{"id":2498,"date":"2016-09-16T15:45:15","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T14:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/?p=2498"},"modified":"2016-09-28T08:33:20","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T07:33:20","slug":"want-to-explain-social-behavior-look-into-the-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/2016\/09\/16\/want-to-explain-social-behavior-look-into-the-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to Explain Social Behavior? Look into the Brain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"social<\/a>Let\u2019s start with a short mental exercise\u2026 Please try to remember and note down (for the sake of further discussion here) a recent social situation<\/strong>, be it at work, in your family or during leisure time, when you felt slightly concerned, worried or annoyed (e.g., your boss gave you critical feedback). Now, let\u2019s do the same exercise with a recent \u2018positive\u2019 situation that comes to your mind. Can you think of a social situation in which you felt good, satisfied, relieved or happy (e.g., you won an argument)? Please note it down as well.<\/p>\n

So, now that you have a negative and a positive event jotted down, or in your mind, I would claim that I can fairly accurately explain your experiences, i.e. the reasons for both positive and negative emotions<\/strong>. No, this is neither \u2018crystal ball\u2019 magic, nor am I going to try to get personal with your childhood experiences, instead I am just turning to the study of the brain and a few overarching organizing principle of how the human brain works<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

According to neuroscientists<\/a>\u00a0this fundamental organizing principle of the brain<\/strong> is called \u2018threat and reward response<\/strong>\u2019. In essence, it is our survival mechanism, which we have inherited from our hunter-gatherer ancestors. In a similar vein that our brain\u2019s autonomic nervous system reacts to footsteps behind our back in a dark corner (threat) or the availability of food when we are hungry (reward), our brains seem to react to triggers in social situations. Indeed, social neuroscience<\/strong> argues<\/a> that \u2018several domains of social experience draw upon the same brain networks to maximize reward and minimize threat<\/strong> as the brain networks used for primary survival needs\u2019. Coming back to our initial mental exercise, I can thus assume that in case of your negative event, something threatened you, while in the positive event you got rewarded with something. What is this something though?<\/p>\n

One model of brain functioning<\/strong> proposed by David Rock (2008) explains it brilliantly in my opinion. The SCARF<\/strong> model<\/a> captures five common domains that can activate reward or threat response in social situations, namely, Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness.<\/p>\n