[ramchip]

I work this kind of hours right now, but I think you're wrong about the motives for most people. I don't care about security (not thinking of staying in the long term, no wife/kids to support) and I see no moral superiority in working more. But I do get strong pressure from above to stay late (X is urgent, "you're not leaving the office before Y is done", team calls being scheduled after hours regularly, etc), and there's always the social pressure. It feels bad going home early when I know teammates have to stay behind to finish their stuff.

[kyllo]

Yeah, if it's just the culture of the place, then of course there is strong social pressure and guilt-tripping that compels you to stay late like the others do. If you go against an organizational culture of staying late, your coworkers will likely resent you, your boss will think you are lazy or insubordinate, and you are probably going to be the proverbial nail that sticks out and gets hammered down. Better to just put up or leave.

I was referring to cases where it isn't necessarily the norm of the organization to stay late every day, but a few people do it anyway, for their own reasons.

Another possibility--their home life sucks and they would rather be at the office anyway. Sad, but sometimes true.