It doesn't matter to the subconscious if its mistaken and the behavior is self-destructive or even dangerous, so long as it thinks it is fulfilling its basic drive to keep you safe amongst your tribe.

We're hard-wired for social conformity, even when doing so may present an immediate danger to our safety. This phenomenon is well-known, and is illustrated in a social experiment overseen by psychology professor Dominic Abrams in which researchers attempt to answer the following question.

"Behaving differently from your group can make you an outcast. But what would you do if you knew your group was entirely wrong? Would you, for example, sit in a burning room, just because everyone else does?" – Dangerous Conformity

In a hotel room rigged with hidden cameras and microphones, participants in a staged internet marketing event attempt to influence the survival instincts of another by pretending to ignore smoke and smoke alarms in a conference room with eight people.

In short, when the participant was alone in the room when the smoke appeared, their survival instincts kicked in and they left the dangerous situation quickly, even abandoning their possessions. When the participants was in the room with seven other people who pretended to ignore the smoke, the participant did nothing, staying in the room on an average of thirteen minutes, long enough to have killed them in a real fire.