Vaalikoneen käyttö ja mielen heuristiikat

Authors

• Vesa Jaakkola

Abstract

When the voter is choosing a candidate in elections using voting advice applications, will the decision be based on rational judgement of interest or values or is the decision more arbitrary or emotional? This question is still topical but it leads easily to situations where research focuses only on conditions which weaken rationality. This ignores heuristics which is the most significant mechanism of the human mind in decision-making and judgement. The background of this qualitative study is the tradition of bounded rationality and heuristics for judging, initiated by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. From this starting point empirical evidence is presented on factors that influence selection decision and heuristics behind inference processes. The study was carried out during the European Parliament elections in 2009. Fifteen persons used the voting advice application while the interviewer asked them to justify their answers. To be able to study the effect of age on the appearance of heuristics, six of the fifteen selected voters were under 18 years old. Every answer (overall 338) and its justification was analysed according to the theories of heuristics. In general, it can be said that voters feel more or less uncertain while answering the questions of the voting advice application and easily resort to heuristic reasoning. A great deal of heuristics was found in the inference process which affected the quality and content of information that the users were able to get from the voting advice application.