From BBC, What it takes to stand up to authority
Most people do what authority figures tell them to - even when they disagree. The reason, it turns out, is hidden in the brain. The good news? It can be changed.
By Martha Henriques 13 July 2018
Intro:

We like to think we’d do the right thing in a tough situation. We’d stand up to our boss when necessary, step in if we saw someone being bullied, and say no if we were asked to do something we felt was wrong. It’s tempting to think we have an innate moral compass that guides our actions, even under pressure from others.

In reality, however, most of us are remarkably bad at standing up to authority. New research is revealing why this is, giving us insight into how the brain deals with - or fails to deal with - these difficult situations. Ultimately, the research could show us how we can train ourselves to become stronger-minded and better able to stick to our guns when needed.

In experiments by social neuroscientist Emilie Caspar at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, volunteers gave each other electric shocks. (The research follows in the footsteps of the notorious experiments of Stanley Milgram in the 1960s, but in a more ethically and scientifically rigorous way.)
[snip]

In the late 60s, I volunteered as a test subject in some psych testing involving electric shocks (to me). I was informed that the testing was funded by NASA and was aimed at understanding how physical stress affected mental and motor skills performance. If there was any authority compliance testing involved, I was unaware of it.