Interests, Relationships, Identities: Three Central Issues for Individuals and Groups in Negotiating Their Social Environment

Abstract

This chapter begins with a summary of a model, developed half a century ago, that distinguishes three qualitatively different processes of social influence: compliance, identification, and internalization. The model, originally geared to and experimentally tested in the context of persuasive communication, was subsequently applied to influence in the context of long-term relationships, including psychotherapy, international exchanges, and the socialization of national/ethnic identity. It has been extended to analysis of the relationship of individuals to social systems. Individuals' rule, role, and value orientations to a system-conceptually linked to compliance, identification, and internalization-predict different reactions to their own violations of societal standards, different patterns of personal involvement in the political system, and differences in attitude toward authorities and readiness to obey. In a further extension of the model, three approaches to peacemaking in international or intergroup conflicts are identified-conflict settlement, conflict resolution, and reconciliation-which, respectively, focus on the accommodation of interests, relationships, and identities, and are conducive to changes at the level of compliance, identification, and internalization.