Do you rely more on advice or experience?

It depends, say researchers, on your genetic makeup.  A quick example: a good friend recommends that you buy some technology stocks, or start shopping at a popular local retailer.  But you’ve had negative experiences with both. Which way do you go?  Do you rely on the advice, or your personal experience?

Apparently, it depends, in part, on your biological makeup, according to a new study out of Brown University.  The researchers, according to David Orenstein, Life Science professor at Brown, “have found that specific genetic variations can predict how persistently people will believe advice they are given, even when it is contradicted by experience.”   The study, reported last month in the Journal of Neuroscience, explored how two brain regions process incoming data.  As Orenstein explains it: “The prefrontal cortex (PFC), the executive area of the brain, considers and stores income instructions such as the advice of other people (e.g., ‘Don’t sell those stocks.’) The striatum, buried deeper in the brain, is where people process experience to learn what to do (e.g., ‘Those stocks often go up after I sell them.’)

Orenstein, citing work by Michael Frank, Brown’s assistant professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences, explained: “It turns out that in a learning task, people are guided more by advice at the start. Their genes determine how long it takes before they let the lessons of experience prevail.” Added Orenstein: “Like a ‘yes man’ who is flexible to a fault, the striatum would give more weight to experiences that reinforced the PFC’s belief, and less weight to experiences that contradicted it. Researchers call this confirmation bias, which is ubiquitous across many domains, such as astrology, politics, and even science.”

Frank adds: “It’s funny because we are telling a story about how these genes lead to maladaptive performance, but that’s actually reflective of a system that evolved to be that way for an adaptive reason. . . . This phenomenon of confirmation bias might actually just be a byproduct of a system that tries to be more efficient with the learning process.”