March 17, 2025 • 43 mins
Have you ever found yourself saying yes to something you really didn’t want to do? Psychologist Sunita Sah is an expert on why it can be so difficult to say no, especially when our relationships or reputations are on the line. But there's good news! Defiance is actually a skill we can build if we understand the science behind it. Sunita shares a framework we can use in those challenging moments when we want to push back, but just aren’t sure how.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey, slight changers, Maya here. My new newsletter, which I'm
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(00:42):
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(01:04):
now onto the episode.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I remember asking my dad at one point, what does
my name Sanita mean? And he said in Sanskript, Sanita
means good. And that's the kind of messages I received.
You know, to be good, to fit in, be polite,
don't make a scene, don't question authority. And I think
many of us have had that kind of upbringing or
(01:39):
messages that they're expected to comply.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Sunita Saw is a doctor turned organizational psychologist and a
professor at Cornell University. She studies why it can be
so hard to say no. Sunita says that if you
consider yourself a pretty compliant person, maybe you even think
of yourself as a people pleaser, it's something you can change.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Defiance isn't a personality, it's a skill set. If we
have a self concept of being complying, it doesn't mean
that we can't be defiant. We just have to learn it.
So even if compliance is our default, it doesn't have
to be a destiny.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
On today's show, How to Say No, I'm maya Schunker,
a scientist who studies human behavior, and this is a
slight change of plans, a show about who we are
and who we become in the face of a big change.
(02:47):
Have you ever found yourself saying yes to something you
really didn't want to do. Maybe it was taking on
extra work when your plate was already full, or agreeing
to plans you had no energy for, or feeling pressure
to say yes to someone in a position of power.
Defiance is super hard, especially when our relationships and our
(03:08):
reputations are on line, and that's why I'm so glad
Sunita could join us today to talk about how exactly
we can build this skill. Her new book is called
DeFi The Power of No in a World that demands Yes.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
I think I've been interested in defying somewhat that single
powerful word defy means for a really, really long time.
So as a child, I was known for being an
obedient daughter and a student. And I grew up in Yorkshire,
in the north of England. My parents are from India.
My mom used to at that time where her sorry
(03:43):
every single day, and it was quite obvious we were
different from the people around us. People used to stare
when we went into department stores. I felt jostling on
the streets. I heard the racist remarks of aimed, ohweh
several times. I remember when I was going through that
I need to fit in, I need to blend in
stage that my dad got me these very bright red
(04:05):
leg warmers. Red was my favorite color, and I did
not want to wear them at all because I thought
I would stand out too much at school and it
would bring some attention to me, which is not what
I wanted. So I spent the entire day trying to
hide these red leg warmers with my coat, which obviously
didn't work very well. But I was always fascinated by
(04:27):
people who could just be themselves and not worry about
what other people thought. And when I started at high school,
I met someone who became my best friend, and we
can call her Clara. She was different as well. She'd
come from the south of England, she had a different accent,
she wore stilettos, I wore sneakers. We were quite different,
(04:51):
and yet I was just attracted to her defiance and
her knowing who she was and the way that she acted,
and we had some really fun times. So there was
that element of being fascinated by people who could just
be themselves.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, but it seems like your desire to obey, to
comply it persisted into adulthood. So do you mind telling
me the story of your visit to the emergency room?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yes? Absolutely so. When I moved from the UK to
the US, there was one day I was experiencing some
really severe central chest pain, and as a former physician,
I was obviously very worried and concerned. So I went
to the emergency room and they immediately put me through
triach and everything was fine, luckily, and the pain was
(05:40):
even subsiding, so I was really relieved, and I thought
I was going to be discharged and I could go home.
But then the doctor said, before we let you go,
and you need to have a CT scan, and so
I asked why, and she said, oh, we want to
make sure you don't have a blood clot in the lungs.
(06:01):
And with my medical training, I knew I did not
have the type of pain that she was looking for
and that I wouldn't have a blood clot in the lungs.
And so I should have said no to having a
CT scan because it's about seventy times more on average
the amount of radiation than an X ray. It's still small,
(06:22):
but ionizing radiation can put you at risk of cancer
many years later, so why take the risk. I wanted
to say no. I should have said no, and yet
I found it very difficult to tell the doctor I
did not want to have the CT scan that she
had recommended, and so I ended up going along with it.
And I regretted it so much because that was a
(06:42):
situation that was very safe for me to say no,
I would rather not have that, and I struggled with it.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I resonate so much with this story, because I get very,
very anxious about pushing back. And it's so interesting you
share this because, like you said, it was such a
safe space for you, you know. And so when I
zoom out, I think, well, if Sunita, this physician has
trouble saying no to a medical professional on empirical grounds,
(07:12):
I mean, like, what hope is there for the rest
of us? Right? I mean, this is clearly a problem.
So with that said, let's take a step back for
a moment. How is it that you define defiance? What
is it?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
When you look at the Oxford English Dictionary definition of defiance,
they say to defy is to challenge the power of
another person boldly and openly. And I'm not one to disagree,
as you know, especially with the Oxford English Dictionary.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I know, how dare you defy the definition?
Speaker 1 (07:45):
How dare I define so meta? But that definition I
think is too narrow in it doesn't honor our agency.
And so my definition of defiance is that to defy
is to act in accordance with your true values when
there is pressure to do otherwise. And that reframes defiance
from this negative connotation to actually a proactive, positive force
(08:09):
in society, because if we think about when we comply,
when we defy, all those individual acts, they create the
society that we live in. So it affects what treatment
we get, It affects our workplaces, whether we speak up
and say something when somebody does something inappropriate. It affects
our communities, affects our lives. And that's why I'm so
(08:32):
passionate about defiance.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
So on the surface, this is a very compelling definition,
but I want to get more clarity on what is
meant by true values in practice, because most of us
don't walk around with a firm grasp or at least
a conscious grasp of what our quote true values are.
So how is it that we go about establishing them
(08:56):
in this context?
Speaker 1 (08:58):
So the first question that we have to ask when
we want to defy is who am I? What do
I stand for? And we do that work well before
so of a moment of defiance. And when I ask
my executive students to think about what their values are,
I ask them to write them down and explain where
(09:19):
those values came from and why they are so important.
And these students, they come up with the similar values
year after year. They end up being quite universal values.
That often come down to sort of one word like integrity, compassion, equality.
These are the types of values I see again and again,
(09:39):
and the reason I ask the students to write them
down and explain why they are so important is because
the research shows that our behavior, our intended behaviors, are
more likely to follow when we know exactly what our
values are, because one of the biggest gaps is between
who we think we are and what we actually do.
(10:02):
So putting those values into action, so clarifying our values
is just really important. And actually there's some work that
shows that we also have a lower biological stress reaction
if we know our values and we're acting in alignment
with them. So everybody wants lower cort assault, right, So
that's a good thing to know what your values are. So,
(10:23):
for example, with the CT scan, what are my values
in that particular situation? Is my value just listening to
the doctor and obeying the doctor? I don't think so.
If your value, your ethical moral stance, comes from just
listening to the person in authority, perhaps your boss, and
assessing your actions from how well you obey your boss,
(10:48):
it can lead you really blind to the greater consequences
of your action. So we need to think in every situation,
what is it that I stand for? And if we
do feel that something is going against our values, think
about this is the time now for me to speak up.
This is the time now for me to say something.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Let's take that healthcare scenario again though with the doctor,
which is it wasn't just about the value of listening
to the doctor. I feel like there was something much
deeper going on, which is, you're someone that values kindness
and how you make other people feel about themselves, right,
Like I know you to be a deeply kind person.
Surely that was weighing in as well, which is you
(11:31):
didn't want to undermine this person's authority, make them maybe
question themselves, right, And so do I value my health
in this moment over the psychological comfort of the physician
who's ordering this exam for me?
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I agree with you, And so that what I call
insinuation anxiety, That anxiety of not wanting to send a
signal of distrust to another person can be really powerful
and it keeps us silent. It really is an aversive
emotional state. When we become so concerned with offending the
(12:08):
other person and we become mute. We have these relationship concerns,
and what my research shows is that we can have
them even in one off situations with strangers with no
power dynamics. So you can imagine how hard it is
when you're in that medical scenario with somebody who is
supposed to have your best interests at heart, and we
(12:29):
don't want to insinuate that our physicians or even our
co workers or friends or family are not trustworthy. That's
just too hard to do. So there's one very nice
example of a woman. She's an academic, she's a young woman,
and she's on this committee with four senior men looking
at grant applications, and when one applicant is being discussed,
(12:51):
she felt like they were going with gossip rather than
the credentials of the applicant, and she wanted to say
something because she didn't think this was right or fair,
and so that went against her values, and it could
cause harm as well. It could cause harm to the
applicant's family, like we don't know what extended harm it
could cause, and she wanted to say something. And then
(13:15):
she came out of the meeting and she said the
one thing that she wanted to say was the one
thing she could not say, and she having met those
people for the first time, she just did not want
to insinuate that they didn't know what they was doing
or that they lacked integrity, and so it was just
so difficult for her to do so. And I think
(13:37):
these are the situations that we face so often, that
we know exactly what we want to do, but something
prevents us from doing it.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
There's such an irony to insinuation anxiety. Right, I don't
want to insinuate that they're not acting with integrity, and
so I will not act with integrity and not raise
this very important issue, right. And I say that with
such humility because I to do this all the time,
right to save other people's feelings. I won't make the
right ethical choice in some situations because I'm so in
(14:09):
tent for them not to feel like I'm challenging their
moral character.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yes, and that's the thing that stays with us, that
feeling of you know, we have that tension that we
want to say something, and if we don't and we
let it go, then it really erodes our sense of
self and who we are and are we rarely a
person with integrity, you know, So it is very important
to learn how to say something in that situation in
(14:34):
a way that's comfortable for us and with far less
ants than we used to have.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
There's a well known study in psychology that argues that
complicity is the norm right and defiance is the exception.
Do you mind telling our listeners about that study?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
So.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Stanley Milgram he conducted his now infamous studies in the
early nineteen sixties at Yell, and he was really fascinated
by sort of the claim from Nazis after World War
Two that they were just following orders when they committed
war crimes, and he really wanted to look at whether
this was a psychological reality or not for human beings.
(15:17):
So Milgram brought in subjects and you asked them to
read out these word pairs to somebody else in another room,
and if the person in the other room couldn't repeat them,
the participant had to administer an electric shock and increase
the shock level by fifteen volts every single time they
got something wrong. If they protested, the experimenter would give
(15:38):
them some prompts to tell them to continue that please
go on. The experiment requires you to continue. It's absolutely
essential that you continue, and you have no choice. You
must go on. Now, shocks weren't actually being administered to
the other person. The other person in the room was
an actor, but the participant didn't know that. And they
were asked to start off with fifteen volts, which is
(15:59):
basically harmless. But the board went all the way up
to four hundred and fifty volts, where it was labeled
with three x's and danger severe shock. And what he
found was that even though most psychiatrists predicted that hardly
anyone would go up to the top voltage of four
hundred and fifty volts, sixty five percent of participants did.
(16:23):
They went up to the most severe shock.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
You know. I should note that one criticism of the
study is that the the sample size is very small.
But let's assume that this is a legitimate result. I'm
curious to hear, Sunita, how Milgrim interpreted the results of
this experiment, and how you, through your lens studying defiance,
interpret these results.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
So Milgram was actually shocked by these exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
No pun please, I want you to use that word.
I'm sorry, We're gonna have to continue in the conversation.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Milgram was actually shocked by these results because he did
not think that people would go up to the four
hundred and fifty volt level. So he was actually really shocked,
and he wanted to repeat different variations of the experiments
to really find out what led people to be so obedient.
(17:19):
The way that I interpreted it is that the subjects
that were obedient to authority, they were showing some signs
of being uncomfortable, so nervous, laughter, swearing, stuttering, sweating, asking
the experimenter whether this was okay, And those signs of
tension to me, really stood out from the subjects because
(17:41):
it showed me that they weren't completely obeying the experimenter.
Like what Mulgram had described was this aspect of being
in an agentic state, in that the participants were following
orders because the experiment had told them so. But if
they had given all their agency to the experimenter, they
(18:02):
wouldn't have felt such tension.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, and hearing, I mean the expressions that you just described,
I'm hearing distress right, Like, those are signs of distress,
and that's meaningful, and that speaks to the fact that,
of course there was some inner humanity that maybe didn't
express itself in the ultimate behavior, which is to say no,
I'm not going to increase the vultures level more. But
(18:25):
it's not nothing, right, It's still meaningful to me.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
I really recognize those signs of tension. I just thought
those subjects are like me. They want to defy, they
just don't know how to defy. And that is what
really captured me about Milgram's experiments, was that how can
we learn how to defy?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah? Yeah, So we talked about one of the major
drivers of obedience, which is insinuation anxiety. Right, we don't
want to signal that we have a negative opinion of
another person, or that we have apprehension or worry or
we don't trust them. What are other drivers of obedience? Like,
what are other reasons why we have a really hard
time saying no or standing up for what we believe in.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
So one is this enormous pressure to go along with
other people. One factor can be insinuation anxiety, or as
fearing the consequences that we're going to lose a relationship
or a job. So there's what are the consequences of
defying in this situation? And then once we decide to defy,
we don't know exactly how to do it. We have
(19:31):
been so trained in compliance from a young age, and
we've become so socialized to comply and to obey that
we don't have the skill set for defiance. We don't
know how to do it. We never get trained in
how to be defiant and speak up when it matters,
and so is that training that's missing from our lives.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
After the break, Sunita gives us a lesson in defiance
one oh one. We'll be back in a moment with
a slight change of plans, talking about how hard it
can be to stand up for ourselves, to set boundaries
(20:13):
and just say no. My guest, Uneatha knows the struggle
of defiance all too well. It's something she's been plagued
with her whole life, but she's found a way through it.
She's developed a simple framework to help us navigate those
tough moments, the ones where we hesitate, where we wish
we had just the right words, where we want to
(20:33):
push back but aren't sure how. Her framework has five stages, So.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
The stages of defiance are things that we can start
to recognize, and we don't always go through them in
a linear fashion. We might skip a stage or go
back and forth, but they're really useful to know as
a framework for how we can defy. So the first
stage is this tension. This is what we often feel
when we're in a situation where we're being pulled between
(20:59):
two forces. One where we're expected to do something by
either another person, authority, a peer, or just expectations all societie.
You know, there's this expectation of us and then what
we believe is the right thing to do. Whenever we're
in that situation, we feel some tension. I often describe
(21:19):
it as our resistance to resistance. It's really telling us
that we want to defy, but we actually resist it.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
And can you describe what that tension feels like for listeners?
Like what am I feeling in my body when that happens?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
So it's different for each one of us, and we
can get to know what is the telltale sign for us.
So for some people they feel unease in the stomach.
I definitely feel that. For others they get a headache,
or they feel their voice being constricted or their throat
becoming tight. Other people feel their heart rate going up,
dry mouth, So it manifests in different ways, and it's
(21:56):
really useful to know what it feels like for you.
If you can figure out this is Oh, I've felt
this feeling before.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
See that you've literally just described every physiological response I
have watching the news in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Actually try all of them. Is that one of the options.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
That you can have all of them? Yes, you can
have all of these.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Nausea is that one?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I am? Okay, that's one of them. So just really knowing, like, oh,
I recognize this feeling. I've had this feeling before, and
that's actually Stage two is acknowledging that this is going on,
because so often we disregard it. We think it's not
worth our doubt. We think that the other person must
know better, like when I'm having my CT scan, Oh,
(22:40):
they must know something that I don't know, you know,
So we often disregard it go along with the confidence
of the other person. And that's a shame because that
tension is actually a warning sign to us that we
might need to defy. So paying attention to it and
acknowledging it is stage two. So just like recognizing I've
had this before, this is something where I'm expected to
(23:02):
do something that I don't think is the right thing
to do. Then stage three is the really critical stage
because it's just telling somebody else. It's externalizing, vocalizing to
someone else other than yourself that you're not comfortable with this,
And that stage is so critical because if you can
(23:23):
do that, it means you're more likely to get to
stage five because you can't go back in time and say, oh,
you were fine with this because you're too much cognitive dissonance.
Now you've told somebody else that you're not fine with this,
And in this situation, all you're doing is clarifying how
you feel, so either I'm uncomfortable with this, or asking
(23:44):
what do you mean by that? Sort of testing the waters.
You're still in that position where you're not saying anything
that's confrontational. You could just be acting with curiosity. So
if somebody has said something inappropriate, can you clarify what
you mean? Have you considered doing this? So they're just
questions that you can ask in that situation.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
You know, I mentioned that this is a personal resonance.
I was actually misdiagno with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis for seven
years because you know, I think we were afraid to
speak up and kind of challenge authorities, right, And so
these days I'm I'm the most curious patient you'll ever meet.
I Am every doctor's worst nightmare.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
So curiosity not confrontation at this point, just I'm not
comfortable with this. Can you clarify a little bit more
for me? Or if somebody makes an inappropriate remark, what
do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (24:37):
So to summarize so far, that we've gone through three stages, right,
So we have tension and feeling that tension, then acknowledging
to ourselves that we're feeling that tension or discomfort, and
then the third stage is escalation, right where we're vocalizing
that discomfort to others, thereby cementing it in the world
in some way. Right, we can't take it back, we
(25:00):
make it clear. It's an indelible ink somewhere in someone's mind.
What is stage four?
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Stage four is now your threat of non compliance, So
saying you cannot do that, So somebody has an expectation
for you to take the CT scan do something you
don't want to do, you're just basically telling them that
you're not going to comply. At this point, you've gone
from asking questions putting it out there that you're not comfortable,
(25:28):
and now is I cannot do that, and then the
fifth stage, the actual act of defiance.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, do you mind walking me through an example from
your life where you put some of these stages in action.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
So absolutely, having failed with the CT scan quite spectacularly,
I actually carried that with me and thought about it
a lot. What would I have preferred to have done
in this situation, because this probably was going to happen again,
And so it did. About a year later, I had
(26:04):
some pain in my shoulder and it got pretty bad
in that I couldn't move my arm at times, I
couldn't do simple routine tasks like getting dressed, and so
I decided I needed some physical therapy, and so I
looked up how I could get a physical therapy referral,
and I needed to go and see a doctor. So
I went to the clinic. I immediately felt like I
(26:26):
was on some kind of conveyor belt. There was like
a forest of paperwork to fill out and hand over,
bank details, all these things. And then eventually somebody called
out my name and I started walking behind them, and
I looked up and at the end of this long corridor,
I could see a big sign that said X ray,
and I kind of laughed in my head. I was like, oh,
(26:48):
it would be so funny if they took me for
an X ray before I went to see the doctor.
And then we started walking more and more towards that sign,
and so I stopped and I said, where are we going?
Are we going to see the doctor? And she said, oh,
we're going to get your X ray? And I said, oh,
my gosh, you're like dajah x ray. I hadn't seen
the doctor yet. And she said, of all new patients
(27:10):
have an X ray before seeing the doctor. And I
was astounded because being a physician, again, I had been
trained that the way that you practice medicine is to
always see the patient first. So this stunned me and
I just said, but I haven't seen the doctor yet.
And she then looked at me and she said, are
(27:31):
you refusing an X ray? And I could feel that.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I mean, you're like, hell, yes, I found that tension.
I recognize that tension. I acknowledged it. I didn't even
ask any questions at this point.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I just said, yes, I am amazing.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
And so she took me back to my seat. I
sat there. She had no idea what to do with me,
and during that time I squirmed a little bit. I thought,
oh my goodness, I'm being the difficult patient. I got
called in to see other healthcare professionals. They opened the
file each time, and each time they would say no
x ray. I would say no, no, no x ray.
(28:14):
And eventually I saw the doctor. He opened the file
and he looked at me and he said no x ray.
I went no. The way I got taught medicine is
that you see the patient first, and then if I
need the X ray, I'll have the x ray. And
I said, you haven't examined me yet, and he kind
of hurried over and sort of poked my shoulder a
(28:35):
little bit. He didn't even check the full range of movement.
And then he went back to his seat and he
said you have to have that x ray and I
said why, Like, what do you think's wrong with me?
And he said, I want to make sure you don't
have anything bony going on And I said bony? What
do you mean and he said bone cancer? And I
(28:55):
still raised my eyebrows and I said you think I
have bone cancer? And he was like, oh no, no,
no no, and then he sort of looked at his desk.
He ramped his pen on it and then he said
this is how we practice medicine here, and we just
went silent because we both knew that was not an
(29:16):
appropriate thing to say. And in the end I managed
to say, listen, I would really like some physical therapy
because I think I have inflammation, and if that physical
therapy doesn't get rid of it, I'll come back in
a month to six weeks and I'll have that X ray.
So he gave me the referral. I felt proud and
(29:36):
liberated and I left that room and I was so
happy I did not comply just because of that pressure.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
I want to talk about the role of power plays
and all of this because it feels like there's no
conversation about defiance without talking about power dynamics. How do
you think about that tension? Right, So it's much easier
for a boss to defy in the workplace versus a
junior employee.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
I think that makes a great difference. So we do
need to be aware of power dynamic and also what
I call the defiance hierarchy, in that some people are
allowed to be defiant and others face much greater consequences,
much greater costs for being defiant, and we need to
be aware of that, because the people that experience those
(30:29):
greater costs of defiance are often the ones that also
need to define more often, because the expectation for them
to comply and be subservient is far greater. And so yes,
they have this double wammy of we expect you to
be compliant and so they need to be defined more often,
and then there's more of a backlash and more costs. So,
(30:51):
in other words, it is a privilege to be able
to defy, and we need to afford that privilege to
everyone and be really cognizant of who we allow to
defy and the consequences that we give out to people
that we think at being defiant in a way that
we might not like.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I'm wondering if we could do a rapid fire situation
where I propose it hypothetical to you and I hear
about at least the first step you would take to defy.
So you've just received a haircut. You look in the mirror.
It's a horrifying scene. Your hairdresser asks you, Sumita, do
you like this haircut? Wow? It looks it looks so
(31:32):
modern and cool, But you are worried about expressing your
true beliefs. About the matter, right, You're you don't want
to insinuate anything, but you now have to wear a
hat for the next three months until said haircut grows out.
What is your approach to this situation? And by the way,
this is your longtime hairdresser, so like your loyal customer,
(31:54):
and you care about them, and you know you don't
want to see this relationship end.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
So I have actually been in this situation.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Nice, nice, So tell me what the defiance expert did.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Okay, point in my life, I was deeply upset with
the haircut because it was nothing like what I wanted.
And this is classic insinuation anxiety. That we're sat on
the chair and it's like, oh, trust me, and the
cutting and the cutting, and you're thinking, no, no, no,
(32:26):
how can you express that? How can you express that
before it's too late? What are you telling me is
that it's already too late. Right, it's already been cut
and you don't particularly like it, But a lot of
us do in that situation. At least if you like me, maybe,
if you like you's probably sort of pay and tip
(32:46):
and then leave. And in one situation, I did do that,
and I actually went home and I cried because it
was asymmetrical. It was awful. And then I went back
the next day and I said, you need to fix it.
So I did do that. One of the things about
defiance is the fact that it is this proactive positive thoughts,
(33:07):
and if we go back to the deaf is to devise,
it is to act in accordance with your true values
when there is pressure to do otherwise. So there's not
a lot of value at stake here. So there's certain
situations that we can practice our definancing, especially if you
want to maintain the relationship, because it's so easy to
just sort of say I'm never going to go back
to that person again, because we don't communicate, just say, here,
(33:30):
you know, this is actually not exactly what I like.
Is there anything you can do to make it more
the way that I would feel happy with? And have
that communication with your hairdresser. But we can start practicing
in these situations. For other situations where our values are
actually violated, we can practice in the restaurant though, if
(33:55):
we don't like the food or the food is not
cooked the way we want all As I remember once
after having my son, and it was the first time
I've been out in a long time with a group
of other women that also had and the food for
all of us when it came it was so salty,
and we were all complaining about it. And then somebody
came around and said, is everything okay? And we all
looked up and we said, yes, everything's fine.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Even though this is as you're like guzzling glasses of water.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
So we cannot stop practicing for defiance in those situations
which are kind of low cost. And yes, nothing great
is being damaged and values are not being compromised hugely,
but we can just practice defiance muscles and build them
up in these situations.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
We talked about stage five being the active defiance, and
I want to add a stage six, which is the
aftermath of defiance where you know, we had even cross
on the show. We can get mired in so much
negative chatter in our minds, regret, people being disappointed with us,
angry with us, let down us, being anxious about whether
(35:03):
now our job's at stake, our relationships at stake, and
so how can we grapple with those negative emotions and
stay resolute in our convictions when we're getting so many
signals to the contrary.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Yeah, also a fantastic question. And there's a few things
here that come into play. One is, when we decide
to defy, we need to make sure that we have
those five elements ready for our true no, that we
do have the capacity and we have the knowledge and
understanding of the situation and the freedom to say no
(35:37):
before we give our true no, Because if we do
really understand that, then we know what the costs are
going to be. Is it going to be safe? Is
it going to be effective? Is the two questions that
we ask when we're assessing the situation for defiance.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, and we so rarely get resolution in the short term.
We don't know how our acts of defiance will play
out over time, right, Like maybe in the immediate aftermath,
our bosses quite nice and solicitous, and then six months
later suddenly you get a layoff notice. Right, So we
have to be we have to somehow find a way
to be comfortable with that uncertainty. And I think that's
(36:12):
part of the agitation, right, That's part of what you're
signing up for when you defy, is a lot of uncertainty.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
There is that, But we also need to know, since
you're talking about the negative emotions and the chatter in
our heads. We also need to assess the cost for compliance,
because it takes a great toll on us. If we
constantly disregarding our values and bowing our head to other
people and we can't be out authentic selves, then that
takes a toll on us. It increases chronic stress, and
(36:41):
it increases burnout, dissatisfaction, even inflammation. So it's affecting us emotionally.
It's affecting us with that chatter negative emotions in our head.
It's affecting us psychologically, spiritually, and even physically. So we
do need to be aware of the cost of compliance
as well as the cost of defiance. Yes, there still
might be consequences, but that's different from the tension and
(37:04):
the anxiety and the stress that you were experiencing before
when you have to go against your values.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
That is a fantastic answer, because I think in this
moment I wrongly believed, Oh, the counterfactual world is neutral, right,
it's either you defy or it's neutral. But actually I
forgot about the psychic risks associated with conformity and compliance.
And like you said, one of the telltale signs that
you need to defy is this physiological expression of tension, right,
(37:34):
So who wants to live with that chronic tension? That
that's not good for you either. So, and there's such
a hopeful message contained in what you just said. You know,
it's very tempting to think in terms of absolutes, right,
like I'm a defiant person or I'm a compliant person.
I think we get type cast a lot as kids, right,
or like we're one way or the other. But you're
(37:54):
very intentional to describe defiance as more of a muscle
or a skill that we can cultivate over time.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yes, absolutely, So I always say that defiance is a practice,
not a personality. And this kind of early on, but
it didn't really register until later in my life. I
was walking home from the grocery store with my mom
and I was about seven or eight years old, and
we had our ricketye shopping cart that my mom was
(38:23):
sort of rolling behind us, and we were walking through
just a very narrow alleyway and we were confronted by
a group of teenage boys and they blocked our path
and they started shouting out some racist things and go
back home. And my mom, she's quite petite, she's about
four foot ten, at the most, and she was wearing
(38:44):
her blue sarre and she had her hair sort of
neatly back in one platte at the back, and I
had very neatly put her in the compliant box. And
I never thought for a moment that she could have
the ability to defy. But that day she did something
very different. When we got confronted by the boys, she
(39:06):
stopped and she looked at them and she said, what
do you mean? And it was just in a quiet
voice that she said this. At the start, I whispered
to her, come on, maa, and she shook my arm off,
and I remember that so well. She said no, and
she looked down at me for a second. Then she
put one hand on her hip and she looked back
at the boys and she said it again, this time
(39:28):
a little bit louder, what do you mean? And she
looked directly at them, and the boys were just silent,
and they started looking at each other, and so she said, oh,
you think you're big, strong boys, Yeah, clever boys, big
clever boys. And they just didn't know what to say.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
I'm so proud of your mom. That's amazing, I know.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
And then one of them just said, let's go and
they dispersed, and I just could not believe this happened.
My mom grabbed the cart and she started walking as
fast as possible. And that moment stayed with me because
it showed me so many things, And it showed me
that defiance isn't a personality, it's a skill set. If
(40:14):
we have a self concept of being compliant, it doesn't
mean that we can't be defiant. We just have to
learn it. So even if compliance is our default, it
doesn't have to be our destiny. The other thing it
showed me is that what I've found with the defiance
is that it really transforms us. We can become more ourselves,
we can act more in alignment with our values. But
(40:34):
it also has an effect on the people that observe it,
this ripple effect or what I call the defiance domino effect,
in that it only takes one person to start a reaction.
That makes a great difference. When I talk about society
being built up of these moments of compliance and defiance,
that is what is happening in that alleyway. Because ideally,
(40:56):
what I hope if I make defines successible to everyone,
that we build a society where one of those teens
would speak up to their peers, so my immigrant mother
wouldn't have to. That is what I hopeful.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Hey, thanks so much for listening. Do you have a
story of defiance, maybe a time when things went surprisingly
well or completely off the rails. I'd love to hear
about it. I've just launched a free newsletter called Change
with Maya Shunker, and this week's post is all about defiance.
I'd love to hear your stories in the comments under
(41:52):
the post. You can sign up for the newsletter at
changewthmaya dot com or click on the link in our
show notes and join me next week when we hear
from science writer Olga has On about her year long
experiment to change her personality. There were kind of along
the way that not only was I not thrilled with
my personality, other people were not thrilled with it either.
(42:16):
See you next week for Extreme Makeover Personality Edition. A
Slight Change of Plans is created, written and executive produced
by me Maya Shunker. The Slight Change family includes our
showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our
producers Britney Cronin and Megan Lubn and our sound engineer
(42:38):
Erica Huang, Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and
Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of
Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks
to everyone there, and of course a very special thanks
to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of
Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker. See you next week.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
The
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey, slight changers, Maya here. My new newsletter, which I'm
so excited about, is out now. It's called Change with
Maya Shunker. It's totally free and you can sign up
at Changewmaya dot com or check out the link in
our show notes. The reason I started this newsletter is
that I'm so excited about building a community with all
of you around how we can navigate change with more
(00:42):
wisdom and with more hope. I'll be sharing personal updates,
links to what I'm reading or watching lately, exciting new
science about change, and my top takeaways for my conversations
on this show, with some behind the scenes action. I
hope you'll sign up and spread the word with your
friends again. You can sign up at Changewithmaya dot com. Okay,
(01:04):
now onto the episode.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I remember asking my dad at one point, what does
my name Sanita mean? And he said in Sanskript, Sanita
means good. And that's the kind of messages I received.
You know, to be good, to fit in, be polite,
don't make a scene, don't question authority. And I think
many of us have had that kind of upbringing or
(01:39):
messages that they're expected to comply.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Sunita Saw is a doctor turned organizational psychologist and a
professor at Cornell University. She studies why it can be
so hard to say no. Sunita says that if you
consider yourself a pretty compliant person, maybe you even think
of yourself as a people pleaser, it's something you can change.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Defiance isn't a personality, it's a skill set. If we
have a self concept of being complying, it doesn't mean
that we can't be defiant. We just have to learn it.
So even if compliance is our default, it doesn't have
to be a destiny.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
On today's show, How to Say No, I'm maya Schunker,
a scientist who studies human behavior, and this is a
slight change of plans, a show about who we are
and who we become in the face of a big change.
(02:47):
Have you ever found yourself saying yes to something you
really didn't want to do. Maybe it was taking on
extra work when your plate was already full, or agreeing
to plans you had no energy for, or feeling pressure
to say yes to someone in a position of power.
Defiance is super hard, especially when our relationships and our
(03:08):
reputations are on line, and that's why I'm so glad
Sunita could join us today to talk about how exactly
we can build this skill. Her new book is called
DeFi The Power of No in a World that demands Yes.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
I think I've been interested in defying somewhat that single
powerful word defy means for a really, really long time.
So as a child, I was known for being an
obedient daughter and a student. And I grew up in Yorkshire,
in the north of England. My parents are from India.
My mom used to at that time where her sorry
(03:43):
every single day, and it was quite obvious we were
different from the people around us. People used to stare
when we went into department stores. I felt jostling on
the streets. I heard the racist remarks of aimed, ohweh
several times. I remember when I was going through that
I need to fit in, I need to blend in
stage that my dad got me these very bright red
(04:05):
leg warmers. Red was my favorite color, and I did
not want to wear them at all because I thought
I would stand out too much at school and it
would bring some attention to me, which is not what
I wanted. So I spent the entire day trying to
hide these red leg warmers with my coat, which obviously
didn't work very well. But I was always fascinated by
(04:27):
people who could just be themselves and not worry about
what other people thought. And when I started at high school,
I met someone who became my best friend, and we
can call her Clara. She was different as well. She'd
come from the south of England, she had a different accent,
she wore stilettos, I wore sneakers. We were quite different,
(04:51):
and yet I was just attracted to her defiance and
her knowing who she was and the way that she acted,
and we had some really fun times. So there was
that element of being fascinated by people who could just
be themselves.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, but it seems like your desire to obey, to
comply it persisted into adulthood. So do you mind telling
me the story of your visit to the emergency room?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yes? Absolutely so. When I moved from the UK to
the US, there was one day I was experiencing some
really severe central chest pain, and as a former physician,
I was obviously very worried and concerned. So I went
to the emergency room and they immediately put me through
triach and everything was fine, luckily, and the pain was
(05:40):
even subsiding, so I was really relieved, and I thought
I was going to be discharged and I could go home.
But then the doctor said, before we let you go,
and you need to have a CT scan, and so
I asked why, and she said, oh, we want to
make sure you don't have a blood clot in the lungs.
(06:01):
And with my medical training, I knew I did not
have the type of pain that she was looking for
and that I wouldn't have a blood clot in the lungs.
And so I should have said no to having a
CT scan because it's about seventy times more on average
the amount of radiation than an X ray. It's still small,
(06:22):
but ionizing radiation can put you at risk of cancer
many years later, so why take the risk. I wanted
to say no. I should have said no, and yet
I found it very difficult to tell the doctor I
did not want to have the CT scan that she
had recommended, and so I ended up going along with it.
And I regretted it so much because that was a
(06:42):
situation that was very safe for me to say no,
I would rather not have that, and I struggled with it.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I resonate so much with this story, because I get very,
very anxious about pushing back. And it's so interesting you
share this because, like you said, it was such a
safe space for you, you know. And so when I
zoom out, I think, well, if Sunita, this physician has
trouble saying no to a medical professional on empirical grounds,
(07:12):
I mean, like, what hope is there for the rest
of us? Right? I mean, this is clearly a problem.
So with that said, let's take a step back for
a moment. How is it that you define defiance? What
is it?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
When you look at the Oxford English Dictionary definition of defiance,
they say to defy is to challenge the power of
another person boldly and openly. And I'm not one to disagree,
as you know, especially with the Oxford English Dictionary.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I know, how dare you defy the definition?
Speaker 1 (07:45):
How dare I define so meta? But that definition I
think is too narrow in it doesn't honor our agency.
And so my definition of defiance is that to defy
is to act in accordance with your true values when
there is pressure to do otherwise. And that reframes defiance
from this negative connotation to actually a proactive, positive force
(08:09):
in society, because if we think about when we comply,
when we defy, all those individual acts, they create the
society that we live in. So it affects what treatment
we get, It affects our workplaces, whether we speak up
and say something when somebody does something inappropriate. It affects
our communities, affects our lives. And that's why I'm so
(08:32):
passionate about defiance.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
So on the surface, this is a very compelling definition,
but I want to get more clarity on what is
meant by true values in practice, because most of us
don't walk around with a firm grasp or at least
a conscious grasp of what our quote true values are.
So how is it that we go about establishing them
(08:56):
in this context?
Speaker 1 (08:58):
So the first question that we have to ask when
we want to defy is who am I? What do
I stand for? And we do that work well before
so of a moment of defiance. And when I ask
my executive students to think about what their values are,
I ask them to write them down and explain where
(09:19):
those values came from and why they are so important.
And these students, they come up with the similar values
year after year. They end up being quite universal values.
That often come down to sort of one word like integrity, compassion, equality.
These are the types of values I see again and again,
(09:39):
and the reason I ask the students to write them
down and explain why they are so important is because
the research shows that our behavior, our intended behaviors, are
more likely to follow when we know exactly what our
values are, because one of the biggest gaps is between
who we think we are and what we actually do.
(10:02):
So putting those values into action, so clarifying our values
is just really important. And actually there's some work that
shows that we also have a lower biological stress reaction
if we know our values and we're acting in alignment
with them. So everybody wants lower cort assault, right, So
that's a good thing to know what your values are. So,
(10:23):
for example, with the CT scan, what are my values
in that particular situation? Is my value just listening to
the doctor and obeying the doctor? I don't think so.
If your value, your ethical moral stance, comes from just
listening to the person in authority, perhaps your boss, and
assessing your actions from how well you obey your boss,
(10:48):
it can lead you really blind to the greater consequences
of your action. So we need to think in every situation,
what is it that I stand for? And if we
do feel that something is going against our values, think
about this is the time now for me to speak up.
This is the time now for me to say something.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Let's take that healthcare scenario again though with the doctor,
which is it wasn't just about the value of listening
to the doctor. I feel like there was something much
deeper going on, which is, you're someone that values kindness
and how you make other people feel about themselves, right,
Like I know you to be a deeply kind person.
Surely that was weighing in as well, which is you
(11:31):
didn't want to undermine this person's authority, make them maybe
question themselves, right, And so do I value my health
in this moment over the psychological comfort of the physician
who's ordering this exam for me?
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I agree with you, And so that what I call
insinuation anxiety, That anxiety of not wanting to send a
signal of distrust to another person can be really powerful
and it keeps us silent. It really is an aversive
emotional state. When we become so concerned with offending the
(12:08):
other person and we become mute. We have these relationship concerns,
and what my research shows is that we can have
them even in one off situations with strangers with no
power dynamics. So you can imagine how hard it is
when you're in that medical scenario with somebody who is
supposed to have your best interests at heart, and we
(12:29):
don't want to insinuate that our physicians or even our
co workers or friends or family are not trustworthy. That's
just too hard to do. So there's one very nice
example of a woman. She's an academic, she's a young woman,
and she's on this committee with four senior men looking
at grant applications, and when one applicant is being discussed,
(12:51):
she felt like they were going with gossip rather than
the credentials of the applicant, and she wanted to say
something because she didn't think this was right or fair,
and so that went against her values, and it could
cause harm as well. It could cause harm to the
applicant's family, like we don't know what extended harm it
could cause, and she wanted to say something. And then
(13:15):
she came out of the meeting and she said the
one thing that she wanted to say was the one
thing she could not say, and she having met those
people for the first time, she just did not want
to insinuate that they didn't know what they was doing
or that they lacked integrity, and so it was just
so difficult for her to do so. And I think
(13:37):
these are the situations that we face so often, that
we know exactly what we want to do, but something
prevents us from doing it.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
There's such an irony to insinuation anxiety. Right, I don't
want to insinuate that they're not acting with integrity, and
so I will not act with integrity and not raise
this very important issue, right. And I say that with
such humility because I to do this all the time,
right to save other people's feelings. I won't make the
right ethical choice in some situations because I'm so in
(14:09):
tent for them not to feel like I'm challenging their
moral character.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yes, and that's the thing that stays with us, that
feeling of you know, we have that tension that we
want to say something, and if we don't and we
let it go, then it really erodes our sense of
self and who we are and are we rarely a
person with integrity, you know, So it is very important
to learn how to say something in that situation in
(14:34):
a way that's comfortable for us and with far less
ants than we used to have.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
There's a well known study in psychology that argues that
complicity is the norm right and defiance is the exception.
Do you mind telling our listeners about that study?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
So.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Stanley Milgram he conducted his now infamous studies in the
early nineteen sixties at Yell, and he was really fascinated
by sort of the claim from Nazis after World War
Two that they were just following orders when they committed
war crimes, and he really wanted to look at whether
this was a psychological reality or not for human beings.
(15:17):
So Milgram brought in subjects and you asked them to
read out these word pairs to somebody else in another room,
and if the person in the other room couldn't repeat them,
the participant had to administer an electric shock and increase
the shock level by fifteen volts every single time they
got something wrong. If they protested, the experimenter would give
(15:38):
them some prompts to tell them to continue that please
go on. The experiment requires you to continue. It's absolutely
essential that you continue, and you have no choice. You
must go on. Now, shocks weren't actually being administered to
the other person. The other person in the room was
an actor, but the participant didn't know that. And they
were asked to start off with fifteen volts, which is
(15:59):
basically harmless. But the board went all the way up
to four hundred and fifty volts, where it was labeled
with three x's and danger severe shock. And what he
found was that even though most psychiatrists predicted that hardly
anyone would go up to the top voltage of four
hundred and fifty volts, sixty five percent of participants did.
(16:23):
They went up to the most severe shock.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
You know. I should note that one criticism of the
study is that the the sample size is very small.
But let's assume that this is a legitimate result. I'm
curious to hear, Sunita, how Milgrim interpreted the results of
this experiment, and how you, through your lens studying defiance,
interpret these results.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
So Milgram was actually shocked by these exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
No pun please, I want you to use that word.
I'm sorry, We're gonna have to continue in the conversation.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Milgram was actually shocked by these results because he did
not think that people would go up to the four
hundred and fifty volt level. So he was actually really shocked,
and he wanted to repeat different variations of the experiments
to really find out what led people to be so obedient.
(17:19):
The way that I interpreted it is that the subjects
that were obedient to authority, they were showing some signs
of being uncomfortable, so nervous, laughter, swearing, stuttering, sweating, asking
the experimenter whether this was okay, And those signs of
tension to me, really stood out from the subjects because
(17:41):
it showed me that they weren't completely obeying the experimenter.
Like what Mulgram had described was this aspect of being
in an agentic state, in that the participants were following
orders because the experiment had told them so. But if
they had given all their agency to the experimenter, they
(18:02):
wouldn't have felt such tension.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, and hearing, I mean the expressions that you just described,
I'm hearing distress right, Like, those are signs of distress,
and that's meaningful, and that speaks to the fact that,
of course there was some inner humanity that maybe didn't
express itself in the ultimate behavior, which is to say no,
I'm not going to increase the vultures level more. But
(18:25):
it's not nothing, right, It's still meaningful to me.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
I really recognize those signs of tension. I just thought
those subjects are like me. They want to defy, they
just don't know how to defy. And that is what
really captured me about Milgram's experiments, was that how can
we learn how to defy?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah? Yeah, So we talked about one of the major
drivers of obedience, which is insinuation anxiety. Right, we don't
want to signal that we have a negative opinion of
another person, or that we have apprehension or worry or
we don't trust them. What are other drivers of obedience? Like,
what are other reasons why we have a really hard
time saying no or standing up for what we believe in.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
So one is this enormous pressure to go along with
other people. One factor can be insinuation anxiety, or as
fearing the consequences that we're going to lose a relationship
or a job. So there's what are the consequences of
defying in this situation? And then once we decide to defy,
we don't know exactly how to do it. We have
(19:31):
been so trained in compliance from a young age, and
we've become so socialized to comply and to obey that
we don't have the skill set for defiance. We don't
know how to do it. We never get trained in
how to be defiant and speak up when it matters,
and so is that training that's missing from our lives.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
After the break, Sunita gives us a lesson in defiance
one oh one. We'll be back in a moment with
a slight change of plans, talking about how hard it
can be to stand up for ourselves, to set boundaries
(20:13):
and just say no. My guest, Uneatha knows the struggle
of defiance all too well. It's something she's been plagued
with her whole life, but she's found a way through it.
She's developed a simple framework to help us navigate those
tough moments, the ones where we hesitate, where we wish
we had just the right words, where we want to
(20:33):
push back but aren't sure how. Her framework has five stages, So.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
The stages of defiance are things that we can start
to recognize, and we don't always go through them in
a linear fashion. We might skip a stage or go
back and forth, but they're really useful to know as
a framework for how we can defy. So the first
stage is this tension. This is what we often feel
when we're in a situation where we're being pulled between
(20:59):
two forces. One where we're expected to do something by
either another person, authority, a peer, or just expectations all societie.
You know, there's this expectation of us and then what
we believe is the right thing to do. Whenever we're
in that situation, we feel some tension. I often describe
(21:19):
it as our resistance to resistance. It's really telling us
that we want to defy, but we actually resist it.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
And can you describe what that tension feels like for listeners?
Like what am I feeling in my body when that happens?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
So it's different for each one of us, and we
can get to know what is the telltale sign for us.
So for some people they feel unease in the stomach.
I definitely feel that. For others they get a headache,
or they feel their voice being constricted or their throat
becoming tight. Other people feel their heart rate going up,
dry mouth, So it manifests in different ways, and it's
(21:56):
really useful to know what it feels like for you.
If you can figure out this is Oh, I've felt
this feeling before.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
See that you've literally just described every physiological response I
have watching the news in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Actually try all of them. Is that one of the options.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
That you can have all of them? Yes, you can
have all of these.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Nausea is that one?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I am? Okay, that's one of them. So just really knowing, like, oh,
I recognize this feeling. I've had this feeling before, and
that's actually Stage two is acknowledging that this is going on,
because so often we disregard it. We think it's not
worth our doubt. We think that the other person must
know better, like when I'm having my CT scan, Oh,
(22:40):
they must know something that I don't know, you know,
So we often disregard it go along with the confidence
of the other person. And that's a shame because that
tension is actually a warning sign to us that we
might need to defy. So paying attention to it and
acknowledging it is stage two. So just like recognizing I've
had this before, this is something where I'm expected to
(23:02):
do something that I don't think is the right thing
to do. Then stage three is the really critical stage
because it's just telling somebody else. It's externalizing, vocalizing to
someone else other than yourself that you're not comfortable with this,
And that stage is so critical because if you can
(23:23):
do that, it means you're more likely to get to
stage five because you can't go back in time and say, oh,
you were fine with this because you're too much cognitive dissonance.
Now you've told somebody else that you're not fine with this,
And in this situation, all you're doing is clarifying how
you feel, so either I'm uncomfortable with this, or asking
(23:44):
what do you mean by that? Sort of testing the waters.
You're still in that position where you're not saying anything
that's confrontational. You could just be acting with curiosity. So
if somebody has said something inappropriate, can you clarify what
you mean? Have you considered doing this? So they're just
questions that you can ask in that situation.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
You know, I mentioned that this is a personal resonance.
I was actually misdiagno with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis for seven
years because you know, I think we were afraid to
speak up and kind of challenge authorities, right, And so
these days I'm I'm the most curious patient you'll ever meet.
I Am every doctor's worst nightmare.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
So curiosity not confrontation at this point, just I'm not
comfortable with this. Can you clarify a little bit more
for me? Or if somebody makes an inappropriate remark, what
do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (24:37):
So to summarize so far, that we've gone through three stages, right,
So we have tension and feeling that tension, then acknowledging
to ourselves that we're feeling that tension or discomfort, and
then the third stage is escalation, right where we're vocalizing
that discomfort to others, thereby cementing it in the world
in some way. Right, we can't take it back, we
(25:00):
make it clear. It's an indelible ink somewhere in someone's mind.
What is stage four?
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Stage four is now your threat of non compliance, So
saying you cannot do that, So somebody has an expectation
for you to take the CT scan do something you
don't want to do, you're just basically telling them that
you're not going to comply. At this point, you've gone
from asking questions putting it out there that you're not comfortable,
(25:28):
and now is I cannot do that, and then the
fifth stage, the actual act of defiance.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, do you mind walking me through an example from
your life where you put some of these stages in action.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
So absolutely, having failed with the CT scan quite spectacularly,
I actually carried that with me and thought about it
a lot. What would I have preferred to have done
in this situation, because this probably was going to happen again,
And so it did. About a year later, I had
(26:04):
some pain in my shoulder and it got pretty bad
in that I couldn't move my arm at times, I
couldn't do simple routine tasks like getting dressed, and so
I decided I needed some physical therapy, and so I
looked up how I could get a physical therapy referral,
and I needed to go and see a doctor. So
I went to the clinic. I immediately felt like I
(26:26):
was on some kind of conveyor belt. There was like
a forest of paperwork to fill out and hand over,
bank details, all these things. And then eventually somebody called
out my name and I started walking behind them, and
I looked up and at the end of this long corridor,
I could see a big sign that said X ray,
and I kind of laughed in my head. I was like, oh,
(26:48):
it would be so funny if they took me for
an X ray before I went to see the doctor.
And then we started walking more and more towards that sign,
and so I stopped and I said, where are we going?
Are we going to see the doctor? And she said, oh,
we're going to get your X ray? And I said, oh,
my gosh, you're like dajah x ray. I hadn't seen
the doctor yet. And she said, of all new patients
(27:10):
have an X ray before seeing the doctor. And I
was astounded because being a physician, again, I had been
trained that the way that you practice medicine is to
always see the patient first. So this stunned me and
I just said, but I haven't seen the doctor yet.
And she then looked at me and she said, are
(27:31):
you refusing an X ray? And I could feel that.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I mean, you're like, hell, yes, I found that tension.
I recognize that tension. I acknowledged it. I didn't even
ask any questions at this point.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I just said, yes, I am amazing.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
And so she took me back to my seat. I
sat there. She had no idea what to do with me,
and during that time I squirmed a little bit. I thought,
oh my goodness, I'm being the difficult patient. I got
called in to see other healthcare professionals. They opened the
file each time, and each time they would say no
x ray. I would say no, no, no x ray.
(28:14):
And eventually I saw the doctor. He opened the file
and he looked at me and he said no x ray.
I went no. The way I got taught medicine is
that you see the patient first, and then if I
need the X ray, I'll have the x ray. And
I said, you haven't examined me yet, and he kind
of hurried over and sort of poked my shoulder a
(28:35):
little bit. He didn't even check the full range of movement.
And then he went back to his seat and he
said you have to have that x ray and I
said why, Like, what do you think's wrong with me?
And he said, I want to make sure you don't
have anything bony going on And I said bony? What
do you mean and he said bone cancer? And I
(28:55):
still raised my eyebrows and I said you think I
have bone cancer? And he was like, oh no, no,
no no, and then he sort of looked at his desk.
He ramped his pen on it and then he said
this is how we practice medicine here, and we just
went silent because we both knew that was not an
(29:16):
appropriate thing to say. And in the end I managed
to say, listen, I would really like some physical therapy
because I think I have inflammation, and if that physical
therapy doesn't get rid of it, I'll come back in
a month to six weeks and I'll have that X ray.
So he gave me the referral. I felt proud and
(29:36):
liberated and I left that room and I was so
happy I did not comply just because of that pressure.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
I want to talk about the role of power plays
and all of this because it feels like there's no
conversation about defiance without talking about power dynamics. How do
you think about that tension? Right, So it's much easier
for a boss to defy in the workplace versus a
junior employee.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
I think that makes a great difference. So we do
need to be aware of power dynamic and also what
I call the defiance hierarchy, in that some people are
allowed to be defiant and others face much greater consequences,
much greater costs for being defiant, and we need to
be aware of that, because the people that experience those
(30:29):
greater costs of defiance are often the ones that also
need to define more often, because the expectation for them
to comply and be subservient is far greater. And so yes,
they have this double wammy of we expect you to
be compliant and so they need to be defined more often,
and then there's more of a backlash and more costs. So,
(30:51):
in other words, it is a privilege to be able
to defy, and we need to afford that privilege to
everyone and be really cognizant of who we allow to
defy and the consequences that we give out to people
that we think at being defiant in a way that
we might not like.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I'm wondering if we could do a rapid fire situation
where I propose it hypothetical to you and I hear
about at least the first step you would take to defy.
So you've just received a haircut. You look in the mirror.
It's a horrifying scene. Your hairdresser asks you, Sumita, do
you like this haircut? Wow? It looks it looks so
(31:32):
modern and cool, But you are worried about expressing your
true beliefs. About the matter, right, You're you don't want
to insinuate anything, but you now have to wear a
hat for the next three months until said haircut grows out.
What is your approach to this situation? And by the way,
this is your longtime hairdresser, so like your loyal customer,
(31:54):
and you care about them, and you know you don't
want to see this relationship end.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
So I have actually been in this situation.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Nice, nice, So tell me what the defiance expert did.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Okay, point in my life, I was deeply upset with
the haircut because it was nothing like what I wanted.
And this is classic insinuation anxiety. That we're sat on
the chair and it's like, oh, trust me, and the
cutting and the cutting, and you're thinking, no, no, no,
(32:26):
how can you express that? How can you express that
before it's too late? What are you telling me is
that it's already too late. Right, it's already been cut
and you don't particularly like it, But a lot of
us do in that situation. At least if you like me, maybe,
if you like you's probably sort of pay and tip
(32:46):
and then leave. And in one situation, I did do that,
and I actually went home and I cried because it
was asymmetrical. It was awful. And then I went back
the next day and I said, you need to fix it.
So I did do that. One of the things about
defiance is the fact that it is this proactive positive thoughts,
(33:07):
and if we go back to the deaf is to devise,
it is to act in accordance with your true values
when there is pressure to do otherwise. So there's not
a lot of value at stake here. So there's certain
situations that we can practice our definancing, especially if you
want to maintain the relationship, because it's so easy to
just sort of say I'm never going to go back
to that person again, because we don't communicate, just say, here,
(33:30):
you know, this is actually not exactly what I like.
Is there anything you can do to make it more
the way that I would feel happy with? And have
that communication with your hairdresser. But we can start practicing
in these situations. For other situations where our values are
actually violated, we can practice in the restaurant though, if
(33:55):
we don't like the food or the food is not
cooked the way we want all As I remember once
after having my son, and it was the first time
I've been out in a long time with a group
of other women that also had and the food for
all of us when it came it was so salty,
and we were all complaining about it. And then somebody
came around and said, is everything okay? And we all
looked up and we said, yes, everything's fine.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Even though this is as you're like guzzling glasses of water.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
So we cannot stop practicing for defiance in those situations
which are kind of low cost. And yes, nothing great
is being damaged and values are not being compromised hugely,
but we can just practice defiance muscles and build them
up in these situations.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
We talked about stage five being the active defiance, and
I want to add a stage six, which is the
aftermath of defiance where you know, we had even cross
on the show. We can get mired in so much
negative chatter in our minds, regret, people being disappointed with us,
angry with us, let down us, being anxious about whether
(35:03):
now our job's at stake, our relationships at stake, and
so how can we grapple with those negative emotions and
stay resolute in our convictions when we're getting so many
signals to the contrary.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Yeah, also a fantastic question. And there's a few things
here that come into play. One is, when we decide
to defy, we need to make sure that we have
those five elements ready for our true no, that we
do have the capacity and we have the knowledge and
understanding of the situation and the freedom to say no
(35:37):
before we give our true no, Because if we do
really understand that, then we know what the costs are
going to be. Is it going to be safe? Is
it going to be effective? Is the two questions that
we ask when we're assessing the situation for defiance.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, and we so rarely get resolution in the short term.
We don't know how our acts of defiance will play
out over time, right, Like maybe in the immediate aftermath,
our bosses quite nice and solicitous, and then six months
later suddenly you get a layoff notice. Right, So we
have to be we have to somehow find a way
to be comfortable with that uncertainty. And I think that's
(36:12):
part of the agitation, right, That's part of what you're
signing up for when you defy, is a lot of uncertainty.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
There is that, But we also need to know, since
you're talking about the negative emotions and the chatter in
our heads. We also need to assess the cost for compliance,
because it takes a great toll on us. If we
constantly disregarding our values and bowing our head to other
people and we can't be out authentic selves, then that
takes a toll on us. It increases chronic stress, and
(36:41):
it increases burnout, dissatisfaction, even inflammation. So it's affecting us emotionally.
It's affecting us with that chatter negative emotions in our head.
It's affecting us psychologically, spiritually, and even physically. So we
do need to be aware of the cost of compliance
as well as the cost of defiance. Yes, there still
might be consequences, but that's different from the tension and
(37:04):
the anxiety and the stress that you were experiencing before
when you have to go against your values.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
That is a fantastic answer, because I think in this
moment I wrongly believed, Oh, the counterfactual world is neutral, right,
it's either you defy or it's neutral. But actually I
forgot about the psychic risks associated with conformity and compliance.
And like you said, one of the telltale signs that
you need to defy is this physiological expression of tension, right,
(37:34):
So who wants to live with that chronic tension? That
that's not good for you either. So, and there's such
a hopeful message contained in what you just said. You know,
it's very tempting to think in terms of absolutes, right,
like I'm a defiant person or I'm a compliant person.
I think we get type cast a lot as kids, right,
or like we're one way or the other. But you're
(37:54):
very intentional to describe defiance as more of a muscle
or a skill that we can cultivate over time.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yes, absolutely, So I always say that defiance is a practice,
not a personality. And this kind of early on, but
it didn't really register until later in my life. I
was walking home from the grocery store with my mom
and I was about seven or eight years old, and
we had our ricketye shopping cart that my mom was
(38:23):
sort of rolling behind us, and we were walking through
just a very narrow alleyway and we were confronted by
a group of teenage boys and they blocked our path
and they started shouting out some racist things and go
back home. And my mom, she's quite petite, she's about
four foot ten, at the most, and she was wearing
(38:44):
her blue sarre and she had her hair sort of
neatly back in one platte at the back, and I
had very neatly put her in the compliant box. And
I never thought for a moment that she could have
the ability to defy. But that day she did something
very different. When we got confronted by the boys, she
(39:06):
stopped and she looked at them and she said, what
do you mean? And it was just in a quiet
voice that she said this. At the start, I whispered
to her, come on, maa, and she shook my arm off,
and I remember that so well. She said no, and
she looked down at me for a second. Then she
put one hand on her hip and she looked back
at the boys and she said it again, this time
(39:28):
a little bit louder, what do you mean? And she
looked directly at them, and the boys were just silent,
and they started looking at each other, and so she said, oh,
you think you're big, strong boys, Yeah, clever boys, big
clever boys. And they just didn't know what to say.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
I'm so proud of your mom. That's amazing, I know.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
And then one of them just said, let's go and
they dispersed, and I just could not believe this happened.
My mom grabbed the cart and she started walking as
fast as possible. And that moment stayed with me because
it showed me so many things, And it showed me
that defiance isn't a personality, it's a skill set. If
(40:14):
we have a self concept of being compliant, it doesn't
mean that we can't be defiant. We just have to
learn it. So even if compliance is our default, it
doesn't have to be our destiny. The other thing it
showed me is that what I've found with the defiance
is that it really transforms us. We can become more ourselves,
we can act more in alignment with our values. But
(40:34):
it also has an effect on the people that observe it,
this ripple effect or what I call the defiance domino effect,
in that it only takes one person to start a reaction.
That makes a great difference. When I talk about society
being built up of these moments of compliance and defiance,
that is what is happening in that alleyway. Because ideally,
(40:56):
what I hope if I make defines successible to everyone,
that we build a society where one of those teens
would speak up to their peers, so my immigrant mother
wouldn't have to. That is what I hopeful.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Hey, thanks so much for listening. Do you have a
story of defiance, maybe a time when things went surprisingly
well or completely off the rails. I'd love to hear
about it. I've just launched a free newsletter called Change
with Maya Shunker, and this week's post is all about defiance.
I'd love to hear your stories in the comments under
(41:52):
the post. You can sign up for the newsletter at
changewthmaya dot com or click on the link in our
show notes and join me next week when we hear
from science writer Olga has On about her year long
experiment to change her personality. There were kind of along
the way that not only was I not thrilled with
my personality, other people were not thrilled with it either.
(42:16):
See you next week for Extreme Makeover Personality Edition. A
Slight Change of Plans is created, written and executive produced
by me Maya Shunker. The Slight Change family includes our
showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our
producers Britney Cronin and Megan Lubn and our sound engineer
(42:38):
Erica Huang, Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and
Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of
Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks
to everyone there, and of course a very special thanks
to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of
Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker. See you next week.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
The
Host
Dr. Maya Shankar
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