In college, my storyboarding professor asked the class, “What is the difference between archetypes and stereotypes?” I thought about it for a long time. After considerable reflection, I think I have an answer.
Stereotypes are cultural and external.
Archetypes are responsibilities and internal.
The tricky part is the terms dramatically cross over. A student is both an archetype and a stereotype.
A stereotypical student could be someone who is currently in school, studying hard for tests, worried about their grades, and trying to build a foundation for the rest of their life. They have a backpack, textbooks, and homework. Maybe some extra-curricular activities pad their college application.
Stereotypes compete and divide into groups. A stereotypical student differs from a stereotypical nerd obsessed with details. Stereotypes use patterns to divide groups of people up into more stereotypes. Stereotypical students often are not trying to learn.
An archetypal student, however, is someone with a responsibility to learn. An apprentice, a disciple, or someone learning on the job when they start a new career. Continued education for senior citizens is not what we think of stereotypical students or teachers. Still, the responsibilities of teachers and students are apparent even if the teacher is a twenty-year-old urban farmer and the class is silver-haired retirees.
So if you can find a group of people in similar situations, you have a stereotype. A stereotypical archeology professor differs from a stereotypical attractive professor who happens to teach archeology, like Indiana Jones. Stereotypes deal with group dynamics.
Archetypes deal with responsibilities and are based on the individual. A classical mother archetype must nurture her children, but it is only when that responsibility is accepted and carried out that the archetype manifests. A grandfather or an older sibling might mother children by accepting the nurturing responsibility.
If you classify by the groups, tropes, and patterns someone represents, you are looking at stereotypes.
If you look at the responsibilities carried by the individual, you are looking at archetypes.
Both are important. Both progress and change throughout life as well. Students can become masters. Daughters and sons can become mothers and fathers. But if we look at patterns we expect from a group of mothers, fathers, students, or teachers, I think that is a stereotypical analysis. If we analyze their individual responsibilities, we are looking at archetypes.
If you can continually divide the group into smaller groups, I think that is a good indication you are looking at stereotypes. On the flip side, if you can describe someone by all the groups they belong to you are also looking at stereotypes.
Describing someone as an only child, orphan, gang banger, Chinese-Mexican, and high school jock might conjure up a specific image representing all these groups. You might expect what car they drive, the fashion they wear, and the places they live.
But if their responsibility is protecting their neighborhood from an attack, they are an archetypal warrior.
Daniel N. Blair 