From a Survey on Japanese Moral Awareness
December 2006
An analysis of the Survey on Japanese Moral Awareness conducted in July 2006 revealed that the more sensitive to breaches of moral one is, the more likely he will tolerate them.
The poll surveyed people’s “degree of acceptance” on seven behaviors such as “using mobile phone at or near the priority seat,” asking them to rate their tolerance in four levels, from “no tolerance at all” to “I see no problem with it.” They were also asked to rate three behaviors among the seven in terms of “degree of reality,” or whether they think people actually do such things, in four levels from “no one actually does such a thing” to “people including myself often do it.”
The result as a whole revealed that 92% of the respondents had a “low degree of acceptance” and 5% had a “high degree of acceptance.” Looking at their “degree of reality,“ 97% of those who displayed a “low degree of reality” had a “low degree of acceptance,” while 13% of those who displayed a “high degree reality,” had a “high degree of acceptance.” These percentages were high enough to observe a statistically-significant difference. People with a “high degree of reality,” or those who are sensitive to “breaches of moral,” are likely to tolerate such behaviors, and those who with “a low degree of reality” are likely not to tolerate such behaviors.
People often use an excuse that you can do it “because everyone else does” before breaching a moral. Driving under the influence of alcohol is becoming a major social problem. Such mindset may be to blame for never-decreasing number of drink-driving cases.