Message from Charles Aulds

An early demonstration of the "power of one" took place in a famous conformity experiment run at Harvard in the late 1940s. Subjects were surrounded by confederates who deliberately gave obviously wrong answers to questions. Usually the subjects went along with the wrong majority at least some of the time. But if, in another condition of the experiment, one other person gave the right answer, real subjects were much more likely to "do the right thing" — even though it meant joining a distinct minority rather than the majority.

Many times people know that something wrong is happening, but they don't do anything because they know other people are also aware of the situation. As a result, all can trap themselves into inactivity. A vivid example of this occurred in an experiment in which subjects were answering surveys in a New York City office building, and the room began to fill up with smoke. If a subject was alone, he usually left the room. But if three real subjects were seated together, they usually stayed in their chairs even though the smoke eventually got so thick they couldn't see the surveys anymore. When asked why they hadn't gotten up, their usual answer was, "The other guys didn't get up."

Often one person can steel another, and another and another, until many are working together. You don't have to form a majority to have an effect. Two or three people speaking out can sometimes get a school board, a church board, a board of aldermen to reconsider authoritarian actions. Lack of any opposition teaches bullies simply to go for more. But it takes one person, an individual, to start the opposition.
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From Bob Altemeyer's 2006 book The Authoritarians
available as a free PDF or ePUB download