I'm a magician and a developer by training.

Now primarily employed in a marketing capacity.

Over my career I've worked with: - Doctors - Lawyers - Engineers - Fund managers - Academics (hard and soft sciences) - Mentalists/Hypnotists

All of them believed that they're specific training and temperament made them immune from simple persuasion techniques and that they were purely rational actors.

None of them struck me as any more rational/more independent thinkers than anyone else off the street

It is typical to rate yourself above your actual self.

Even when someone rates oneself down like when saying of themself that they're dumb, ugly or whatever, they generally mean it in a lesser fashion than for any other peer they'd attribute as such.

But its not above, its ascribung a mythical ability that does not exist - we don't talk about people who think they are psycic as optimistic, we call them crazy.

these guys are similar, except it's common belief.