Ranjay Gulati

What courage does or these risky or crucible moments do is they shift our sense of time.

Instead of just being trapped by the present threat and what's happening here, we start to also imagine ourself in longer arcs.

Like, what do I want my life to add up to?

So I think courageous moments and courageous actions

can be powerful kind of moments of self-reflection.

So that's up to us of how we then translate these moments and allow them to be part of our future lives.

First of all, that's absolutely true.

Courage is deeply, deeply contextual.

And social psychology has shown us that.

We're more likely to take action if we identify with a victim.

Like in the story of Suzanne, we feel empathy.

Or if we feel safe in our group, safety in numbers.

Conversely, if the aggressor is some kind of a powerful authority figure, the perceived costs skyrocket.

So we have to stop looking at courage as some kind of individual trait and recognize it is also a response to the power dynamics we are within.

We also know that people are more likely to act when they feel personally responsible.

The bystander effect where there are many people diffuses responsibility.

So our willingness to act is highly context-dependent.

Now, I think it's also in her case, for whatever reason, she's created in her mind a block where she's willing to stand up for others and causes that go beyond herself.

But somehow she has decided that she herself is not somebody that she wants to take bold steps for.

Whether she feels them as heightened risk, not worth taking, or she experiences that something that doesn't align with her self-belief, hard for me to say.