The 5 Factors that Influence Social Interactions

The SCARF model calls out 5 key areas that strongly influence human social interactions.

• Status is about relative importance to others.
• Certainty concerns being able to predict the future.
• Autonomy provides a sense of control over events.
• Relatedness is a sense of safety with others — of friend rather than foe.
• Fairness is a perception of fair exchanges between people.

Being on the wrong side of any of these areas will make another person feel threatened. Once threatened, the other person’s capacity to make decisions, solve problems and collaborate will diminish.

For me, fairness sticks out more than the others. It’s one of the few reasons why people have consistently and voluntarily laid down their lives (e.g. the unfairness of taxation without representation during the American Revolution).