Our 5 Universal Emotional Triggers: SCARF Model in the Times of Covid

We all have these five triggers. In this article, I present them and how we can use them to improve our lives.

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Lately, I have been thinking a lot about how this Covid pandemic has been pushing a lot of our “buttons”, in so many ways.

We all have specific triggers/stimuli that induce conscious and subconscious reactions in each of us and thus, play an important role in our well-being. It’s about these that I want to write today and start this short series of blog post dedicated to the SCARF model.

The SCARF Model

The SCARF Model was developed in 2008 by David Rock, a leading scholar of neuroleadership, in his paper “SCARF: A Brain-Based Model for Collaborating With and Influencing Others”.

SCARF stands for the five key “domains” that influence our behaviour in social situations, or the five stimuli that drive our response to minimise threats and/or maximise rewards[i]:

1. Status — our relative importance to others/personal worth

2. Certainty — our ability to predict the future

3. Autonomy — our sense of control over events/life

4. Relatedness — how safe we feel with others

5. Fairness — how fair we perceive the exchanges between people to be

The model is based on neuroscience research that indicates that these five social domains activate the same threat and reward responses in our brain that we rely on for physical survival. There is a distinct overlap between the biology of primary survival needs and our social needs: the same parts of the brain that are implicated in physical pain are implicated in social pain.

Thus, we are all motivated to move away from perceived threats and/or towards perceived rewards.

This is why, this “primitive” instinctual reaction, explains the sometimes strong emotional reactions that we can have to social situations — and why it’s most times difficult to control them.

For example, when we hear people gossiping about us or we are left out of a group, we might perceive it as a threat to our status and relatedness. Research has shown that this response can stimulate the same region of the brain as physical pain and this is also, in such situations when people say “That hurts”, they actually mean it. And, believe it or not, it seems that Tylenol actually relieves social rejection[ii].

Furthermore, when we feel threatened (physically or socially), the release of cortisol (the “stress hormone”) affects our creativity and productivity. We literally can’t think straight, and this increases the feeling of being threatened. This happens because of decreased activity in prefrontal cortex activity, which has to do with higher cognitive functions we have: complex problem solving, decision making, creativity, planning, etc.). We tend to avoid situations that create a threat response, as the organizing principle of the brain is to minimize threat and maximize reward.

On the flip side, when we feel rewarded (for instance, when we receive praise for our work) our brains release dopamine — the “happiness hormone.” And, of course, we want more! So we seek out ways to be rewarded again.

In this article, I will take each of the five domains, look at them and see how the Coronavirus pandemic has (probably) “pushed our buttons” and what can be done about it.

Status — our relative importance to others/personal worth

Status is how important we feel relative to others. If a person feels they have equal or elevated status when compared to peers, this will be more of a reward brain state as opposed to a person who feels peers are seen as more important than they are. The same reward system that gets activated when we receive money or eat an amazing meal also gets equally activated when we perceive that our reputation with a group of people has increased (think Facebook likes). So when people perceive they are in a position of power, they are more inclined to approach behaviour and vice-versa.

Covid negative impact on Status:

- Because of people being furloughed, their colleagues might have had to pick up essential tasks that don’t usually sit with them, which might trigger them to feel “unimportant”

- Colleagues who are shielding or isolating might feel they are not contributing as much as before

- “I’m only a small rectangular image on the Zoom meetings screen”

- Needing to receive feedback through the phone or video conference, without being able to read more of the non-verbal body language (receiving feedback is almost always perceived as a threat)

Ideas for increasing Status:

• Emphasise we are all playing vital roles in delivering results for our organisation; for the ones furloughed or isolating: keep in touch with them, assure them of their importance to the team and your efforts (if they are furloughed) to have them back
• Instead of providing feedback, allow the person to give feedback on themselves or the project
• Start Meetings with recognition, to increase people’s status while also boosting positivity
• Involve others in decisions, as much as possible, especially in those that impact their work.
• Ask feedback from your direct reports on what you can do better and how you can support their success.
• Assign stretch projects that give your employees a chance to shine and explore new skills and abilities.

Certainty — our ability to predict the future

Certainty has to do with how the brain operates: it’s a pattern recognizing machine and it constantly tries to predict the future. When the brain detects an error it gets distracted (enters “error mode”); increased ambiguity decreases activity in the reward parts of your brain and increases the threat response (uncertainty is threatening). Certainty is rewarding — if we think about music — we like it because it has a simple, predictable pattern.

When the brain is not able to predict, it uses significantly more resources, involving also the energy-intensive pre-frontal cortex. This can become exhausting and debilitating and lead to significant physical, mental and emotional anxiety, which, in turn, will hinder the ability to make effective and balanced decisions[iii].

Covid negative impact on Certainty:

Certainty is the one variable that is a real challenge in today’s COVID-19 situation, as our ability to predict the future diminishes. There is increased uncertainty in nearly every aspect of people’s lives:

• Work/Finances: Will I still have a job in the near future? Will I be called back from my furlough or I need to search for a job?
• School: How will my grades be awarded? How will I take my exams?
• Leisure: Should I book my holidays? Will I be able to travel and enjoy my already booked vacation?
• Health: Am I doing enough to protect myself and my family? What are the long-term effects of Covid on our health?

Ideas for increasing Certainty:

• Communication, transparency and clarity: as leaders, we might not have a lot of information but we should always keep our people informed about what the organisation is doing and how decisions are made (regular information about a potential return to work or continuation of work from home, about people being furloughed or called back, redundancies, etc.). Even if the news is not positive, the brain reacts better to any news than to uncertainty.
• Even providing a specific date when people will know more increases the perception of certainty.
• Provide clear expectations regarding work from home; deadlines; working schedule; virtual meetings; etc.
• Break down complex processes into smaller, easier to understand pieces.

Autonomy — our sense of control over events/life

Autonomy is defined as the “right to self-govern” and has to do with how much control we have in a situation. For some people, the less autonomy they experience, the more the situation is perceived as a threat. So much so that there are studies indicating that a sense of autonomy better predicts wellbeing than economic prosperity. When it comes to stress, if we perceive that we can escape the stress, we are significantly less affected by it on a physical and mental level than when we perceive it as inescapable[iv].

In an organisation, it means giving a person as many decision rights as possible so they can act independently without checking in with a leader. The fact that one has a choice over matters increases the reward response, so we seek out choice.

Covid negative impact on Autonomy:

• Work from home (whether you like it or not); in this new work from home reality, many leaders might tend to micromanage.
• Reduced/inexistent social life.
• Cannot go to restaurants, gym, cinema, etc. => forced to change habits.
• Important events (holidays, weddings, birthday parties, etc.) need to be cancelled or postponed until further notice.

Ideas for increasing Autonomy:

• Resist the urge to micromanage/give too much direction. Very few people enjoy being micromanaged with step-by-step instructions on how to do the job and in many, this behaviour triggers a stress response.
• Share as much as you can about the company’s strategy and long- and short-term direction. This will help your employee take independent actions that are aligned.
• Give options or start thinking in options: “OK, we cannot hold our training as usual, let’s make it virtual and deliver it through Zoom.” Or “I cannot meet my friends for our regular Sunday brunch so let’s have a video call every Sunday at that time”.
• While one cannot do many of the things it used to do before (go to the gym, enjoy meeting friends, etc.), find alternatives: do some sport at home or take up running/cycling, video calls with friends, start a new hobby or go back to an old one you have not entertained in a while — give yourself choices, that is the keyword!

Relatedness — how safe we feel with others

The human brain is a social machine: the connection we feel to other people influences our decision making. We are designed to build groups that rely on mutual trust. Our basic human instinct is to identify a friend or a foe, and building trust is critical to becoming a friend.

When we connect with others, our brains release the hormone oxytocin (also known as the “love hormone” or “trust hormone”). The more oxytocin that’s released, the more connected we feel. When connection is absent, the body generates a threat response (loneliness), and over time, decreases our ability to empathise with others.

The idea of relatedness is connected with two other concepts: in-group preference (we have a bias towards those people who are similar to us, look and think like us) and out-group bias (we feel less empathy towards people who are dissimilar to us, who don’t look/think like us). However, one can artificially create a sense of a group, for example, if people work together on a project/assignment, even if any dissimilarity is present[v].

Covid negative impact on Relatedness:

• With the stay-at-home recommendations, the threat of social isolation increases significantly.
• If we are going through a tough time due to the lockdown, we might feel that it’s only us going through such emotions and that the others will not be able to understand, or they’ll think we are weak, etc.

Ideas for increasing Relatedness:

• Use video for virtual meetings. The use of nonverbal communication helps limit the potential for miscommunication and increases the feeling of connection.
• Use language such as “we” and “us” to promote the feeling of belonging, instead of language like “you,” “me,” and “they,” which signals a clear boundary between groups.
• Schedule regular 1:1s with each team member, as well as team meetings where everyone has a chance to connect on something informal before you dive into work.
• Look out for colleagues who might be more isolated in their work. Connect with them more regularly.
• Schedule virtual happy hours or lunches — or other activities that allow a team to socialize for a bit outside of work.
• Increase the connectedness and improve relationships with peers who can relate to what we’re going through: set up weekly coffee or drinks dates with your friends over Skype, Zoom, FaceTime, WhatsApp video, etc.
• Pick up the phone and call friends and family

Fairness — how fair we perceive the exchanges between people to be

Fairness, or the perception of fair exchanges, is something that we are conditioned in through our experiences with others[vi]. The sense of something being unfair generates a strong threat response and very intense emotions[vii]. Unfair situations can drive people to behave erratically and out of character, for example, through violent demonstrations.

Unfairness can even activate emotions like disgust and a feeling of reward when an ‘unfair other’ is punished. Feelings of unfairness can be triggered easily, but can also be mediated rather easily because it is the perception of fairness that is the threat. This means that sometimes making just a slight change can have a large impact on reducing the sense of unfairness[viii].

Covid negative impact on Fairness:

• Many people disagreed (and may still do) with the measures imposed by governments to restrict movement and the spread of Covid-19, as this feels to them that their rights are being unfairly removed, making them feel that “This is not fair!”

Ideas for increasing fairness:

• Give parents of young children more flexibility on meeting times.
• Share details around why decisions are made and what is the thought process behind them — especially decisions impacted by Covid, such as furloughs, restructuring, work-from-home timeline, etc. When employees don’t have all the details, they start to invent alternate stories and normally, these stories will be worse than the reality.
• When possible, allow individuals and teams to weigh in on options.
• Be transparent on how changes affect various stakeholders so there are as few surprises as possible as to how individuals and teams are impacted.
• Establish clear expectations in all situations: from a one-hour video meeting to an indefinite-term contract for a new hire.

To conclude, when at work (and not only) and you feel threatened, agitated or anxious, try to remember the SCARF model and identify the source of your agitation. By doing that you will be Labelling the emotion/trigger/stimuli, and this will already calm down the emotional response system and bring your brain back “online” so that you can think clearly about how you want to approach the situation.

One other strategy involves the process of Reappraising. For example, someone attacked your idea. You felt a threat to your status and got a threat response from your brain. If you can stop the instinctual threat response and think “What was that person feeling? Was there something attacking their status? Were they feeling threatened by me?” it will help you in better controlling the outcome and in deciding what to do.

I’d be interested in hearing your examples of how the pandemic has pushed your “buttons” and any ideas you have for positively pushing them.

Thank you for reading,

Magda.

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Sources:

[i] Rock, D. (2008) SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others, Neuroleadership Journal, 1

[ii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-IW7PQcMpE

[iii] Rock, D. (2008) SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others, Neuroleadership Journal, 1

[iv] Rock, D. (2008) SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others, Neuroleadership Journal, 1

[v] Rock, D. (2008) SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others, Neuroleadership Journal, 1

[vi] Rock, D. (2008) SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others, Neuroleadership Journal, 1

[vii] Tabibnia, G., & Lieberman, M. D. (2007) Fairness and Cooperation are Rewarding: Evidence from Social Cognitive Neuroscience, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1118, 90–101

[viii] Rock, D. (2008) SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others, Neuroleadership Journal, 1