Well, there’s reason to think it is. Or at least, is for original, insightful questions; anybody can come up with “can I have more time off?”. We live in a society that rewards reliably doing and saying whatever you’re told to, and critical thinking (which isn’t just skepticism!) is super rare when tested for. A lot of college kids with good grades got there because they learned to mindlessly repeat whatever stuff back when tested.

Why that’s rewarded so much, and if there’s a way to encourage and teach actual independent though, are great questions, but that’s not really relevant here.

Also, I think that behavior is more related to the employer creating an environment where employees feel safe doing that

It’s also a big factor. Since that reply, it’s come up that OP isn’t actually management, but just does interviews. So, maybe they’re looking more for a good colleague than a good employee.

If memory serves, Google used to use these kind of questions, but they stopped because that isn’t actually what they wanted or needed in their workers. A code monkey doesn’t need to question anything, in the end.