You’re in a room, participating in what you were told is a visual perception experiment, and everyone around you insists that two unequal lines are the same length. You feel confused, sick, and embarrassed. Everybody looks at you, the last person to give an answer, to see what you say. Would you go along with the group, or would you resist?

Most people caved to social pressure, agreeing with what they knew was wrong. But a remarkable few did not. These “heroic resistors” defied the pressure to conform. Their stories hold powerful lessons for us today, in an era when authoritarianism and undue influence are on the rise.

Often, in such studies as Solomon Asch’s conformity study, the focus remains on those who obey. But what of those who refused to go along? Who were these “heroic resistors,” and what made them stand firm under pressure?

In the early 1950s, psychologist Solomon Asch conducted experiments that pitted an individual against a group’s unanimous, incorrect judgment. Participants were asked a simple question: Which of the three lines matches the length of the standard line?

The task was easy until a group of actors in the room confidently gave obviously incorrect answers. The experiment required that the real subject provide an answer after having heard everybody before them insist on a clearly false one.

Asch found that about 75% of people conformed to the group’s false answer at least once. Many participants later said they........

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