Resonance to archetypes in media: There’s some accounting for taste
Introduction
People have been cultivating and refining mass communication for centuries (Dominick, 2002). We have long communicated to one another through etching, sculpture and painting, and music. In our contemporary information age, much of our life is dominated by such mass commercial media as movies, television, and the Internet (Bogart, 1991). The stories and characters that appear in these mass media are essential means of sharing human experience with one another. Some people discuss, converse, and analogize about television. Others infuse movie plot analogies and metaphors into their professional presentations in order to communicate a sense of tangible, shared understanding (Downing, 1991). Social institutions such as book clubs and Internet chat rooms often are organized around their respective media (Dominick, 2002). These phenomena suggest that there exist internal, psychological forces that allow us to respond in common ways to stories and story characters.
One part of personality proposed to explain our captivation with cultural phenomena is the archetype. An archetype is an internal mental model of a typical, generic story character to which an observer might resonate emotionally (Jung, 1961–1963/1983). Examples of archetypes include the Hero, the Jester, and the Sage, and they have been proposed as key elements in a common language involving the stories that people tell one another (e.g., Campbell, 1949; Downing, 1991; Mark & Pearson, 2001). Archetypal characters help promote actions in stories by embodying characteristic motives and other qualities that everyone can recognize (e.g., for the Hero, growth, courage, and triumph over adversity). People who hear such stories may respond quite differently to a figure such as the Hero, and those patterns of different responding may represent important personality qualities.
A number of studies have traced proposed archetypes through the stories of various cultures (e.g., Jadot, 1975). Such research, however, typically employs bibliographic, cultural approaches. Using literary approaches, for example, several theories have attempted to organize various specific archetypes into groups. A few studies investigate the connotations of archetypal symbols; several others use self-report scales to infer an individual’s identification with an archetype such as the Explorer (e.g., how strongly a test-taker agrees with the statement “I feel restless”; Pearson & Marr, 2002b). But to what degree do individual judges recognize archetypes? Can they identify archetypes in media, and do they respond to them emotionally?
We first discuss the origin of the archetype concept and update the theory, introducing a “neo-archetypal” approach. Study 1 presents a new psychometric procedure for testing the existence of classes of archetypes (see Goldberg, 1992, Saucier and Goldberg, 2002). Study 2 examines individual differences in people’s emotional responsiveness to such archetypes, linking those differences to personal preferences in mass culture and establishing connections between tastes in media and personality.
Section snippets
What is an archetype?
The concept of the archetype may provide important explanations of how people respond to other people, story characters, and media. Archetype theory began with the work of Carl Jung (1875–1961). The portion of Jung’s theory of particular interest here is that archetypes represent personifications of behaviors—characters who embody behavior patterns (Jung, 1964, Jung, 1968). Jung first proposed the concept of an archetype in the context of his clinical observations and discussion of the
Neo-archetypal theory
The neo-archetypal theory we develop in this section retains key aspects of Jung’s theory while leaving out its less substantiated parts. We have drawn on the work of several contemporary theorists in the area (e.g., Mark and Pearson, 2001, McAdams, 1993, McGowan, 1994, Pietikainen, 1998), as well as many researchers in related areas. In neo-archetypal theory, archetypes possess five key characteristics. Specifically, archetypes: (a) are story characters, (b) are represented psychologically as
Research on archetypes
Jung’s work on archetypes was initially embraced by many scholars in the humanities, but was welcomed less warmly in the sciences. For example, Jung’s theory was extensively explored and developed by Joseph Campbell, in his (1949) seminal text, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. By using the metaphor of the “hero’s journey,” and archetypes such as the orphan, the warrior, and the saint, Campbell traced many archetypes and symbols across the mythological literatures of many different cultures,
Overview of Study 1
An important assumption of neo-archetypal theory is the belief that individuals conversant with the theory can correctly identify archetypes (cf. Huston et al., 1999, Lewis and McCully, 1994, Lockhart and Siegel, 1976, McCully, 1987, Solomon, 1991, Rosen et al., 1991, Squyres and Craddick, 1990, Stevens, 2000). To test that assumption, we identified 156 rich cultural stimuli: 12 examples each of the 13 archetypes identified in Table 1. Of the 12 examples per archetype, four each were drawn from
Participants
100 college students (26 male, 74 female) enrolled in introductory psychology courses participated in Study 1 and received experimental course credit; their responses were identified only by number.
Materials
Each of the 13 archetypes shown in Table 1 was represented with four stimuli in each of three rich cultural media (music, movies, and art), for an overall total of 156 items, which were block-randomized for administration. The 52 music stimuli were contained on audio CDs and played aloud for all
Overview of Study 2
People’s mental models of the world may influence their feelings about the things they like. For example, people may prefer rich culture media that represent a specific archetype to which they are attracted. Additionally, preferences for specific story characters may relate to socioemotional traits such as the Big Five (Mayer, 1995, Mayer, 2005, McAdams et al., 2004, McCrae and Costa, 1999). Recalling that people are thought to respond to archetypes by experiencing cognitively-accessible
Participants
Data from 125 college psychology students (52 male, 73 female) were used in all analyses for Study 2. As in Study 1, students received experimental course credit for participating in the study.
Materials
The materials used for analyses in this study were (a) the RCAS, (b) the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator (PMAI; Pearson & Marr, 2002b), (c) a scale of self-to-archetype judged similarity, (d) a 100-item measure of Big Five unipolar trait descriptive adjectives (Goldberg, 1992), and (e) a modified scale
Summary of findings
At the outset of this paper, we argued that people establish models of themselves and the world (Mayer, 2007), and that some of these concern archetypes—that is, culturally important prototypical story characters (McAdams et al., 2004). In our neo-archetypal theory, such archetypes (a) are story characters, (b) represent mental models, (c) elicit intense emotional responses, (d) operate at an automatic or unconscious level, and (e) are culturally enduring, since they are easily learned and
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Laura A. King, Richard E. Lucas, Victor Benassi, David Pillemer, Rebecca Warner, and three anonymous reviewers who commented thoughtfully and helpfully on earlier drafts of this manuscript. We also thank Erin Goforth, Rachel Rogers, and Stephen Underwood for their help in coming up with archetypal items for the media pool in Study 1.
References (89)
- et al.
Modeling: An analysis in terms of category accessibility
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
(1983) - et al.
Prepared phobias and obsessions: Therapeutic outcomes
Behaviour Research and Therapy
(1977) Exploring the links between personality and media preferences
Personality and Individual Differences
(1991)- et al.
Transference in everyday experience. Implications of experimental research for relevant clinical phenomena
Review of General Psychology
(1998) - et al.
‘Do I know you?’: The role of significant others in general social perception
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
(1990) Cognitive psychology and its implications
(1980)- et al.
Sex and gender
(2002) - et al.
The unbearable automaticity of being
American Psychologist
(1999) - et al.
Automaticity of social behavior: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
(1996) - et al.
Context-dependent automatic processing in depression: Accessibility of negative constructs with regard to self but not to others
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
(1988)
The measurement of psychological androgyny
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
American media and commercial culture
Society
On being unconsciously influenced and informed
Gender identity and gender roles: Their place in analytic practice
Wildmen, warriors, and lovers: Reaching boys through archetypal literature
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
The hero with a thousand faces
Traits as prototypes: Effects on recognition memory
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
A semantic differential study of the yin-yang symbol
Journal of Personality Assessment
Stereotypes as dynamic constructs: Women and men of the past, present, and future
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Personality and music preference. Extraversion and excitement seeking or openness to experience?
Psychology of Music
The dynamics of mass communication: Media in the digital age
Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation
Constructive Thinking: The Key to Emotional Intelligence
Individual differences in intuitive-experiential and analytical-rational thinking styles
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Social cognition
The value of the rejected card choice in the MARI Card Test
Art Therapy
Personality and art preferences
European Journal of Personality
Activating transference without consciousness: Using significant-other representations to go beyond what is subliminally given
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
The development of markers for the Big-Five factor structure
Psychological Assessment
Audience personality and the selection of media and media genres
Media Psychology
Theories of personality
Theories of personality
Self-discrepancy theory: A theory relating self and affect
Psychological Review
Evolutionary memory
Schema specificity in subclinical syndrome depression: Distinctions between automatically versus effortfully encoded state and trait depressive information
Cognitive Therapy and Research
Becoming famous without being recognized: Unconscious influences of memory produced by dividing attention
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
Approaching the unconscious
The essential Jung (selected and introduced by A. Storr)
Personal construct theory and the emotions: An interpretation in terms of primitive constructs
British Journal of Psychology
The cognitive unconscious
Science
Cited by (49)
A multimodal discourse-mythological approach to understanding brand-based conflicts in online consumer communities: The case of Samsung vs. Huawei
2022, Journal of Business ResearchCitation Excerpt :In the branding context, archetypes either contribute to the desired positioning of a brand (Sobande et al., 2020; Woodside et al., 2018; Woodside & Megehee, 2009) or by helping build and convey brand stories to portray a certain archetype, thereby establishing a better understanding of the brand’s character with consumers (True & Djakeli, 2017; Tsai, 2006; Woodside et al., 2013, 2018). In a consumer context, archetypes are applied to study consumer behavioural patterns (Faber & Mayer, 2009; Woodside & Megehee, 2009), and are heavily used in the analysis of market segmentation as it provides detailed and accurate results reflecting the diversity between and within market segments (Caldwell et al., 2010; Lang et al., 2020; Morris & Schaimund, 2006; Onel et al., 2018; Weaver, 2015). According to the literature review, it is no surprise that the study of archetypes in marketing has become increasingly popular to 21st century marketers since Jung’s archetype offers an additional approach that is able to ascertain the underlying meanings and significance of consumers’ actions (Dominici et al., 2016).
Ethical judgments of sexualized ads featuring Women: The role of identification with feminine archetypes
2022, Journal of Business ResearchCitation Excerpt :Her strategy is to become strong, competent, and powerful, sometimes acting as challenger to males. She may undertake an arduous task to prove her worth (Faber & Mark, 2009). The Explorer is independent and self-contained, motivated by a deep desire to find what, in the outer world, fits with her needs, preferences, and hopes.
Tourists’ destination image through regional tourism: From supply and demand sides perspectives
2019, Journal of Business ResearchWhat Do You Want to Be When You Grow up? Career Aspirations as a Marker for Adolescent Well-being
2017, Academic PediatricsWho Am I? How Compelling Self-storytelling Builds Digital Personal Reputation
2016, Journal of Interactive Marketing