How to Be a Constructive Dissenter

So much social science research has focused on conformity, the way that individuals adjust their behavior to match those around them, and this tendency holds important implications for our world today. Studies find that tendencies toward conformity begin young, with researchers theorizing that it initially occurs as a natural part of a child’s development. But aspects of conformity continue into adulthood, where individuals can potentially lose a sense of themselves by adapting their attitudes, beliefs, thoughts, and opinions to match their peer groups.

Conformity is certainly at work in today’s politics in the U.S. Divided between two large political parties, people face increasing pressure to adopt the viewpoints of the left or the right, which leaves out a range of nuanced ideas, opinions, and beliefs that don’t fit neatly into one single box. And people feel afraid to speak openly and challenge others within their own party, even if done in healthy, productive ways. “Self-silencing” is when a person stays quiet about a truth due to fear or in order to keep the peace and avoid rocking the boat, but that tendency has far-reaching consequences, both socially and politically, and can even lead to widespread depression.

For my new book, Trust Your Mind, I spent three years exploring the emotional undercurrents of our political landscape—interviewing scholars, journalists, therapists, and more—to better understand what’s happening underneath all the polarization. Self-silencing plays a role, but what I discovered is that there are surprising numbers of people choosing healthy, positive, constructive dissent—yet they are misunderstood and labeled as “reactionaries.” In reality, their dissent is a testimony to their deep care for others, and their dedication can serve as a model for healthy disagreement and encouraging people to self-examine and communicate from a place of critical thinking and empowerment.

The power of dissent

Jolanda Jetten is a Dutch social psychologist at the University of Queensland in Australia who studies social identity and group dynamics. She says that researchers often mistakenly conceptualize dissent as lack of loyalty, by “deviants” behaving outside accepted social norms. In reality, dissenting can be in service of helping groups realize where they have strayed from their core values.

This is true not only among the general public, in friend groups, workplace associations, and families—for anyone who has a hard time “going along with a group” or a political party—but also among writers and journalists and media commentators. 

As Stanford professor Benoit Monin and his colleagues point out, rebelling against prevailing morals poses distinct threats to groups, and so dissenters are not always welcome. Sometimes, their rebellion is seen as criticism of the group, or their actions make people in the group question their assumptions, or the rebels confront the group in their own complicity with immoral acts—all of which can lead to existential crises, resentment, and defensiveness.

But often, what these rebels and dissenters are really trying to do is help their communities reassess their behaviors, narratives, and belief systems in an attempt to repair connection, group solidarity, and unity.

“Group members may dissent because they care for the group and are concerned about the course of action that other group members are taking,” writes Jetten with her coauthor Matthew Hornsey. “Dissent is then motivated by an attempt to change group norms for the better, a phenomenon that has been variously described as ‘constructive deviance’ or ‘constructive patriotism.’”

One could say that many of the dissenting commentators emerging across social media today—on X and on podcasts and YouTube—speak up because they care. They dissent because they care. And they all have a stake in the future of democracy and polarization.

“The value of opinion minorities lies in their ability to guard the group against complacency, to challenge conventional wisdom, and to keep the group sharp and on its toes. In that way, dissenting minorities can change norms or behavioral conventions that have lost their utility,” write Jetten and Hornsey.

“Dissenting minorities exert influence on the group as a whole because they force the majority to think outside the box,” they add. Another term for a dissenter is a positive deviant or a moral rebel, defined by Monin as “someone who stands up and takes a conspicuous stance in opposition to a norm, expectation, or convention that they perceive to be immoral.”

But one of the reasons we don’t always look kindly on dissenters is because we don’t always connect the dots on the long-term benefits of their actions. “The influence of minorities is indirect, delayed, and not always visible—when these group members are influential, change is often not attributed to their influence,” write Jetten and Hornsey.

How to be a constructive deviant

There is certainly an incentive for welcoming dissenters, however. “By tolerating a deviant or dissenter, group members can show that they act in accordance with their beliefs and values, and this strengthens the social fabric of the group,” write Jetten and Hornsey. Perhaps we can start to think of dissenters as cheerleaders for humanity?

With these benefits in mind, Jetten and Hornsey argue that “some groups might create informal roles within their ranks that free people up to engage in dissent.” I haven’t seen much of this as an adult, though I recall schoolteachers encouraging dissent during classroom discussions. “An example is the role of court jesters in the Middle Ages who, perhaps because of their marginal and nonthreatening position, were the only ones who were licensed to openly raise unpleasant truths in the presence of the king or queen,” they write. “A modern equivalent is the role of the devil’s advocate, whose purpose is to question the group’s functioning in order to understand the organization’s weaknesses.”

This raises important questions: Can universities, workplaces, and social media platforms carve out space for dissent? Have we forgotten the value of dissent because we are all so afraid of offending one another? We need to take seriously what it is that we are losing in the face of the crippling fear of being wrong or hurting someone’s feelings. We need to cheer on the cheerleaders of humanity.

Allowing diverse voices to emerge, whether it’s yours or a friend’s, family member’s, or colleague’s, means learning how to get comfortable with the initial clash of opinions. The polarization around us today requires us to embrace nuanced conversations and the complexity of opinions and diversity of thought that are present among all human beings.

Below are a few tips for becoming a more flexible thinker, either as a dissenter yourself or as someone who would like to support the dissenters around you:

• Make an effort to get outside of your bubble, whether that’s in real life offline or online as in Facebook groups and viewing diverse news sources on your phone.
• Delight in every unknown interaction with a stranger—on the bus, at the park, or at the store—and slow down.
• Abandon overly identifying with a narrow group identity. Allow yourself to feel the loving embrace of what happens when you let go and sit in your own power as yourself, outside of boxes.
• Talk to someone very different from you. The best way to shatter your preconceived stereotypes about other “groups” is to speak to members with opposing views. I guarantee you will see them more as individuals and humans than ever before, especially if you only thought of them previously through the lens of a monolithic group.
• Remember that tribal belonging and group identity may not be as important as feelings of connection, which you might paradoxically get from several people from different, nonoverlapping groups.
• Speak up. Individuals don’t know their blind spots. One person wakes up to new insights and information, says something, and that catalyzes a new understanding for someone else, and on and on. It’s not that everyone “wakes up” and thinks the same thing, but each individual awakens to their own inner knowing and trusting their own critical thinking. In short, trust yourself. Believe in yourself. Bet on you, not a narrowly defined group.

In this era of tension and mistrust, a clear way to crack through the polarization is by voicing the nuances of your own life experiences. We do a disservice to one another by conforming and staying quiet, hiding our truths. In order to evolve our conversations with one another and develop our own tolerance and thinking abilities, we have to be willing to say things that others disagree with or that might make some people uncomfortable. Dissent and rebellion don’t emerge from silence, but rather from speaking up.