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

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Abstract:

This paper 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.

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