Социология: 4М. № 29

Sociology: Methodology, Methods, Mathematical Modeling # 29 (2009)

SUMMARY

DEVIATKO I.F. «On Theoretical Models Explaining the Perception of Justice on Micro, Meso and Macro Levels of Social Reality»: An attempt is made to substantiate a possibility of creating a multilevel theoretical model describing context-dependent differences in distributive justice perception and evaluation. A tentative typology of institutional contexts of social justice perception and justice-related reasoning pertaining to different levels of social organiza­tion (from micro- to macro-) is proposed. Secondary analysis of variegated empirical data on justice perception demonstrates the substantial explanatory potential of the neo-evolutionary level-based approach to development of context theories of social justice perception.

Key words: the perception of justice, multilevel explanatory model, neo-evolutionary approach, context-dependent theories of justice perception, social justice.

KULIKOVA A.A. «Causality in Latent Structure Analysis and Structural Equations Modeling»: This article is devoted to the analysis of methodological foundations of popular mathematical models in social research such as latent-structure analysis and structural equations modeling. We consider «latent» as a central sociological methodological term and examine its connection with the ideas of «causality» and «explanatory model». The description of two different ways of causality treating in sociological methodology is presented in the article.

Key words: latent structure analysis, structural equations modeling, causality, explanatory model, causal explanation, latent variable, path analysis.

BOLSHOV E.S. «Discriminant Analysis for Forecasting Behavior of Undecided Voters»: This paper analyzes usability of discriminant analysis for forecasting behavior of undecided voters in preelection polls. Formal and sub­stantive conditions of the method using are described. The forecasting data of elections of Ukraine President, Ukraine Parliament and Kiev mayor are cited.

Key words: discriminant analysis, preelection poll, undecided voters, election forecast.

MERIMERINA M.A. «The Experience of typological analysis using for the phenomenon of optimism/pessimism study»: The article presents the results of the typological analysis using for extracting groups of respondents depending on optimistic or pessimistic way of outward things perception. The type-forming attributes were the satisfaction of life, views on future and happiness feeling. There was also revealed the specific character of going through the time by respondents of the typological groups.

Key words: optimism, pessimism, typological analysis, type-forming attributes, character of going through the time, nostalgia, presentism, futurism.

KARPOVA V.M. «The scenarios of population ageing dependent on demographic policy»: The demographic situation in modern Russia and the trends of its changing make the study of demographic processes, their trends and the possibility of influencing them more and more actual. One of the methods to complete this task is imitation modeling which allows imitating the life of a population depending on different hypotheses about demographic policy. By using this method four prognostic scenarios are studied in the article. As a main criterion of population dynamic, a load on able-bodied population which is an indicator of economic consequences of choosing one or another variant of demographic policy is used.

Key words: the demographic situation, ageing of population, imitation modeling, forecasting.

KOSTIN V.S., YERMAKHANOVA S.A. «Statistical Experiment as used for Testing of Paired Association Analysis Adequacy»: The article is devoted to the method of complete search for paired association between different types of variables on the base of the «object-values» data table. There was proposed a technique for verifying the applicability of methods of paired association analysis. The technique is based on a series of statistical experiments with data mixed up in each iteration. A hypothesis about existence of paired association in the whole data array was formulated and verified on sample data.

Key words: measures of association, analysis of variance, chi-square, hypergeometric distribution, significance of association, significance distribution, statistical experiment.

PUZANOVA Zh.V. «Loneliness as a Subject of Empirical Sociological Studies»: The article deals with possibilities of study and analysis of loneliness phenomenon in whole, it’s multiformity on various levels of perception and comprehension using the example of retrieval empirical research.

Key words: loneliness, loneliness experience, personal meaning, semantic space, sentence completion method.

TROTSUK I.V. «Experts ‘Refusal’ to Be Competent as a Methodical Problem»: The article identifies main difficulties of expert semi-structured interview. Such problems may arise even when the expert status of respondents is out of question, but they still tend to deny their competence in the thematic field agreed for discussion. These denials of competence seem to be caused by too lay questions and the structure of the guide ignoring the expert community differentiation.

Key words: expert interview, competency, semi-structured interview, experts ‘refusal’ to be competent, second-order of question, incompetence of question.

TERESCHENKO O.V. «Cohort Analysis Method in Social Research»: The paper is presented in the form of answering the questions arising from the adoption the cohort analysis method to social research. The role of this method in repeated cross-sectional as well as longitudinal research is considered. And also advantages of cohort analysis in studying changes in behavior and opinion of different age groups during the time are demonstrated.

Key words: cohort, cohort analysis, cohort effect, age effect, time effect, monitoring,  panel research, longitudinal research.