若年層における候補者選択の基準―「見た目」と「政策」に注目したサーベイ実験より―

抄録

　This study examines how the appearance of candidates and campaign pledges affects voting in younger generations. Regarding the mechanism of political decision-making in teen voters in Japan, previous research divided young voters into two sides: politically immature or mature. However, which side is valid is indecisive. To test the hypothesis, whether teens can make the "right choice" based on campaign pledges, rather than looks, we conducted a randomized survey experiment targeted at young ages in Japan (n=1929). In this experiment, we prepared promises that randomly combined five age-different looks of candidates and policies that focused on benefits for young voters. And subjects selected the most profitable candidates from five candidates. The result of the experiment showed that people in their twenties choose candidates whose pledges are closer to their benefit, whereas teens select candidates based on their own benefit when the candidate looks young. This result suggests not only that increasing the voting rate but also political education is important for the enlightenment of teens.