On the Social Psychology of Social Mobility Processes

For the past twenty years the status attainment model of social mobility has included social psychological measures which are used to help explain the levels individuals come to occupy in the stratification system. The early elaborations of the Blau-Duncan “basic model” of status attainment, proposed by Sewell and others, modeled social psychological factors affecting educational attainment. More recently, two kinds of research have evolved which provide a basis for further clarification of the occupational attainment portions of the mobility model. One of these is the “new structuralism” approach to the world of work which has emphasized the importance of sectors of the economy, the structure of firms, vacancy chains, internal labor markets and career lines. The other is the “work and personality” literature which is concerned with the interrelations between the structure of the work setting and the personal qualities of the worker. Suggestions are made for the integration of these approaches with earlier attempts to explain social mobility. Methodological and conceptual issues are discussed, and the need to recognize the interrelated contributions of structural and social psychological perspectives is emphasized. A life course approach to social mobility processes appears to provide the basis for accomplishing the needed integration of the structural and social psychological perspectives.