{"id":34449,"date":"2011-04-24T15:44:44","date_gmt":"2011-04-24T15:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/genes-may-influence-how-often-people-follow-bad-advice-80beats\/"},"modified":"2011-04-24T15:44:44","modified_gmt":"2011-04-24T15:44:44","slug":"genes-may-influence-how-often-people-follow-bad-advice-80beats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/genes-may-influence-how-often-people-follow-bad-advice-80beats.php","title":{"rendered":"Genes May Influence How Often People Follow Bad Advice | 80beats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>What&rsquo;s the News:<\/strong> Researchers have found that whether people stick with advice they were given, even when their own experience contradicts it, is linked to their genes, according to a new <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jneurosci.org\/content\/31\/16\/6188.abstract\">study<\/a> published online in the <em>Journal of Neuroscience<\/em>. These findings suggest a possible genetic component of <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Confirmation_bias\">confirmation bias<\/a>, the tendency to focus on new information that agrees with what you already know, and ignore information that contradicts your views.<\/p><p><strong>How the Heck:<\/strong><\/p><p> The researchers gathered saliva samples from more than 70 participants. They then analyzed each person&rsquo;s genotype, focusing on two genes that impact the activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine, known to play an important role in learning, in one of two regions of the brain: the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Prefrontal_cortex\">prefrontal cortex<\/a> or the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Striatum\">striatum<\/a>. The prefrontal cortex stores and processes explicit instructions (e.g., &ldquo;Always wear sunscreen&rdquo;), while the striatum helps us glean lessons from our experience (e.g., &ldquo;When I forget my sunscreen, I often get burned&rdquo;).<br>Each participant then played a game in which they would see two symbols (taken from the Japanese <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hiragana\">hiragana<\/a> alphabet, unfamiliar to most English speakers) on a screen and have to choose the &ldquo;correct&rdquo; symbol; they&rsquo;d then get feedback so they could learn to ...<\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/sF2eLSbvyhV6Qt8xy-cOihwQgNQ\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/b3e04_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><br><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/sF2eLSbvyhV6Qt8xy-cOihwQgNQ\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/b3e04_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/b3e04_tvay-RYqedg\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/b3e04_-SMgi1wq97I\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What&rsquo;s the News: Researchers have found that whether people stick with advice they were given, even when their own experience contradicts it, is linked to their genes, according to a new study published online in the Journal of Neuroscience. These &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/genes-may-influence-how-often-people-follow-bad-advice-80beats.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}