Equilibration of Valuations and the Regulatory Function of Social Class Prejudice: A Model Based on Genetic Epistemology

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze a process of equilibration between valuations of actions (ways of being, having, and doing) and of persons understood in terms of social classes, based on Jean Piaget’s Genetic Epistemology. The investigation is grounded in data obtained from interviews conducted with 22 technical high school students during the pre-test phase of a quasi-experimental research design. The responses enabled the construction of value scales referring to higher and lower social classes. Based on the analysis of the frequencies of positive and negative value attributions to these actions and persons, a pattern of compensation organized as a system of relations was identified: greater valuation of the actions of higher social classes associated with lower valuation of the persons belonging to these classes, as well as lower valuation of the actions of lower social classes associated with higher valuation of the persons who compose these classes. This pattern was synthesized into a model represented by a cycle of compensatory equilibration, understood as a form of regulation of a system of valuations. It is argued that such dynamics indicate a regulatory function of social class prejudice, operating through arbitrary criteria of superiority and inferiority constructed by the subjects.