The theory
Swiss psychologist Carl Jung was interested in the mystical and symbolic aspects of human thought, and his research largely focused on the esoteric and spiritual. One of Jung's theories was concerned with so-called coincidences and whether they had any meaning. Known as synchronicity, Jung's theory was that the seemingly random yet synchronised occurrence of two events could be related to a higher degree than mere chance.
Synchronicity has been experienced by many people. Here's just one very strange example: A 10 year old girl called Laura Buxton from Stoke-on-Trent once released a balloon with a message attached. The message read: If you find this balloon, please write to me. The balloon was found by another 10 year old girl 140 miles away in Wiltshire. Her name was also Laura Buxton. Both girls realised when they corresponded that they had many more things in common, even down to the colour of the patches on their pet guinea pigs. A lifetime of friendship followed.
It was coincidences such as these, which on the face of it seem highly improbable, that Jung set out to investigate. His conclusion was that such strange, inexplicable coincidences were more common than we might expect. He saw them as evidence that some kind of collective unconsciousness was at work across the entire human race, and that this 'governing dynamic' encompassed our social, psychological, spiritual and emotional experiences. This collective unconsciousness does not develop individually, he claimed, but rather is inherited by all humans in the form of "pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents" (Jung, 1996). The archetypes, Jung believed, are mythical character types that reside in the collective unconsciousness of people the world over. They are universally understood and whatever our culture, we all recognise who they are, in stories, history, superstition and even in religious traditions.
How it can be applied in education
Archetype theory is a contentious and unconventional explanation of human behaviour, but this hasn't prevented it from being applied extensively in psychology. It influenced the design of many psychometric tests, including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator - a test that supposedly indicates dominant personality type. It also features in many of the learning styles theories. Jung's identification of a number of archetypical person types such as hero, explorer, rebel and jester, are often seen in characters in popular fiction, fairy tales and proverbs. We all love a good fight between a villain and a hero and story writers play up to this. These person types seem to have a primordial nature, resonating in the thoughts of children when they read stories for themselves. Story telling can be powerful as it somehow draws on our hidden collective 'memories' and elicits emotional responses from us. Getting children to write their own imaginative stories can unleash the untapped mental energy that resides in their minds.
The stories are easy to understand, and the tropes are familiar to us. The eternal struggle between good and evil, light against darkness and love versus hate all hold their place in our experience and imagination and according to Jung, in our collective unconsciousness. Such archetypes can be used to relate cautionary tales, celebrate success and triumph, and commiserate in failure or loss. They are tribal, offering us a common identity and drawing us together. Although it is not an empirical model, and is viewed by many as unscientific, Jung's theory could possibly be useful as an explanation of the social and cultural movements we see on the web, particularly memes and viral content.
Reference
Jung, C. G. (1996) The Archetypes and the Collective Unconsciousness. London: Routledge.
Previous posts in this series:
1. Anderson ACT-R Cognitive Architecture
2. Argyris Double Loop Learning
3. Bandura Social Learning Theory
4. Bruner Scaffolding Theory
5. Craik and Lockhart Levels of Processing
6. Csíkszentmihályi Flow Theory
7. Dewey Experiential Learning
8. Engeström Activity Theory
9. Ebbinghaus Learning and Forgetting Curves
10. Festinger Social Comparison Theory
11. Festinger Cognitive Dissonance Theory
12. Gardner Multiple Intelligences Theory
13. Gibson Affordances Theory
14. Gregory Visual Perception Hypothesis
15. Hase and Kenyon Heutagogy
16. Hull Drive Reduction Theory
17. Inhelder and Piaget Formal Operations Stage
Image source
Heroes and villains by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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