Ask the Expert Why ‘Defy’ Shouldn’t Be a (Proverbial) Four-Letter Word Stories You May Like Tips on Safeguarding Teens’ Mental Health in the Digital Age Do Women in the U.S. Still Earn Less than Men? Getting Your Facts Straight: Tips on Media Literacy In her recent book, Johnson College professor Sunita Sah explores 'the power of no in a world that demands yes' For Sunita Sah, the epitome of defiance came not on a grand stage, but in a small moment in her West Yorkshire hometown when she was six or seven. The child of immigrants from India, she was walking home with her mother through an alley—what folks in the north of England call a “snicket”—when their way was blocked by boys shouting racial epithets. “I wanted to maneuver through them as fast as possible,” recalls Sah, a professor of management and organizations in the Johnson College of Business. “But my mother stopped, looked them directly in the eyes, and said: ‘What do you mean?’” Sah tried to urge her mother along, but she refused. And then her mom—who, Sah says, had always seemed such a compliant, obedient figure—parked her shopping cart, put a hand on her hip, and faced the bullies down. “She said, ‘You think you’re so clever—big, strong boys, right?’ The boys looked at each other, until at last one of them said, ‘Let’s go,’ and they dispersed.” provided Sah was shocked by the episode—not by the racial taunts, which the family had suffered before, but by her mother’s actions in standing up to them. “I thought that for defiance, you had to be a certain type of person,” observes Sah, a former physician who also holds a doctorate in organizational behavior. “But I realized it’s a skill set you can choose to use; you can be compliant one day and defiant the next. You don’t have to think of yourself as being loud, aggressive, violent, or angry. Defiance isn’t just for the brave and the extraordinary. It’s a skill we all need.” Decades later Sah has—quite literally—written the book on the subject. In early 2025, Penguin Random House published Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes. Defiance isn’t just for the brave and the extraordinary. It’s a skill we all need. Based on extensive research by Sah and others, it explores the science behind the choices we make—and argues that there are rational reasons for, and benefits to, refusal in the face of social pressure to comply. She cites myriad examples, including well-known cases—from the engineers who tried in vain to abort the space shuttle Challenger’s fatal launch to the Minneapolis police officers who failed to intervene when their colleague murdered George Floyd. But as Sah notes, the inability to say no can also come into play in much more mundane situations: who, after all, has never told a stylist that they love their new haircut—when they actually can’t wait for it to grow out? What’s the accepted definition of “defy”—and what do you think it should be? The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “to challenge the power of someone else, openly and boldly.” And as I say in the book, I’m not usually one to disagree with the OED—I grew up in the UK—but I think that definition is way too narrow, and it doesn’t honor our agency. My new definition is: “To defy is to act in accordance with your true values—especially when there is pressure to do otherwise.” In the book, you talk about “compliance” versus “consent.” How do they differ? Compliance is externally imposed. It comes from an order, suggestion, or expectation, even nonverbal. Consent is often conflated with compliance, but it’s radically, fundamentally different. To have informed consent—which is the standard in medicine—you need five elements. You need the mental capacity to make the decision. You need knowledge: information on the situation. You need understanding—a thorough grasp of the risks, benefits, and alternatives. The fourth element is the freedom to say no, because if you don’t have it, it’s merely compliance. The fifth is authorization, which is your deeply considered expression of your true values. If you want to say yes, that’s your “true yes,” or consent. If you want to say no, that’s your “true no,” or defiance. So consent and defiance are two sides of the same coin. You also describe a discomfort that starts the defiance process. What is that? This is what I call stage one of defiance, out of five that I’ve identified. It’s actually a very important stage, because it’s the tension we feel between two opposing forces: doing what we believe is the right thing, and the strong expectation from others to act differently. That tension manifests in different ways for different people: it might be a constricted throat, a dry mouth, a racing heart rate, an unease in the stomach. We should get to know our own warning signs, because that tension is critical. Why would feeling uneasy be key to defiance? If we had already handed all our agency, responsibility, and power to someone else, we wouldn’t feel any tension. We’d just go along with what they wanted, without discomfort. The fact that we feel tension is actually a strength, not a weakness—and we should use it as a signal that this might be a time to defy. Stories You May Like Tips on Safeguarding Teens’ Mental Health in the Digital Age Do Women in the U.S. Still Earn Less than Men? My new definition is: 'To defy is to act in accordance with your true values—especially when there is pressure to do otherwise.' If tension is the first stage of defiance, what are the other four? The second stage is to acknowledge the tension. Often, when we feel anxiety or doubt, we try to sweep it away and say the other person knows better, so it’s probably okay. But we should ask ourselves: “What does it mean? Is this a situation in which I’m not using my true yes or my true no?” Stage three is critical, because the research shows that if you can get to it, you’re more likely to get to the last stage. It’s simply vocalizing your discomfort. It could be simple, such as, “I’m not comfortable with that” or “Can you clarify this?” In this stage, you can still be in a subservient position; you’re not threatening noncompliance. But just asking for clarification raises the volume; now, you can’t go back and say you were fine with it, because you voiced your discomfort out loud. kelly williamsSah presenting at a conference at the Harvard Club in NYC. Stage four is the threat of noncompliance: “I can’t go along with this.” Sticking with that gets you to stage five, the act of defiance. And what’s fascinating is that taking action melts away that initial tension from stage one. You feel liberated, more honest and authentic, because you’re acting in alignment with your values. You talk about how saying “no” is hard, even when the stakes are unequal—like when, as a young doctor, you agonized over declining the services of a financial advisor you’d only just met. Why is that? We’ve been socialized to comply, and there’s a reason for that; it’s often a good thing to think about other people’s feelings. The trouble arises when we forget the bigger picture—the harm to ourselves or others. If a nurse is concerned about offending a physician, what happens to the patient? If a copilot is worried about offending their superior, what about their own life and that of everybody else on the plane? In my research, I’ve discovered that the fear of offending another person is due to a reluctance to insinuate that they could be wrong, biased, or corrupt. I call this feeling “insinuation anxiety.” It’s a powerful force that keeps us silent and compliant. It’s often a good thing to think about other people’s feelings. The trouble arises when we forget the bigger picture—the harm to ourselves or others. In the case of that financial advisor, your beeper went off and you were spared making a decision in the moment. How can time work to one’s advantage in these situations? I call this the “power of the pause.” It’s really important to take a breath and think: What are my values? What’s important to me? Maybe a bad haircut isn’t that bad; your hair will grow back. But if you’re compromising your integrity, it can have a detrimental effect—psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically. So take a pause and think: What does a person like me, with these values, do in a situation like this? You also acknowledge that there are times when defiance isn’t possible, often for reasons of self-protection. Could you elaborate on that? Sometimes, the cost of defiance is too high or risky, and we might decide to defer defiance to another day. We can use what I call “conscious compliance”: we have all the elements for a true yes or true no, but we’re aware that the cost of defiance is too great, or the benefits too meager. Take a pause and think: What does a person like me, with these values, do in a situation like this? It’s a deeply personal decision as to when we choose to defy; some people defy even when the costs are high. Rosa Parks’s famous “no” on the bus was not exactly safe and had a high personal cost, which I describe in my book. Yet, it also had impact and led to a huge movement in civil rights. Her “no,” however, was preceded by hundreds of moments of compliance. Many defiant moments are preceded by compliance, and we can learn from that. We can think about, “What do I regret? What do I wish I’d said? And practice for defiance the next time. (Top: Illustration by Ashley Osburn / Cornell University.) Published September 4, 2025 Comments Donaher 5 Oct, 2025 Very insightful article.. 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