Angry young men in Korea

By Jason Lim

Much has been made over recent poll numbers that suggest young Korean men in their 20s and 30s are peeved at President Moon Jae-in for favoring women over men in his policies. The South China Morning Post, in an article titled, "Why has the support for South Korea's President Moon Jae-in collapsed among young men?" writes, "In a survey carried out by South Korean polling firm Realmeter last month, just 29.4 per cent of men in their 20s said they approved of Moon, compared to 64.5 percent of women in the same age bracket." Compare that to the 87 percent support that Moon enjoyed from the same demographics at the beginning of his administration.

According to newspaper reports, Korea's young men feel as if they are being unfairly penalized by their 2-year mandatory military service during the golden years of their lives. They point out that young women use this time to earn money, advance their careers, and, in general, invest in their future to get a leg up in the economic competition against men. This sense of unfairness is sharpened by the burgeoning #MeToo movement in Korea that is giving a louder voice to the discrimination and sexual abuses that women traditionally suffered. While acknowledging that women used to have the short end of the stick, young men don't believe that it's the case any longer. Their moms suffered discrimination, but their female peers are milking past wrongs to drive their current advantages against them.

It's peculiar that "unfairness" comes up as a major theme in talks with the young men. According to Neuroleadership Institute's David Rock, fairness is one of the five criteria by which the human brain subconsciously measures the "threat-posture" of a new piece of information or situation when facing a change (SCARF Model). And the change that young Korean men are facing is huge. The whole success narrative that they felt entitled to is being rewritten, and their roles are being diminished.

The tricky part of change is that it's automatically perceived by the brain as a threat because it presents the brain with a different "pattern" from the one that it is familiar with. And depending on the degree of change and the person's prior experience with change (usually bad), the threat perception could be so large as to trigger what Daniel Goleman described as the "Amygdala Hijack."

This means that the emotional brain, sensing a threat, hijacks the rational brain and reacts disproportionately to the perceived threat. Needless to say, this is not conducive to a successful change management, since the rational (prefrontal cortex) is exactly what's needed to make the new connections, innovate new processes, and create new relationships that lead to a successful change imitative.

According to David Rock, "Firstly, that much of our motivation driving social behavior is governed by an overarching organizing principle of minimizing threat and maximizing reward. Secondly, that several domains of social experience draw upon the same brain networks to maximize reward and minimize threat as the brain networks used for primary survival needs. In other words, social needs are treated in much the same way in the brain as the need for food and water. The SCARF model summarizes these two themes within a framework that captures the common factors that can activate a reward or threat response in social situations."

This model tells us that anyone facing a change will evaluate the threat vs. reward perception of the proposed change according to the above five criteria: status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness.

Status is simple. If your peer gets a promotion, then your status is lowered and you feel a threat and get emotionally upset. If you get a promotion, your status elevates and you feel good ― your brain's reward circuit is engaged. Certainty is also something easily understood. It's about knowing what's going to happen tomorrow, next month, next year, when you retire, etc. Our brain craves certainty because we constantly draw a mental map of where we are, where we want to go, and how we are going to get there. Just imagine coming to work every day and not knowing whether you have a job. Autonomy means that people like to feel that they are in charge of their destinies to the largest degree possible. Relatedness refers to the need to have a sense of belonging to a community that shares something intrinsic with you. This could be religion, ethnicity, culture, interests, etc. Fairness is self-explanatory. You want to be treated as others are treated; in fact, you are constantly gauging how others are treated in relation to you.

In short, SCARF is how the brain judges the world and one's place in it relative to others. In the case of young Korean men, their female peers have become the primary "other" by which they measure their SCARF score and, therefore, represents their greatest threat and target for their anger as the world ceases to revolve around them.

Change is difficult for all of us. Young Korean men deserve sympathy and mentorship, not scorn, as they navigate through the tectonic change. Change management for Korea's young men through this transition period will be one of the most important public policy challenges in the near future. Otherwise, this group will let its voice be heard in other ways that are likely to be regressive and disruptive.

Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.