Sadly, it isn't just the airline-trained folks that do this.
Despite scads of high-AOA and even some post-stall maneuvering training amongst USAF pointy-nosed pilots, there are still numerous instances of pulling aft when the correct response is to push forward. I can't find the video right now, but there's a great HUD video from a T-38 down at Randolph where the guy was on mile final and dove -- terrible decision -- to miss some birds. The dive was going to put him into the dirt, and instead of pulling to the best AOA (there's an AOA gauge front and center in the '38) to recover, he plants the stick aft to the seat-pan and recovers in a full accelerated stall (1.1 AOA -- the max that can be displayed -- on a system calibrated between 0 and full stall at 1.0).
Unfortunately, it is an instinctual self-preservation reaction, rather than a thought-out action to solve a problem.
I'd love to be up on a high horse and say that training and experience is the antidote to this stuff, but having been frightened in an airplane and having that fright drive me to instinctually perform an action that later (at zero knots and 1G) I realized was completely wrong, I can't do that.
Unfortunately, training and experience is all we have in aviation to fight instincts that are counterproductive. We do this with instrument flying, too, but people still get The Leans, and people still CFIT when they become spatially disoriented and can't fight the vestibular illusions.