3 Persuasion Methods: Compliance, Identification, and

Internalization
In this context, I'm going to teach you about three methods of persuasion, when to use
each method and which method is most likely to produce behavior change that really
lasts.

Persuasion- An important Function of Communication

One of the most important functions of communication or tasks is persuasion, which is

normally thought of as the science of attitude change or behavior change, how we use
communication to change people's attitudes and behaviors. One question that we might
ask ourselves when we engage in persuasion is, what kind of change are we really
producing in the person that we're persuading? Is it a superficial change that will go
away maybe as soon as we go away, or is it a lasting change that will endure long after
we're gone and long after our message is forgotten?

Example (Ways to Persuading people to drive safely)

Imagine that the behavior that we're trying to change is safe driving. We want people to
wear their seat belts and not run through red lights. We can imagine a bunch of different
ways of trying to influence people to drive safely and by wearing their seat belts and not
running through red lights.

First way- Putting Red Light Cameras

We could put cameras up, these red-light cameras. So, if you do run through a red light,
it takes a picture of your license plate and you get a letter in the mail with a hundred-
dollar ticket for running through a red light. So that's one way we could persuade people
not to run through red lights, we will say, we'll be watching you. And if you do run
through a red light, we're going to punish you with $100 fine.
Second way- Hire a famous celebrity to persuade People

A second way is we might hire a famous celebrity, an athlete or a movie star, a TV star,
a musician or something like that. And they could say safe driving is important, friends. I
always drive safely. I always put on my seatbelt and I always stop at a red light. So, if
you want to be like me, you should drive safely, too.

Third way- Rational Persuasion

The third way that we might do is we might try rational persuasion. We might say, you
know, when you stop at red lights, 50% fewer accidents happen and when you wear
your seatbelt, you’re 67% less likely to be injured in an accident. And we might try to
persuade people in that way.

So, these three examples represent three different mechanisms of influence that I want
to talk about. Each of them can be effective. If you think about the examples that I gave,
you've probably heard these kinds of influence attempts with respect to safe driving.
You've probably heard all three types because all three types can be effective under
different circumstances and for different audiences. But the three types produce
different kinds of behavior change.

Psychologist Herbert Kelman- 3 Basic Processes of Social Influence

In 1958, psychologist Herbert Kelman published an article in which he said, there were
three basic processes of social influence that produced three different kinds of behavior
change. He called these processes of social influence; Compliance, Identification and
Internalization.

1. Compliance

The first type of social influence that Herbert Kelman talked about, he called
compliance. This is the form of influence we accept in order to avoid punishments or get
rewards. And this is the kind of influence we accept normally when we're under
surveillance, when someone is watching our behavior.
So, the classic example of this is when we stop at a red light because there's a red-light
camera there. It's not necessarily that we believe that stopping at red lights is the best
idea or that driving safely is the best idea. It's not that we want to be like somebody
else, who drives because our moms stop at red lights. We want to stop at red lights too.
No, we stop at red lights because there's a camera there. And if we don't stop, we're
going to get a ticket. So that's compliance. That is accepting influence in order to avoid
a punishment in this case.

But sometimes you can accept influence because you're going to get a reward. So
sometimes we can get people to do things and get children to do things by promising
them rewards, even though they don't necessarily believe in the underlying behavior
and their attitudes don't really change. It's just that when you're watching them and if
they're going to get a reward or a punishment, they'll do the behavior. That's
compliance.

2. Identification

The second type of influence is called Identification. And this is when we accept
influence because we want to be like someone who's trying to influence us.

Example- Commercial of Drink (To persuade people, Be Like Mike)

The classic example of this in my mind is the old Gatorade commercial from the 1990s
might have even been from the 80s about be like Mike. I want to be I want to be I want
to be like Mike. And they're talking about Michael Jordan, the Hall of Fame basketball
player.

So that is the classic example of Identification, “Be like Mike, Drink Gatorade”, that's
what the message says. It's no more ambiguous than that. They just come right out and
say, if you drink Gatorade, you're going to be like Mike because Mike drinks Gatorade.
And of course, this sold a lot of Gatorade because people desperately wanted to be like
Mike.
Example – Rianne, Model & Endorser of Cosmetic (To persuade People to

wear their Products)

Riana signed a contract with Louis Vuitton to sell, you know, luggage and cosmetics
and stuff like that because people want to be like Rianne, and they'll buy the same
products that she wears because of this process of identification.

So, in this case, we don't necessarily believe that Gatorade is the best tasting drink.
Nobody really believes Gatorade tastes that good. I don't think. But we want it to be like
Mike. So, it's not really the content of the message that we believe. It's not really
consistent with our beliefs and values, but we'll accept influence because we
want to be like the person who's doing the influence or be like someone that the
behavior is associated with. Therefore, celebrity endorsements work so well, because
we want to be like celebrities, or we want to have lives like theirs. We 'll use the
products that they endorse. So, this kind of influence is only effective when the
relationship is salient or relevant. That is when we feel the salience of that
relationship, that's when we're amenable to influence in terms of identification, just like
we're amenable to influence in terms of compliance. If we're under surveillance,
Identification works and when the relationship with this other person is relevant,
then we can be persuaded.

3. Internalisation

The third mechanism of influence is called internalization. This is where we accept

influence because the behavior or the attitude is consistent with our own values. And
the reward that we get is not to be like Mike or to avoid a punishment or get a reward,
but it's because it's intrinsically satisfying to us. The behavior that we're adopting or the
attitude that we're adopting is consistent with our own values. After sort of rational
deliberation, we have decided to internalize this attitude or this behavior and make it our
own because we're happy with it, being part of us.
Example of driving safely that explains concept of Internalization

This an example of internalization is really any time that, we accept influence as the
result of rational persuasion, when someone makes arguments and gives evidence and
produces statistics and we review those evidence, and those statistics, and we come to
the conclusion that, yes, I accept these arguments. They are consistent with my beliefs.
I accept the reasoning. I accept the evidence as valid. I accept the speaker or the
persuader as someone with credibility, who has expertise and who is telling me the
truth. Therefore, I'm going to change my attitude or my behavior as a result.

So in terms of the driving safely example, it might be that we read a newspaper article
or a blog post or something and we see something, a documentary that talks about how
dangerous driving leads to all sorts of deaths and accidents and disabilities and carnage
and safe driving, saves lives and saves money and saves heartache and so on. So, we
internalize this value and these behaviors as our own because we've been rationally
persuaded. That's internalization.

The interesting thing about internalisation is that we will enact the behavior whenever
the issue is relevant. So, it means that if I adopt safe driving through the process of
internalization by internalizing that attitude, making it part of my own framework of
attitudes and beliefs, then I will drive safely all the time. I will stop at every stoplight, but
not only when there's a camera there or not only when I want to be like some celebrity
who says we should drive safely, but because I've internalized this attitude of this
behavior, I will drive safely all the time. So whenever the issue is relevant, I will
produce that attitude of that behavior, which is a big contrast between
compliance when I only comply, when I'm under surveillance or identification,
where I only adapt the behavior, when the relationship with this important other is
relevant to me.
 4. Sources of Powers for mechanism of Influence

These three mechanisms of influence also require different sources of power on the part
of the person who's doing the persuasion.

I. Source of Power for Compliance

For compliance, the kind of power that the persuader need is the power to produce
rewards and punishments.

Example- To make drive safe

The State we ride, or local municipality has the power to persuade us to stop at red
lights is because they have the power to put up these cameras and they have the power
to find us or take away our license or do these other things. If you have the power to
produce rewards and punishments, then you can use compliance as an effective
mechanism of social influence.

Example- At workplace

That's why our bosses who have control over rewards and punishments at work can
make us comply with rules at work because they have the power, they have the means
to punish us or reward us. And this is often enough to make us comply even with rules
that we don't really believe in. Think of all the rules that you follow at work that you don't
really believe in, but you comply with them because you're under surveillance in some
way and that the person who's doing the persuading or the influencing has the power to
reward you or punish you. So that's the source of power for compliance is the power to
reward or punish you.

II. Source of Power for Identification

In identification, the source of power is attractiveness. Anyone who you find attractive
has the power to influence you by means of identification.
 Example- People’s attractiveness for Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan (drink Commercial Model), he was the greatest basketball player.
People were incredibly attracted to his charisma and his athletic skill and so on. So,
they wanted to be like Mike, millions of people drank the Gatorade because of their love
for him.

Anyone who is attractive to us because of their achievements, because of their physical

appearance, because of their wealth, whatever it is, that attraction gives them the power
to influence us by means of identification. They know that we want to be like them. They
can exploit that power to influence us.

Example- How Kardashians (Models) influence people by their personality

Through this whole sort of mechanism by which the Kardashians can get people to buy
anything that they sell, because people want to be like the Kardashians. They want that
lifestyle; they want that glamour. So, they can use that attractiveness as a source of
power to influence people to do what they want.

III. Source of Power for Internalisation

If you want to use internalisation as a mechanism of influence, the source of power for
that is you must have credibility. Why is behind internalization is credibility?
Credibility is something that has to do with trustworthiness and expertise. If someone
has credibility, it means that we trust that they're going to tell us the truth and that we
think they know what they're talking about. If those two things are true, if they're
trustworthy and expert, we grant them credibility. In order for someone to use
internalisation as a mechanism of influence, they must have credibility.
Example-Rational persuasion about Skin care

We normally use experts to do lots of rational persuasion about health behavior. For
example, we get people to say, you must use sunscreen in order to avoid sunburn and
skin cancer and so on. Instead of getting a celebrity to do that or use identification, we
will often get a scientist or we'll get a dermatologist or an oncologist who treats skin
cancer as they use their credibility, they are trustworthy, they are expert, and they use
that credibility to rationally persuade us to change our attitudes and our behavior. That's
the source of power for internalisation credibility.

5. Selection of Mechanism of Influence

All three of these techniques are valid, social influenced techniques. If you're trying to
decide which technique to use, you should examine, you know, what sort of
power do you have?

 Do you have the power over rewards and punishments? You might want to use
compliance. Are you capable of setting up surveillance to make sure people
comply with the behavior? Then you want might want to use compliance as the
mechanism of influence.
 Are you extremely attractive to your audience than you might want to use
Identification?
 Do you have tremendous credibility and a lot of arguments and evidence on your
side? Then you might want to use internalisation.

All these social influence techniques are actively used in the real world. You can look
out all around you. You could just turn on the television or the radio or browse the
internet and you'll see all three kinds of appeals being used all the time to sell different
products and different ideas. All three techniques can be effective.
I would say that in some sense internalisation is the most effective technique only
because it produces the most lasting behavior change. So, let's say we want people to
drive safely or we want people to, you know, eat less meat or something like that to
become vegans or become vegetarians.

Which mechanism is better?

Example- Persuade People to become vegans or vegetarians

Let's say we want people to become vegans or vegetarians. Well, if you can keep them
under surveillance all the time and threaten them with punishment when they eat meat
or anything non-vegan, you can try to use compliance. But that doesn't seem very likely.
Or you can get, a beautiful movie star to say, I am a vegetarian, I'm a vegan. You
should be like me.

But the problem with both of those techniques is as soon as a person not under
surveillance, they're going to eat bacon or as soon as the thought of that movie star is
out of their mind, they're gonna have a big steak.

But if you persuade somebody by means of internalisation, then you don't need
surveillance. You don't need the relevance of the relationship, but you don't need to
have people thinking about some celebrity. But whenever they eat, because they've
been persuaded by these arguments and they've internalized them as part of their own
belief system, they will not eat meat whenever they eat at all. There are thoughts about
veganism or vegetarian will be relevant. And since they've been persuaded by this
mechanism of internalisation those attitudes will come up and they will decide not to eat
meat. So this is advantage of Internalisation. But it's difficult. You must have
credibility. You must have the arguments on your side. And a lot of times people are not
necessarily that amenable to rational persuasion.
You can just look at the world around you, look at politics, look at a lot of different issues
that we face in the world. And you can see that rational persuasion does not always
work. And that's why we see the frequent use of these other mechanisms of influence,
namely compliance and identification.

6. Use of all three techniques on same Issue

In fact, it's possible to use all three techniques on the same issue, really on the same
group of people. In fact, this is done a lot.
Example- Application of all three techniques on Cigarette Smoking

a. Under Compliance

For cigarette smoking, insurance companies and our employers and anyone who might
have to pay for our health care. They really don't want us to smoke cigarettes. They
often use a form of compliance influence because insurance companies on our
employers have the power to offer rewards and punishments in the form of higher
insurance premiums or lower insurance premiums. If we do or we don't smoke, and they
can test our blood or our urine to see if we've been smoking cigarettes. So that's
surveillance. And you can give rewards and punishments in the form of higher or lower
insurance premiums. So, you can use compliance as a mechanism of influence to
discourage people from smoking.
b. Under Identification

You can also use Identification. You can get a famous celebrity or somebody, a famous
athlete to talk about how they quit smoking and how smoking is an unattractive habit
and they can use that power of their attractiveness. People will want to be like them and
say, oh, I love that celebrity, I admire that athletes so much. I want to be like them, and
they don't smoke. So, I should stop smoking, too.
c. Under Internalization

At the same time, you can offer rational arguments. You could say smoking causes lung
cancer and kidney cancer and bladder cancer and colon cancer. And it causes heart
disease and it causes strokes and so on. And you can give people all sorts of statistics
and it costs a lot of money and it makes you smell bad. And you can get a credible
scientist or a public health expert to talk about those arguments.

And in fact, we do all three of these things. Smoking is such a big public health problem
that we try all three mechanisms of social influence to produce the kinds of behavior
change that we're looking for.

A famous article by Herbert Kelman about three mechanisms of social influence,

compliance, identification and internalization. The article hard to Believe written in
1958, still extremely relevant even today. And these mechanisms of social influence still
being used all the time, all around us, everywhere we look.