Archetype

Concept in psychology, literature, philosophy

An archetype ( AR-ki-type) – a concept used in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, philosophy and literary analysis – can be any of the following: a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that other statements, patterns of behavior, and objects copy, emulate, or "merge" into. Informal synonyms frequently used for this definition include "standard example", "basic example", and the longer-form "archetypal example"; mathematical archetypes often appear as "canonical examples". the Jungian psychology concept of an inherited unconscious predisposition, behavioral trait or tendency ("instinct") shared among the members of the species; as any behavioral trait the tendency comes to being by way of patterns of thought, images, affects or pulsions characterized by its qualitative likeness to distinct narrative constructs; unlike personality traits, many of the archetype's fundamental characteristics are shared in common with the collective and are not predominantly defined by the individual's representation of them; and the tendency to utilize archetypal representations is postulated to arise from the evolutionary drive to establish specific cues corresponding with the historical evolutionary environment to better adapt to it.

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