>>1250
It's not all that common but it certainly does happen. It's not socially acceptable but a lot of the time people aren't even aware of it, and if they are, they pretend not to be.
>>1254
>>1258
The bystander effect is that people won't do the right thing in a crowd because they expect somebody else from the crowd to do it.
One way to think of it is in terms of costs. There is a cost to not intervening (the bad thing keeps happening) and to intervening (you are put at risk). When we think that the cost of not intervening is greater than the cost of intervening, we intervene. However, when there are more people, we assume that they might intervene. Then the cost of not intervening is decreased; whereas when alone, it's ~100% that the bad thing will keep happening, if we assume that other bystanders will have a 50% chance (for example) of intervening, then we calculate the chance that the bad thing will keep happening to be halved for each bystander. The more bystanders there are, the more we think that somebody else will do it, and so the lower we think the cost of not intervening becomes. Obviously the problem with this process is that bystanders probably don't have a 50% chance of intervening (or whatever chance we assume), and that chance only drops the more there are (because of this very effect affecting the thoughts of other bystanders). So the chance that the bad thing will keep happening actually drops far less than we think it does, and then our comparison of the costs of intervening versus not intervening will be wrong.
All that side, I don't think that the bystander effect is relevant, however, because the typical Japanese take on the matter is that stepping in simply isn't the right thing to do in the first place.
>>2483
The Japanese attitude is mostly that turning an issue in to more people's issue is making the issue worse.
One way to think about it is that while it's already a problem for the victim and maybe for bystanders, interfering makes it more likely to be a bigger problem for more bystanders, and in addition to that, a bigger problem for the victim because now not only have they been molested, but also, in receiving help, they've disturbed bystanders because a scene has been made; it doesn't matter that it's not their fault or that it's not them making the scene, just that they are benefiting from the scene being made.
For this reason, it's generally seen as better not to interfere. Of course there's no hard and fast rule, but if you want a basic guideline: don't intervene. Also, I've heard that Osakans are less likely to mind their own business (which may be good and bad).
>>2489
This post is wrong.