We analyze results of public opinion polls of Russian population for a number of years. We solve the task of latent patterns extraction from data arrays and of interpretable public opinion changes revelation. For this we propose such characteristics as opinion distinctness and attitude visibility. We also use the method of principal components for analysis of the combined dynamics of several indices and introduce a measure of their ability to explain their general variation.

public opinion, sociological monitoring, opinion distinctness, attitude visibility, composite index, explanation ability, variables symmetry, method of principal components

Mathematical modelling in actual problems of science and technics