One of the things in today's life that I abhor is the continued use of the term "leader" to describe our politicians. Anyone that buys into the cult of the elected as leaders is simply passing off their responsibility for their own lives and happiness.

1. Most people do not think things out. db tells a story of an engineer he worked with, who had been at this company 10+ years and one day he said, "you know, I'm not sure I like working for a company that makes things that kill people."
2. experts appeal. This is dependent on the dominant ideology. In Universities, it has been that reason is impotent. Somehow, a small group of "experts" are the only ones who can understand this and you should not question their reasoning. In fact, it's an asset that you are surrounded by "experts" that let you focus on things you want to and just absorb their analysis through media.
3. Don't think as individuals and nurture social systems that hold altruism as a standard of living (Comte). This is what we fight worldwide.
http://www.altruists.org/about/altruism/...

I've always followed the adage, 'Always question authority.' I simply don't accept that anyone has authority over me unless I grant that authority, and I don't know that I've ever met or heard of another that I would trust with that power.

And yeah, it's caused me difficulty in dozens of situations throughout my life. But I would rather have had the difficulty that just accept that anyone had automatic or positional authority over me.

KYFHO

People want to feel secure. Others promise this security. It could be a voluntary trade until some unwanted initiation of force for the "greater good” of the realm intervenes.
Also at the core is common public training of society's youth as well as religions, which teach “don't think independently, obey the higher powers.”
It is rare that the mystics of the “greater good” will respect individual rights, which include property rights, and the right to own oneself.

I agree with khalling's summary.

We're inclined to make decisions based on things we learned or worked out in the past. Then we rationalize the logic behind them later. When we encounter a new situation like this, it's not normal for us to stop and make a logical and ethical decision. We can overcome this, but we must work at it consciously.

If this experiment had been done to me w/o my having heard of it, I would have not pressed the buzzer b/c it violates the National Electric Code (NEC). Instead of refusing b/c it's wrong, I'd follow some other stupid authority, the NEC. Hopefully having heard about the experiment, I would not participate even if it was something completely new to me. It chills me to think maybe some gov't standard has so much sway.

I can't be sure that w/o knowledge of electricity and the NEC I would not have pressed the buzzer.
http://youtu.be/an1arrfDlYQ

In 2009 they redid the experiment for a British TV show, Horizon. Note the journalist's question near the beginning: would people actually kill over an idea? Believe that an idea was worth killing over? hmmm..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhTo3QmB...