicitly to these questions: (1) Who am I? (2) What type of situation is this? and (3) What does a person like me do in a situation such as this?

Resources Mentioned

Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes* by Sunita Sah

Interview Notes

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