Yeah one of the take-away interpretations I’ve always heard of it is the implication that the deferral to an authority figure led people to conscientiously proceed with administering fatal shocks. But this additional detail suggests that conscientiousness is actually negatively correlated with following through to the point of ethical compromise and it is, in fact, the less conscientious people who were rushing to just do what was asked of them.

This does suggest that subjects who are bought into and understand the purpose behind what they’re doing, and are attentive to how the specific tasks they’re doing tie into the bigger picture, are more likely to be actively engaging their judgement as they go. And subjects who are just trying to follow the tasks as given to them are sort of washing their hands of the outcomes as long as they’re following the directions (which is, ironically, causing them to fail at following the directions too).