Beyond Compliance and Acceptance: Influence Outcomes as a Function of Norm Plausibility and Processing Mode

A model that can account for influence outcomes beyond the compliance-acceptance dichotomy and that illuminates important conceptual ties between individual and group influence is proposed and tested. In a problem-solving setting, participants who were able to systematically process information complied with implausible majority responses and accepted plausible majority responses. Acceptance generalized to related items and persisted over time. Participants who were unable to systematically process information accepted majority responses, although acceptance neither generalized to related items nor exhibited other characteristics of effortful processing. The latter form of acceptance emerged regardless of norm plausibility, revealing an unanticipated influence outcome, blind acceptance. Discussion centers on implications toward an integrated model of individual-group influence.