How Expert Advice Influences Decision Making

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2012 Nov 28

PMID 23185425

Citations 26

Authors

Dar Meshi

Guido Biele

Christoph W Korn

Hauke R Heekeren

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

People often use expert advice when making decisions in our society, but how we are influenced by this advice has yet to be understood. To address this, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we provided expert and novice advice to participants during an estimation task. Participants reported that they valued expert advice more than novice advice, and activity in the ventral striatum correlated with this valuation, even before decisions with the advice were made. When using advice, participants compared their initial opinion to their advisor's opinion. This comparison, termed the "opinion difference", influenced advice utilization and was represented in reward-sensitive brain regions. Finally, the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex integrated both the size of the opinion difference and the advisor's level of expertise, and average activity in this area correlated with mean advice utilization across participants. Taken together, these findings provide neural evidence for how advice engenders behavioral change during the decision-making process.

Citing Articles

A meta-analysis of the weight of advice in decision-making.

Bailey P, Leon T, Ebner N, Moustafa A, Weidemann G Curr Psychol. 2024; 42(28):24516-24541.

PMID: 39711945 PMC: 11661855. DOI: 10.1007/s12144-022-03573-2.

Cognitive and Emotional Factors Influencing the Incorporation of Advice Into Decision Making Across the Adult Lifespan.

Leon T, Weidemann G, Kneebone I, Bailey P J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2024; 79(7).

PMID: 38738919 PMC: 11212316. DOI: 10.1093/geronb/gbae080.

Neuroeconomics of decision-making during COVID-19 pandemic.

Bashir S, Mir A, Altwaijri N, Uzair M, Khalil A, Albesher R Heliyon. 2023; 9(2):e13252.

PMID: 36744067 PMC: 9882954. DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e13252.

Characterization of the Core Determinants of Social Influence From a Computational and Cognitive Perspective.

Lee H, Chung D Front Psychiatry. 2022; 13:846535.

PMID: 35509882 PMC: 9059935. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.846535.

Trusting and learning from others: immediate and long-term effects of learning from observation and advice.

Hertz U, Bell V, Raihani N Proc Biol Sci. 2021; 288(1961):20211414.

PMID: 34666522 PMC: 8527195. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2021.1414.

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