Social mobility as a social regulation of trangression

Abstract

This article aims to explain the results of a longitudinal survey on the modification of subjects’ representations of the economy correlative to their mobility in the social space (upward mobility). Having summarized the main results of the study, we consider, following Doise’s works, that the process of anchoring produces assignment effects between groups and representations and so the homology between groups and representations. From there, the change of subjects within the social space can be conceived as a socially regulated transgression which, during the process of change, is going to allow the individual to substitute the representations of its group by those of the group he joined. This regulation must be considered as a social representation itself, the represents properties of which contribute to its symbolic efficiency. Finally, considering the differences that can be observed between the prescriptions of this regulation and the results to which it leads, we formulate the hypothesis of a space of indetermination.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v18i1.417