For some participants, the responses were all plausible and for others they were all implausible. That is, participants in groups were exposed to either a plausible or implausible norm before they responded. But when the problems were complex, exposure to either type of norm produced private acceptance. In contrast, participants solving the problems alone never selected the implausible response. Blind acceptance can be explained by assuming that participants who were unable to solve the complex problems used cognitive heuristics to aid their judgments.
Heuristics are mental shortcuts cued by situational factors.
They enable individuals to judge the validity of a position without actually thinking about it in depth. Assuming that the norm was correct, participants failed to conduct even a superficial analysis of the problem, one that would have revealed the norm's implausibility. Consequently, they took the clearly wrong answer to be correct and maintained this belief in private. Blind acceptance has interesting theoretical implications. Holzhausen has been an associate professor of psychology at the University of Maine at Fort Kent for six years.