We are like sheep. It's easy to sit back behind a computer and feel like a free thinker, but when it comes to reality and you are outside with a crowd of people, human behavior is predictable. Not too many would think for themselves when confronted with authorative material to guide their thinking.
Ever notice when you are in a crowd how your mindset switches to match the school of fish? I do. One time I was at Disney land and we were walking through the parking lot. Everyone was walking to the escalators. I saw some elevators that were empty, but still I thought that I shouldn't use them because since everyone was headed in the other direction, maybe they knew something I didn't? Well, we headed over there anyway and sure enough it went down to the same place that dropped off the people from the escalator. We got down there faster the rest of the crowd. But what was that hesitation? In hindsight things are more clear, but at the time it is very hard to break out of the group mentality. I call that hesitation, "swarm confusion".