How familiar are you with the SCARF® model of the NeuroLeadership Institute (NLI)? Introduced formally in 2008 as a handy framework for first understanding human behavior at work and then determining how to motivate people more effectively, SCARF consists of five key dimensions of social behavior. They are  status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness, listed in this  order to spell the memorable word “scarf.” (More about this later.)

This year NLI conducted a formal review of SCARF, the first since 2012. The results were shared earlier this month at the 2025 NeuroLeadership Summit by Dr. Brigid Lynn, who worked on the review with Dr. Emma Sarro and Dr. David Rock, the creator of the SCARF® Model. (Considering I did my coach training and initial neuroscience studies with the NeuroLeadership Institute starting back in 2011,  I was definitely eager to hear the results.)

The review’s major headline: the model remains sound based on the ever-changing and expanding field of social cognitive neuroscience. That’s welcome news to those of us who use it regularly. Over the past 17 years, SCARF has become a go-to tool for businesspeople, coaches, academics and anyone else interested in analyzing the messy social interactions we humans experience with each other, primarily at work.

The review’s second big headline: As measured by NLI’s SCARF assessment, the social drivers deemed most important to people have shifted. Fairness and autonomy now rank as the two most important domains, replacing the previous top two drivers, certainty and relatedness. (Note that the data comparison is not totally pure. Back in 2012, the SCARF assessment was relatively new and there were just 6,300 respondents. In 2024, NLI made some minor revisions to the assessment and then over the next two years collected data from more than 15,000 individuals around the world.)

You can take the free individual SCARF® Model assessment here. And if you’ve taken it before, consider taking it again. Our preferences can change. Mine certainly have. This short, multiple-choice survey, where there are no right or wrong answers, only your preferences, will provide you with more clarity about your relative sensitivity toward the social drivers in each domain of SCARF®.

When you’re aware of your strongest SCARF® Model drivers, you’re better equipped to understand how and why you react when faced with different situations, especially in your current role and work environment. You’ll also be able to communicate your needs to others and make future choices better suited for you.

Also, by bringing all the drivers to consciousness, the SCARF® Model encourages you to think how certain words and actions may feel threatening to others. You then can figure out better ways to minimize others’ fears, and even better, motivate them.

As for the overall shift to fairness and autonomy as the dominant drivers, NLI’s perspective is that the individuals around the world taking the assessment have probably been influenced by global events as well as heightened social awareness around equity and personal agency. Whatever the reasons though, the new rankings highlight a change in employee expectations that you and your organizations need to consider in how you interact with employees around engagement, fulfillment, performance and change.

Note that status also has increased, although not as much as fairness and autonomy. The ranking – along with definitions – are listed here.

 In the SCARF model:

• Fairness is a perception of fair exchanges between people. Are the processes we use fair? And am I being treated fairly?
• Autonomy describes how much control we feel we have over our environment and future. Do I have meaningful choices?
• Status is about the drive for value and rank. Where do stand in relationship to others?
• Relatedness is a sense of safety with others. Do I belong?
• Certainty relates to being able to predict the future. Can I anticipate and prepare for what’s going to happen next?

You can use SCARF to improve your collaboration and influencing skills in all situations in which you’re interacting with individuals, including those outside of the workplace.

If you’re new to SCARF (which is definitely easier to remember than FASRC) or interested in a primer, the model is based on the brain’s core organizing principle. That is, the brain constantly seeks to minimize danger and maximize reward. This “away from danger and toward reward” dynamic, originally articulated by the neuroscientist Dr. Evian Gordon, shapes how people feel, think, and behave. 

In creating the SCARF framework, Dr. David Rock, co-founder and CEO of the NeuroLeadership Institute, built on Evian’s work. SCARF uses the “toward-away” concept to show how social factors at work can trigger the same threat-reward responses as physical threats.

According to the neuroscience on which the SCARF model is based, we feel threatened more frequently and more intensely than we feel rewarded. Worse, when we feel threatened — including when we feel that we and others we care about are not being treated fairly — we have trouble focusing to make good decisions, solve problems and collaborate with others. For example, if I find out that my colleagues who have the same job title and perform the same job as I do yet earn several dollars more an hour than I do, I will be angry, which will hurt my ability to work. And I might even want to take spiteful action.

By contrast, when we’re in a positive reward state, we’re able to concentrate and think more clearly.  For example, when we receive fair offers or feel that we’re treated fairly, the reward circuitry in our brain lights up.  Also, the brain areas associated with positive reinforcement learning increase in activity.

To learn more about the SCARF Model® by reading the blog post, Five Ways to Spark (or Destroy) Your Employees’ Motivation.