Scarf
Chapter 1 - Worldview
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Welcome to the Scarf page
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Understanding the true drivers of human social behaviour is becoming ever more urgent in our environment.
Every action you take and every decision you make either supports or undermines the perceived levels of
- status,
- certainty,
- autonomy,
- relatedness,
- and fairness.
Your sentences and gestures are noticed and interpreted, magnified and combed for meanings you may never have intended.
For years, economists have argued that people will change their behavior if they have sufficient incentives. But these economists have defined incentives almost exclusively in economic terms. We now have reason to believe that economic incentives are effective only when people perceive them as supporting their social needs.
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Core ideas
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Social interaction
The ‘minimize danger and maximize reward’ principle is an overarching, organizing principle of the brain. This central organizing principle of the brain is analogous to a concept that has appeared in the literature for a long time: the approach-avoid response. This principle represents the likelihood that when a person encounters a stimulus their brain will either tag the stimulus as ‘good’ and engage in the stimulus (approach), or their brain will tag the stimulus as ‘bad’ and they will disengage from the stimulus (avoid). If a stimulus is associated with positive emotions or rewards, it will likely lead to an approach response; if it is associated with negative emotions or punishments, it will likely lead to an avoid response. The response is particularly strong when the stimulus is associated with survival.
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| Factors | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| S | Status | Our importance to others and feeling like we matter | Status is about relative importance, ‘pecking order’ and seniority. Humans hold a representation of status in relation to others when in conversations, and this affects mental processes in many ways. The brain thinks about status using similar circuits for processing numbers. One’s sense of status goes up when one feels ‘better than’ another person. In this instance the primary reward circuitry is activated, in particular the striatum, which increases dopamine levels. The perception of a potential or real reduction in status can generate a strong threat response. A reduction in status resulting from being left out of an activity lights up the same regions of the brain as physical pain. |
| C | Certainty | Our ability to understand expectations and calculate the future | The brain is a pattern-recognition machine that is constantly trying to predict the near future. Even a small amount of uncertainty generates an ‘error’ response in the orbital frontal cortex (OFC). This takes attention away from one’s goals, forcing attention to the error. The act of creating a sense of certainty is rewarding. Meeting expectations generates an increase in dopamine levels in the brain, a reward response. Going back to a wellknown place feels good because the mental maps of the environment can be easily recalled. |
| A | Autonomy | Our sense of control, freedom and personal power | Autonomy is the perception of exerting control over one’s environment; a sensation of having choices. Inescapable or uncontrollable stress can be highly destructive, whereas the same stress interpreted as escapable is significantly less destructive. An increase in the perception of autonomy feels rewarding. When one senses a lack of control, the experience is of a lack of agency, or an inability to influence outcomes. |
| R | Relatedness | Our safety and connection with others | Relatedness involves deciding whether others are ‘in’ or ‘out’ of a social group. Trust and empathy about others is shaped by whether they are perceived to be part of the same social group. One trusts those who appear to be in your group, who one has connected with, generating approach emotions. And when someone does something untrustworthy, the usual response is to withdraw. The greater that people trust one another, the stronger the collaboration and the more information that is shared. |
| F | Fairness | Our need to be treated in a fair manner | The perception that an event has been unfair generates a strong response, stirring hostility and undermining trust. As with status, people perceive fairness in relative terms, feeling more satisfied with a fair exchange that offers a minimal reward than an unfair exchange in which the reward is substantial. The threat from perceived unfairness can be decreased by increasing transparency, and increasing the level of communication and involvement. A sense of unfairness can result from a lack of clear ground rules, expectations or objectives. |
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Degrees of freedom
| Response | Synonyms | Which traditional primary factors activate the response | What social factors/situations activate the response |
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| Approach | Advance, attack, reward, resource, expand, solution, strength, construct, engage | Rewards in form of money, food, water, sex, shelter, physical assets for survival. | Happy, attractive faces. Rewards in the form of increasing status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, fairness. |
| Avoid | Withdraw, retreat, danger, threat, contract, problem, weakness, deconstruct. | Punishment in the form of removal of money or other resources or threats like a large hungry predator or a gun. | Fearful, unattractive, unfamiliar faces. Threats in the form of decreasing status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, fairness. |
| Content source |
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| SCARF: a brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others - D. Rock - NeuroLeadershipjournal - 2008 |
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