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The aim of this article is to explore the various ways in which people represent social groups. The author shows that a prominent role in such processes is played by psychological essentialism. People represent some of their social identities as inherent qualities that are based on the sharing of a presumed 'essence': something unobservable, diffi cult to remove, irreversible, and causally responsible for overt behaviours. Empirical evidence suggests that no particular causal process of essence acquisition is constitutive for essentialism in folk models of society. Some authors believe that folk essentialism is necessarily connected with the presumed innateness of an essence (its biological transmission across generations). Innate potential and biological inheritance, however powerful they may be for the human cognitive mind in the domain of folk models for biology, are far from necessary in essentialist folksociological classifications. Essentialism in folk sociology is not defined by any particular causal process of essence acquisition. Even when it is possible to detect that a given group of people claim the innate essence of a particular folk sociology, it is always necessary to look for other features of essentialism (inherence, sharp boundaries, the immutability of identity, etc.). The article reviews some influential cognitive proposals concerning folk models of society (Astuti, Gil-White, Hirschfeld) and ethnicity, and provides arguments and empirical evidence collected in Western Ukraine in support of the claim that presumed innateness is not the constitutive part of folk models of society, let alone of psychological essentialism.

The Lisbon revision of the primary law led to the confirmation of the pre-existing Commission's commitment to carry out 'broad consultations' while preparing European legislative acts. The aim of this article is to elucidate formulation of the Commission's public consultation practice and evaluate positions of the interest groups to the Commission's strategy. The attention is accorded to the analysis of the consultation's level of formalization and inclusivity, the two principal consultation' components. The analysis is built upon the study of the selected interest groups' positions brought forward during the years 2002-2012 and upon the reaction of the Commission to the interest groups' feedback. The available empirical data suggests that the interest groups appreciated the introduction of the minimum standards for consultation, however, they have been steadily alerting to their frequent breach and arbitrary application. Adapted from the source document.

The objective of this article is to show how issues concerning women in science and the problem of gendered science, often treated separately, are interconnected. To examine how research on women in science and research on gender and science relate to each other, some feminist epistemological perspectives, mainly feminist contextual empiricism, are used in order to show how the feminist philosophical conceptual framework may be useful for understanding the problems currently faced by women in science. After reflecting and elaborating on the very thesis of gendered science, the author analyses in more detail the concept of epistemic communities and the concept of trust as an epistemic factor. Through these concepts the author argues that philosophical/epistemological considerations are fruitful for studying the experience of individual women in science. Both of these interrelated concepts are considered highly relevant in the search for an epistemological framework facilitating the thematic study of women in science on a theoretical level and research on the current situation of women in the academic world in Slovakia.

The survey consists of two parts: 1. Post-election survey within the international comparative study which has been working for several decades under the title Comparative Studies of Electoral Systems (CSES, www.cses.org). In 2016, it was the implementation of Module 4 focused - in addition to standard electoral questions - on issues of redistribution. 2) survey within the frame of the International Social Research Program (ISSP, www.issp.org http://www.issp.org), namely module Role of the Government, implemented in Slovakia for the second time, the first one was in 2008. Both parts have joint socio-demographic identification variables. Post-election survey is focused on broad variety of factors related to electoral decision - the perception of political parties and their leaders, the satisfaction with democracy, evaluation of economic development, and aspects of election campaign. The Role of Government survey is focused on attitudes to government's competences, in general and specifically in relation to other actors - NGOs, private sector, church organizations and alike. Several questions deal with the public views on corruption, responsiveness, tax policies, interest in politics and other.
The survey also includes several questions that in the form of "split ballot" experimentally verify the validity of questions frequently used in the surveys, as well as scales and responses´ alternatives. These so-called "methodological experiments" are included in all data collections conducted within the APVV-14-0527 project, their results will be elaborated in a separate study.

"The aim of this paper is to introduce one of the classical sociological research conducted by Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz in the city of Decatur (Illinois) in the Midwest of United States in 1955. The subject of the research was nonformal everyday interpersonal influence in areas of marketing, fashion, public affairs and movie going and the object was the population of women older 16 years (n = 718). By means of indicators of life cycle, social status and gregariousness the research report describes the profiles of opinion leaders in given areas and provides an answer to question if the two step flow of communication hypotheses is applicable in mentioned spheres of social life." (author's abstract)

The survey Values and Society During the Covid-19 Pandemic (HODYSE 2020) was designed and conducted by researchers at the Institute for Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences to obtain up-to-date data on public opinion in six thematic areas: social trust, politics and democracy, conspiracy theories, vaccination, environment and leisure.
The year 2020 was a year of significant socio-political changes. Since the beginning of the year, the most important topic in the public debate and in the media has been the global pandemic of COVID-19 disease. The pandemic became a central issue of both the ending and the new government after the parliamentary elections in February 2020.
Findings from opinion polls have allowed us to capture how a pandemic has changed the traditional view of values, and how traditionally examined values have taken on new meanings. The data also document the severity of the pandemic situation during which the research was conducted (November 2020). In this context, the topics that resonated most in the public debate on COVID-19 were addressed - questions about vaccination, health concerns and the economic situation of respondents, or compliance with the measures.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) meets the criterions of a multinational state - on its territory there live more than three ethnic groups and with respect to their territorial distribution these nationalities have a certain degree of influence on the internal situation in the PRC. The majority nation in the PRC is comprised of the Han nation (92% of the population according to the 1990 census data). The relatively high homogenity of Chinese population might lead to an underestimation of the ethnic question in contemporary China. As the minority populations inhabit sensitive strategic border areas with rich natural resources, this problem should not be overlooked. (SOI : MO: S. 94)