青年期における「社会化 (socialization) 」の過程は, 社会が青年に要請する問題をとおして具体化されると考えられる。なかでも重要な問題は, 経済的自立と政治的自立の問題である。前者は進学・就職, 結婚等の具体的問題に, 後者は国民主権による必然的要請としての参政権の行使という問題に青年が接近する過程で獲得する。
これまでの青年心理学における研究の多くは, 前者に比重がおかれ, 後者 (政治的社会化) についての研究はきわめて少なく, わずかにHyman, H.(1959), Greenstein, F. 1.(1965), Hess, R. D. and Torney, J. V.(1968) の研究などがみられるにすぎない*。また本邦における青年心理学に関する文献目録の中からは発見することができない状況である (津留宏 (1969) 作成の文献目録) **。
社会心理学の領域で進められている政治的態度に関する多くの研究についてみても, その形成過程の研究は, 重要性が指摘されながらも, いまだに明らかにされていないことが指摘されている (三宅一郎ほか (1967))。
本研究は, 青年が即自的問題としての経済的自立を獲得する過程でいかなる政治的指向を求めているかを発達的に検討することを目的とする。

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(1) Shimane Prefecture is an agricultural area in which the inhabitants engage, for the most part, in the primary industry. According to the post-war elections of Members of the House of Representatives in this agricultural electoral district, the voting rate is high and the votes go largely to the conservative camp in comparison with the reformist group. Moreover this polling pattern in the nine post-war elections has not undergone as large a change as in metropolitan districts, but the reformist votes have been increasing gradually and this tendency became clear especially after the organization of the Ikeda Cabinet. This paper proposes to make these objective facts clear, based on the materials obtained in the five inquiries for the last five years.
(2) When we classify the degrees of voters' interest in political affairs into three categories of ‘positive interest’, ‘passive interest’ and ‘indifference’, the possessors of positive interest constitute the 50-60 per cent of voters in any place, and those of passive interest and those who are politically indifferent forming the rest. Those latter are also mobilized to the polls, and thus the high voting rate of almost 85 per cent is usual in the Elections of Members of the House of Representatives.
(3) In rural districts where the sense of communal life is still strong, those who belong to the latter categories are compelled to conform with the political opinions and behaviors of the leading persons (‘bosses’) and, when the so-called cross-pressures are extended, are inclined to yield to these pressures even by deliberately dividing the family votes. The bosses are those who dominate local government and economy, and the order of a local self-governing body which is organized by them tends to control political awareness and behavior of those who belong to the two categories of passive interest and indifference. This very fact stimulates politically indifferent people to vote for specific candidates (generally conservatives) whom the bosses support. And it can be said that this voting behavior of these electorates helps to bring about the high voting rate and the high polling score of the conservative party. At the same time the campaign conducted by the Election Administration Committee for the prevention of abstention from voting is operating to raise the voting rate side by side with the psychological pressures from bosses on these electorates.
(4) Nearly half of those who take a positive interest in politics cast their votes for the reformist group even in Shimane Prefecture, and the votes of those who have belonged to the categories of passive interest and indifference go mostly to the conservative camp. But, the growing poverty of farming families accompanied by the recent high rate of growth of Japan's national economy and the following out of the rural population from Shimane Prefecture into other industrial districts, are now bringing about the disturbance of the traditional order in rural districts and the decrease of the authority of the bosses. Then those who have belonged to the classes of passive interest and indifference are now being freed from the solid conservative supremacy through the influence of mass media (television, in particular) and of the activities of some labour union members. Thus their votes are becoming more and more floating votes, and it is a serious problem for every Japanese political party whether these votes will eventually become fixed as votes for the conservative party or for the reformist group.

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This article tries to capture Japanese public attitudes toward equality through public opinion surveys. Orientation toward equality in an advanced society with free-market economy is theoretically assumed to be equivalent to social welfare orientation. Therefore, orientation toward equality is theoretically expected to be correlated with the progressive vs. conservative political orientation, namely the ideological orientation. But, we found very little correlation between Japanese attitudes toward equality/welfare and political ideology over time. This suggests that the Japanese Socialist Party (JSP) could never gain a large scale of support mainly because the Socialists could not represent the people's interests for equality. However, our more statistically rigorous approach of confirmatory factor analyses across different populations utilizing SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) technique provided slightly different findings. In 1983, Japanese attitudes toward equality vs. laissez-faire were not correlated with attitudes toward the JSP or with the LDP. In 1993, they were related only with attitudes toward the LDP. In 1996, they became related with both attitudes toward the LDP and the JSP. Because of Japan's bad economy, by the mid 1990s Japanese public came to relate their attitudes toward equality with their political (party) preferences.

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