NS FL1 psych question

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Spectar

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The question was:

"What type of conformity do medical students experience when they engage in behavior that they privately feel is unacceptable and unethical, but that is considered normative in medical school?"
A. Compliance
B. Internalization
C. Identification
D. Informational social influence

They stated the answer was A, and continued to define compliance as "when someone privately disagrees with the behavior but publicly conforms." But, I thought that was the exact definition of identification (C)?

Kaplan defined compliance as "a change in behavior based on a direct request" but defined identification as "the outward acceptance of others' ideas without personally taking on these ideas"

TPR defined compliance as "compliant behavior is motivated by the desire to seek reward or avoid punishment. There is likely to be a punishment for disobeying authority."

If anyone could help me clear up these definitions and help me figure this question out,
Thanks

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Hi there! I'd be happy to explain this one (though I'm always happy to hear input from others as well).

First of all, compliance does not necessarily need to be based on a direct request. Compliance occurs when an individual acts according to social pressure, even though he may disagree internally. Specifically, a compliant individual generally disagrees with the "content" of the behavior they are exhibiting, but they behave that way anyway to gain rewards (usually acceptance or praise) and/or avoid punishment (being excluded/looking bad to others around him/etc.).

How does this differ from identification? An important element of identification is that an individual "identifies" with the person giving him/her the social pressure, and typically wants to be like them. With identification, the individual generally comes to agree with the action in question, but the content of the action isn't really important - what's important is that the individual gets to "feel like" or actually further the relationship with the person he identifies with. For example, imagine that a teenager is obsessed with a particular movie star. When that movie star gets a certain haircut, the teenager gets the haircut as well. She never really cared about the haircut in particular, but it allows her to "identify" with the movie star and feel like they have a connection. Over time, she decides that she likes the haircut.

So the definitions you described weren't exactly incorrect, but they made it harder to see the distinction between these terms. Returning to the original question, we don't see any evidence that the medical student wants to "identify" with any particular doctors/other individuals. Instead, it seems like he/she wants to go along with the norms associated with medical school. The MCAT rewards direct answers, and the most direct explanation here is that the student wants to get a reward (acceptance) and avoid punishment associated with deviating from medical school norms, as opposed to wanting to "identify" with some unnamed group or individual. We also know that the medical student strongly disagrees with the described behavior, which goes against our definition of identification (where the content of the behavior isn't as important and is often agreed with in the end). Overall, compliance looks like the best choice.

Let me know if any of this is unclear - and good luck studying! :)
 
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Hi there! I'd be happy to explain this one (though I'm always happy to hear input from others as well).

First of all, compliance does not necessarily need to be based on a direct request. Compliance occurs when an individual acts according to social pressure, even though he may disagree internally. Specifically, a compliant individual generally disagrees with the "content" of the behavior they are exhibiting, but they behave that way anyway to gain rewards (usually acceptance or praise) and/or avoid punishment (being excluded/looking bad to others around him/etc.).

How does this differ from identification? An important element of identification is that an individual "identifies" with the person giving him/her the social pressure, and typically wants to be like them. With identification, the individual generally comes to agree with the action in question, but the content of the action isn't really important - what's important is that the individual gets to "feel like" or actually further the relationship with the person he identifies with. For example, imagine that a teenager is obsessed with a particular movie star. When that movie star gets a certain haircut, the teenager gets the haircut as well. She never really cared about the haircut in particular, but it allows her to "identify" with the movie star and feel like they have a connection. Over time, she decides that she likes the haircut.

So the definitions you described weren't exactly incorrect, but they made it harder to see the distinction between these terms. Returning to the original question, we don't see any evidence that the medical student wants to "identify" with any particular doctors/other individuals. Instead, it seems like he/she wants to go along with the norms associated with medical school. The MCAT rewards direct answers, and the most direct explanation here is that the student wants to get a reward (acceptance) and avoid punishment associated with deviating from medical school norms, as opposed to wanting to "identify" with some unnamed group or individual. We also know that the medical student strongly disagrees with the described behavior, which goes against our definition of identification (where the content of the behavior isn't as important and is often agreed with in the end). Overall, compliance looks like the best choice.

Let me know if any of this is unclear - and good luck studying! :)

Thank you, this cleared it up perfectly.
 
quick question here but is

Compliance
Internalization
Identification

are those forms of conforming? or obedience? or both?
 
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Hi @manohman,

Internalization and identification are ways that conformity can manifest.

Compliance is a different concept entirely. It usually refers to a change in behavior in response to a request -- often explicit, but sometimes implicit (advertising is a common example -- not all advertisements directly state "buy our product!").

Hope this helps!
 
Hi @manohman,

Internalization and identification are ways that conformity can manifest.

Compliance is a different concept entirely. It usually refers to a change in behavior in response to a request -- often explicit, but sometimes implicit (advertising is a common example -- not all advertisements directly state "buy our product!").

Hope this helps!

Hey there, thanks for clarifying this question, but how can it be a "different concept entirely"? The question stem asks specifically "what type of conformity" are the students experiencing, thus implying that compliance too is a way in which conformity is manifested, just like internalization and identification, the difference between the 3 being in the mental state of the individual. Is this an incorrect deduction?
 
Hi @Alpha-ketogluterate -

Yes, I see the point you're making. I'll bring this to our FL team and we'll figure out how to make this question clearer -- it may be better to frame it as "which type of social influence" to avoid this issue. There's significant support for considering conformity and compliance to be related but distinct concepts (e.g., this review or this pedagogical overview), but it doesn't seem like this distinction is always carefully made. Wikipedia, for instance, tends to treat compliance as a subset of conformity, and you can even find published popular science books that treat conformity as a type of compliance.

Interestingly, the official MCAT content outline does not mention compliance specifically, but does give the example of the foot-in-the-door phenomenon (usually classified as compliance) as something to be aware of, so for the purposes of the MCAT, I'd suggest focusing on compliance as a change in behavior in response to explicit or explicit requests (with no necessary consequences in terms of internal mental state), while internalization/identification (as part of conformity) deal with how an individual's internal attitudes shift in response to the situation.

Hope this clarifies things! This is definitely a tricky bit of terminology. An interesting further background point, although not technically necessary for the MCAT, is that "compliant" (or "adherent") has a distinctly different meaning in healthcare (focusing on whether a patient follows a treatment regimen as indicated...).
 
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