Das Konzept der Internalisierung — eine spieltheoretische Analyse

In seinem Buch „The Social System“ schreibt Talcott Parsons: „Attachment to common values means, motivationally considered, that the actors have common ‘sentiments’ in support of the value patterns, which may be defined as meaning that conformity with the relevant expectations is treated as a ‘good thing’ relatively independently of any specific instrumental ‘advantage’ to be gained from such conformity, e.g. the avoidance of negative sanctions.“ (1951: 41) In einer Fußnote erläutert er: „A sentiment thus involves the internalization of cultural patterns.“ Der für seine Arbeiten über die Stufen der moralischen Entwicklung bekannte Psychologe Lawrence Kohlberg definiert Internalisierung in einem Beitrag zur International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences als „learning to conform to rules in situations that arouse impulses to transgress and that lack surveillance and sanctions“ (1968: 483).