Kelman’s tripartite model organizes advances in research on social influence and clinical outcomes. Recent years have produced important advances in the field’s understanding of compliance, identification, and internalization. In compliance research, normative feedback has, under some conditions, altered clinically relevant behaviors, including drug abuse and gambling. In identification research, the therapeutic alliance has predicted 5–30 percent of the variance in clinical outcomes. Evidence suggests a causal relationship between alliance and outcomes, and that ruptured alliances can be repaired. Internalization theories from basic science have generated little recent clinical application research, but a clinician-developed approach to internalization, motivational interviewing, has generated substantial recent research. Though mixed, enough evidence supports motivational interviewing to warrant additional research.
Brief Motivational Interviewing and Normative Feedback for Adolescents: Change Language and Alcohol Use Outcomes