identification

Meaning: In Kelman's model, attitudes and behavior can change in three ways. In compliance, a person goes along publicly to gain a reward or avoid punishment, with no private change. In identification, a person adopts the views or behaviors of a liked, admired or attractive person or group, in order to be like them or keep the relationship. In internalization, a person accepts the belief as their own because it fits their values. Internalization is the most durable. Identification falls in between: the attitude may be held privately, but it depends on the source.

On the MCAT: A passage describes someone taking on a mentor's political views, a teenager copying a celebrity, or a new member absorbing a group's beliefs. You classify the process or predict what happens when the source disappears. Cues are admiration, wanting to belong, and a change that fades when the person leaves the group. It links to the peripheral route of the elaboration likelihood model (source attractiveness) and to role models in observational learning.

Common confusion: Identification is not compliance, because the change is more than public show. It is not internalization, because the belief is valued for the relationship, not for its own content. In Freudian theory, identification is also used for a child adopting a same-sex parent's traits. Use the context to tell which sense is meant.