INTERNALIZE

[UK and ANZ] usually -ise [verb] [T] - to accept or absorb (esp. a way of behaving or thinking) as your own, often from repeated experience, so that it becomes a natural and important part of your characterHe had not expected the people so readily to internalize the values of democracy and to develop a strong rejection of the values of a totalitarian system.There is some evidence to suggest that children who are abused by their parents internalize violent behaviour through social learning and in turn are violent towards their children.To internalize is also to absorb feelings within yourself and not to express them to other people."I internalized a lot of the pressures at the New Yorker in those early years," he says.Women tend to internalize all their anxiety and distress - men hit out.