An fMRI scan of their brain activity showed that the independent decision-making lobe essentially shut down. “An expert speaks, and it’s as if we stop thinking for ourselves. It’s a pretty scary idea,” she wrote. It’s especially scary given that many experts’ records aren’t so good, as Hertz details: that doctors misdiagnose one out of six cases, that market indexes beat 70 percent of mutual-fund managers, and that individuals are less likely to make errors on self-prepared tax returns than when they hire tax advisers. Backfire effects further reinforce groupthink, priming, and confirmation
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