Tan, Chade-Meng - Search Inside Yourself - The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace)

If you put these two ratios together side by side, you immediately understand why marriage is so tough. We demand an unreasonable 3:1 positivity ratio for all our daily experiences, except in our marriage, from which we demand even more. In that sense, we all behave like over-demanding jerks toward our spouses, and we judge them far more harshly than we judge mere acquaintances. Maybe if we understand that, we could give our spouses a little bit of a well-deserved break, and maybe marriage would not be quite so tough.

The SCARF Model for the Social Brain

In Your Brain at Work, David Rock describes five domains of social experience that the brain treats as primary rewards or threats. In other words, these five domains are so important to you that your brain treats them in the same way it treats survival issues. And because they are so important, each is a major driver of social behavior. These five domains form a model which David calls the SCARF model, which stands for Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. 6

Status

Status is about relative importance, pecking order, or seniority. People go to great lengths to protect or increase their status. Status is so important, it even predicts longevity, both in humans and in primates. Status threats can also be triggered very easily. For example, just talking to your boss can activate a status threat. When a co-worker asks to give you “feedback,” that too can trigger a status threat.

The good news is there is a good way to increase your own status without harming others, and that is what David calls “playing against yourself.” When you improve a skill (such as improving your golf handicap), you activate a status reward relative to your former self. This is perhaps why mastery is such a powerful motivator (see Chapter 6). When you gain increasing mastery over something that matters to you, you activate a status reward, at least when compared against your former self.

Certainty

Our brains love certainty. Uncertainty generates “error responses” in the brain that cannot be ignored until they are resolved. In other words, uncertainty takes away valuable brain resources. Larger uncertainties can be highly debilitating. For example, if you do not know whether your job is secure, uncertainty will probably occupy most of your mind and you may not be able to do much else at work.

Autonomy

Autonomy is the perception of exerting control over one’s environment. According to Steve Maier, “the degree of control that organisms can exert over something that creates stress determines whether the stressor alters the organism’s functioning.” 7In other words, it’s not the stress itself that gets to you; it’s the feeling of helplessness in the face of that stress. There are many studies that give strong evidence to this. One study, for example, shows that low-level British civil servants have more stress-related health problems than senior executives, even though the latter are known to be under a lot more stress.

Relatedness

Relatedness is the perception of whether another person is a “friend” or a “foe.” It makes sense for relatedness to be part of our primary reward/threat circuitry, since our very survival used to be almost entirely dependent on other people in our own tightly cooperating small tribes. In fact, relatedness is so fundamental, some research shows that the one and only experience in life that makes people sustainably happy over time is the quality and quantity of social connections. (They did not study accomplished meditators, so while I agree with that finding, I suspect there is a little bit more to that story.) Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, demonstrated that he understood the power of relatedness when he said, “When you get to my age, you’ll measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. That’s the ultimate test of how you’ve lived your life.”

By default, the brain labels someone a foe unless proven otherwise. For example, strangers are usually labeled as foe (or at least, labeled as “approach at your own risk”). Fortunately, in many situations, it is not hard to switch people from foes to friends. For example, all it usually takes is a handshake and a pleasant conversation. Many practices in this book, such as Just Like Me and Loving Kindness can greatly ease and accelerate this process.

Fairness

Humans are the only animals known to voluntarily injure their own self-interests to punish the perceived unfairness of others. Other primates are known to punish unfairness, but not at the expense of their own self-interest. For example, say we are in a game (known as the Ultimatum Game) in which person A (the “proposer”) is given one hundred dollars, which he must distribute between himself and person B (the “responder”). If person B accepts the deal, they both pocket the money as distributed by A, but if B rejects the deal, they both go home empty-handed. If person A distributes ninety-nine dollars to himself and one dollar to B, objectively, B has no reason to reject the deal. If B accepts the deal, he gets a dollar, and if he rejects it, he gets nothing. There is only one economically rational course of action for him. Yet many people in the position of person B will reject the deal out of being offended by unfairness. In contrast, a chimpanzee playing a similar game (using raisins as the object of value rather than U.S. dollars) will rarely reject that deal. 8To a chimp, forgoing raisins is just silly. The moral of the story is to never underestimate a person’s sense of fairness; it is overwhelming enough that he often may sacrifice his own self-interest for its sake. (The other moral of the story is to never count on a chimpanzee giving you a fair deal. Nor an elephant, for that matter.)

“With Judge Bonzo presiding, we might have to revisit our initial projections about the success of your case.”

Expanding Your Influence

You can influence people most effectively when you help people achieve what they want in a way that also helps you and simultaneously serves greater good. That is why the SCARF model from the previous section can be so valuable. By understanding the neuroscience of the social brain, you can better understand how your actions can increase the SCARF factors for self and others, hence you can figure out how to help people in ways that also align with your own interests. For example, if you take the time to know those you work with at the human level, you raise their Relatedness reward. Thereafter, even technical disagreements can be more easily resolved because they see you as “friend,” not “foe.” If you are generous in acknowledging good ideas from people, you raise their Status reward and you may then find yourself on the receiving end of many other valuable ideas and solutions. If you are the boss and go the extra mile to be fair to your people, you raise their Fairness reward and they become much more willing to work for you. Thus, skillful use of SCARF factors for the good for all creates a win-win situation for everyone and expands your influence.

Based on the insight above, here is a four-step plan for expanding the magnitude and reach of your influence.

1. Know that you already have influence. You already affect people. It is a simple matter of improving what you can already do.

2. Strengthen self-confidence. The more you are aware of and comfortable with your own strengths and weaknesses, the more confident you become and the more effectively you can influence people. Emotionally, people gravitate toward confidence, especially the type of self-confidence based on kindness and authenticity. The mindfulness practices in Chapters 2 and 3 and the self-awareness practices in Chapter 4 will help you with self-confidence.