The Brain's Hidden Triggers: Why People Commit or Resist
Friday Reflection (No.91)
You have an idea for an impactful win-for-all initiative.1
It makes sense. You know it could make a real difference. But the people you need to convince resist it like a sick toddler tasting medicine.
It’s not because they don’t care or even because they are overly stubborn. It’s because their brains are wired to perceive change as a threat, even when it’s good for them.
Change isn’t just about logic. It activates deep-seated social triggers in the brain.
Leadership Principle: To get people to commit, logic isn’t enough. Appeal to what really moves them and persevere through resistance.
In Black Panther, King T’Challa had to navigate this. Leading Wakanda out of isolation and into a new global role presented enormous benefits, making it the prudent decision. However, he had to persuade his people and global partners to join him on that path by going beyond logic.2
Real-world leaders face similar challenges even on topics as uncontroversial as seat belts. In 1985, 65% of Americans hated seat belt laws. People didn’t push back on seat belts. They pushed back on feeling forced. The policy was smart. The backlash was emotional.3
What this reveals is that our tendency toward resistance is wired into the brain. But why does it feel so personal?
You already know how this works, even if you’ve never named it.
Maybe you were ignored in a meeting (status). Or micromanaged to the point of frustration (autonomy). That sting wasn’t imaginary. It was your brain sounding an alarm.
Because to your brain, a status drop or a challenge to your autonomy isn’t just uncomfortable, it feels like a survival threat.
Neuroscientist David Rock mapped out why this happens. Five forces, programmed into our brains over millennia, determine whether we resist or commit. He calls the model SCARF: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness.
And once you see these factors, you can’t unsee them:
I once led a diversity initiative that stalled. I was adamant about a specific design for the program, aspects of which were perceived as unfair to an influential stakeholder. I couldn’t figure out (until it was too late) why they were so opposed to my idea. I had threatened their sense of fairness and the fact that I didn’t seek their input early on threatened their status.
And here’s the problem: threat responses in the brain are stronger AND last longer than reward responses. Once I triggered that threat, no amount of data insights or case studies of success could override it and the initiative was dead on arrival because the leader never came around.
This is why it’s essential to minimize threats across SCARF domains whenever possible.
As you consider how to build commitment, SCARF can be applied at every level: individual, team, organization, and even society. That said, while there’s no 5-step recipe for building commitment, these tactics will help:
Leading change, particularly for win-for-all solutions, means facing resistance. Given that, it can help to reframe resistance FROM a problem TO a test. A test of how well you understand what really drives people and how long you can persevere.
Few leaders get this right. Will you?
Take Action: Proven and Practical Steps
Anticipate potential SCARF threats at individual and group level. Identify key influencers whose commitment is essential. Everyone has a primary SCARF domain that matters most to them—find it for the influencers.4 Also, consider how distinct groups might perceive the solution as a threat. You can even use Gen AI tools to help (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity). Prompt it to play the role of an organizational psychologist who is an expert in the SCARF model. Try asking it to rewrite an announcement to reduce resistance, role-play difficult conversations to test your messaging, or analyze a new initiative to suggest ways to frame it that maximize reward on each domain of SCARF.
Plan specific tactics to minimize threats and maximize rewards in each domain. Some threats can be reframed by appealing to a larger purpose (e.g., showing how a shift enhances status rather than diminishes it like T’Challa did for Wakandans). Others must be offset by rewarding other SCARF domains. For example, if a change creates uncertainty, increasing relatedness (team connection) can stabilize engagement. And in some cases, the win-for-all solution itself must evolve to address real concerns.
Commit to the practices that keep you mentally sharp, physically strong and emotionally resilient, so you can stay the course.
Reflect: Some Questions to Consider
Which SCARF domain do you personally react to the most? How has it shaped your own decisions or resistance to change?
For a current initiative, what SCARF threats might be blocking the commitment of key influencers?
When resistance comes, what rituals will keep you standing for the win-for-all path?
Know someone leading tough change? Pass this on to them—it might be exactly what they need today.
In my last Friday Reflection, I outlined how to break free from zero sum thinking and pursue win-for-all solutions. The focus of this week is to get others to believe in and commit to them.
There is no doubt that Black Panther is the Marvel Cinematic Universe film that I’ve drawn the most inspiration from over the course of the ninety-one Friday Reflections I’ve written. Sometimes explicitly - No.10, No. 43, No. 58 and No. 70 - and many other times implicitly. It’s also the film that I’ve probably re-watched the most. If you need some inspiration, do yourself a favor and watch it. You won’t regret it even if you’ve seen it before. And if you only have a few minutes, at least watch this final speech. Very pertinent for our current moment: “And in times of crisis, the wise build bridges while the foolish build barriers.”
One of the other reasons it is such a great film is that it is full of paradoxes, most notably the “villain” Killmonger. His aspirations were noble and his worldview was shaped by a realism grounded in his lived experience. He is a foil to T’Challa in that he sees vast inequality in the world as a zero sum problem. And T’Challa was heartbroken that he was unable to persuade Killmonger to see the world from his lens. In some ways, this tension shows where win-for-all solutions have their limits - when a powerful adversary is rigidly and violently fixated on the idea that his winning requires everyone else to lose.
This article from the LA Times in 1985 shows just how contentious seat belt laws were. It’s also a fascinating example of how society adapts over time. Forty years later, seat belt laws are now as unquestioned as the air we breath.
The NeuroLeadership Institute founded by David Rock actually has a SCARF assessment. You can take it here if interested to uncover your own primary domain(s). In addition to learning about yourself, the assessment can give you insight to the types of things to think about as you try to uncover the primary domains of others.