Algorithms and Archetypes: Evolutionary

Psychology and Carl Jung’s Theory

of the Collective Unconscious
Sally Walters

This articlediscusses how currenttheory about the evolution of univexsalpsychological adaptations was anticipated
in Jung’s conception of archetypes and the collective unconscious. Evolutionary psychologists are concerned with
ancestral stresses, psychological mechanisms that evolved to deal with them, and the contemporary function of’
those mechanisms. Jung defined the collective unconscious as a species-typicalrepository of ancestralhistory and
memory accumulated over evolutionary time. Comprisii the collective unconscious are an array of archetypes-
categories of objects, people, and situations that have existed across evolutionary time. The potential for cross-
disciplinary work for both Jungian and evolutionary theorists is dixusxd.

Introduction

In arriving at a better understanding of the psyche, evolutionary theory clearly provides

a powerful and testable theory for generating predictions about the mind’s structure and
function. Evolutionary psychologists are concerned with uncovering the universal, evolved
structure of the psyche amidst a confusing tangle of individual differences. One psychologist
who has already attempted to define this structure is Carl Jung, although his perspective
is not generally regarded as evolutionary. In this article I examine the extent to which the
approach of contemporary evolutionary psychologists in predicting and explaining the
evolution of psychological adaptations was anticipated in the thinking of Carl Jung-in
particular, by Jung’s conception of archetypes and the collective unconscious.

Evolutionary Psychology and the Selection of Adaptations

Evolutionary psychologists are concerned with the socioecological stresses that

existed in ancestral environments, the psychological mechanisms that evolved to address

my W*, D+t’tment of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Bumaby, BC, Canada V5A 1%; c-mail: walteta@aft~ca

Joumd of Social and Evolutionary Systems 17(3):287-306 CopyriSk 0 1994 by JAI Press, Inc.
ISSN: 0161-7361 All rights of nwxwtion in ally form leaewcd.
288 - SALLYWALTERS

those stresses, and with the way those mechanisms function in the present world (Buss,
1989; Cosmides & Tooby, 1987,1989,1992; Crawford and Anderson, 1989; Daly&Wilson,
1986; Symons, 1989, 1992; Tooby, 1985; Tooby & Cosmides, 1989a, 1989b, 1992). They
seek to define universal psychological adaptations that have evolved by natural selection,
and to determine how such adaptations function in the contemporary environment.
Evolutionary psychologists are interested in universals in human cognition, rather than
in individual differences. They ask such questions as: In what fundamental ways is the
structure of human thought organized? Does such underlying organization reflect strategies
that were naturally selected during human evolution? At this time, the study of the
evolutionary significance of universals in human cognition and thought is still in a relatively
early stage.
By using an understanding of the contingencies and exigencies of ancestral life, we
may postulate the existence of specific psychological adaptations that were selected due
to their fitness-enhancing effects with respect to specific ancestral problems. Thus,
examination of adaptive social and ecological problems in the ancestral environment leads
to predictions about the kind of psyche that was selected over evolutionary time. In terms
of evolutionary time, most of human existence to date has occurred within hunting-
gathering societies in the Pleistocene era; therefore the human psyche is likely most adapted
to that environment, and not necessarily to the contemporary industrial and technological
world that many of us inhabit.
Evidence for psychological adaptations is then sought from a variety of sources such
as attitudes, feelings, cog&ions, and observed or self-reported behavior. What is exciting
to an evolutionary psychologist is evidence of psychological universality. The wide range
of individual differences in personality and behavior, although interesting, are not
representative of complex adaptive design, and may instead reflect quantitative variation
in the processes underlying complex psychological adaptations (Tooby & Cosmides,
199Oa).Although we all have the same underlying psychological adaptations, the activation
thresholds for them may differ from individual to individual: thus, individual differences
in behavior occur. Psychologists using evolutionary theory have predicted and found
evidence of universality in the attitudes, preferences, and behaviors of men and women
in a number of areas such as: towards potential mates (Buss, 1989), in men’s feelings and
behaviors of sexual proprietorship towards female partners (Daly, Wilson & Weghorst,
1982), and in men and women’s abilities to detect cheaters in social contracts (Cosmides
& Tooby, 1989; Tooby & Cosmides, 1989b).

Adaptations and Fortuitous Effects

Adaptations were designed by natural selection to solve specific fitness-related

problems in the physical, social, personal, or ecological environment of the Pleistocene.
They are recognizable by their special design, which is functionally specific and often
complex. Adaptations reflect nonrandom, fitness-enhancing phenotypic constructions that
“fit” the ancestral environmental problem they appear designed to solve. Adaptations may
be found at various levels in the body: biochemical, structural, physiological, etc. A non-
psychological example of the evolutionary psychology approach to discovering
adaptations might be the following: based on what we know about ancestral environments,
what kinds of foods were available to ancestral humans and what kind of digestive system
 Algvrithms andAde.typ - 289

would have had to evolve to deal with these foods? Do contemporary individuals show
evidence of this predicted (or retrodicted) digestive system? Are there foods not present
in the ancestral environment (e.g., chocolate cake, root beer) that we can digest easily
because their components are nutritive substances our digestive systems evolved to cope
with? What instances of indigestibility support the prediction about the evolved digestive
system?
Psychological adaptations must be incorporated in the neural hardware of the central
nervous system. The concept of a universal psyche composed of a large number of innate,
evolved, psychological adaptations has been highly influenced by the work of Cosmides
and Tooby, who use computational theories derived from cognitive science to define
psychological mechanisms or adaptations, which they call “Darwinian algorithms.”
Cosmides (1985) identified Darwinian algorithms as “specialized learning mechanisms that
organize experience into adaptively meaningful schemas or frames”. Darwinian algorithms
are assumed to focus attention, organize perception and memory, and organize procedural
knowledge that will serve to guide decision-making behavior (Cosmides & Tooby, 1987).
Upon activation by environmental input, a Darwinian algorithm serves as a “hard-wired”
cognitive guide to domain-appropriate decision-making.
Evolutionary psychologists argue that the human psyche has a number of specialized
and domain-specific Darwinian algorithms that were naturally selected because decisions
about those domains were reproductively relevant in the ancestral environment. Darwinian
algorithms were naturally selected because those individuals possessing them, or possessing
gradually closer approximations of them, were better at dealing with the problem the
Darwinian algorithm solved; consequently, those genetically lucky individuals had better
reproductive success than others. Examples of domains for which psychological
adaptations are likely to have evolved are: finding a mate, deciding what resources to
allocate to which offspring, deciding when to be altruistic, examining costs and benefits
of altruism to kin and non-kin, avoiding predation, and acquiring resources. From an
evolutionary perspective, the psyche contains far more probably a large number of domain-
specific psychological adaptations than a much smaller number of domain-general
programs. The latter would rely on trial-and-error learning that would have immediate
and disastrous fitness consequences in the ancestral environment. A domain-general
program that was responsible for such diverse tasks as learning language, finding a mate,
allocating resources, controlling fertility, avoiding predation, etc. is unlikely to have
evolved, because individuals who possessed any cognitive specificity in each of these
reproductively-relevant areas would have enjoyed greater task-effectiveness and better
fitness outcomes (see Cosmides & Tooby, 199Oa).
In predicting what kinds of psychological adaptations should have evolved by natural
selection due to known or hypothesized ancestral selection pressures, we must also consider
effects on behavior and thinking that may appear to be adaptive but, in fact, may not
reflect the operation and functional design of an adaptation. Much of our behavior is,
in fact, adaptive; it allows us to reach goals, be effective, and enjoy ourselves. Fortuitous
effects of adaptations (Tooby & Cosmides, 199Oa) are benefits currently conferred on the
individual as the result of possession of some adaptation that has nothing to do with the
ultimate function of the adaptation itself. For example, the human digestive system is a
complex adaptation for dealing with food sources present in the ancestral environment;
the ability to digest evolutionarily novel substances like imitation fat or chemical food
290 - SALLY WALTERS

preservatives is a fortuitous effect that may be beneficial or detrimental depending on how

you look at it. Although enjoyment of artificially-sweetened, low calorie, no-fat-cheesecake
may be adaptive, we have no adaptation for dealing specifically with that food source.
Rather we have a digestive system that is an adaptation for dealing with food sources
present in the ancestral environment (e.g;, sugar, fat, etc.), and the cheesecake ingredients
have been engineered to mimic naturally occurring and digestible substances. Fortuitous
effects are selectively neutral, that is, they do not contribute functionally to the operation
of the adaptation (although they may coincide with adaptive function), and are therefore
biologically uninteresting (Williams, 1966). [Ediror ‘sNote I: Such effects could nonetheless
be vitally important in explaining successful human performance in areas alien to our
evolutionary history-for example, in the at least partial success of our cognitive structures
in understanding quantum mechanical states. See my “Evolutionary Epistemology
Without Limits, “Knowledge, 3 (4), 1982, pp. 465-502 for more; see also my Editor’s Note
at the conclusion of Verhulst ‘s article in this issue.-PL]

Jung’s View of the Psyche

Carl Jung was intensely interested in the nature of the mind; he speculated at length about
its structure and attempted to provide a model of the psyche in which the conscious and
unconscious could be integrated to form a healthy, well-adjusted, mature personality. He
saw his “analytical psychology” as a natural science (Samuels, 1985) whose falsifiable
theories could be empirically tested. He viewed the mind, both conscious and unconscious,
as a functional system whose organization reflected the organization of past and present
environments. Jung believed that the mind was not a blank slate but prepared before birth
to cognitively and emotionally guide the individual in dealing with certain life situations
that are pan-human. He argued that unhappiness was frequently the result of not
understanding how and why this fundamental cognitive preparedness could affect an
individual. Jung claimed that understanding the archetypes that existed in the mind at
birth could add profoundly to one’s happiness, self-understanding, and effectiveness.
Implicit in this view is an understanding of cognition and emotion that includes an
evolutionary perspective.
Jung’s view of the psyche included three interactive and dynamic levels (Stevens, 1990):
consciousness, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. Consciousness
is the outer layer of the psyche, consisting of those thoughts and memories of which the
individual is consciously aware. This level of the psyche is not important for this article
other than for an understanding of the relationship between archetypes and consciousness.
,The ego resides in consciousness, is responsible for personal identity, and is the bearer
of personality. The ego is the mediator of information between the conscious and the
unconscious. In Jungian psychology the ego arises from the Self archetype, which subsumes
all aspects of one’s personality, and is seen as the essential core of one’s psychological
self.
The personal unconscious, at the middle level of the psyche, is the result of the
interaction of one’s inherited collective unconscious with his or her environment during
development. Part of the personal unconscious, such as painful thoughts and feelings, may
be repressed. All of one’s thoughts, memories, and knowledge that are not conscious at
 AlgorithmsandAr&Qpes - 291

any given time reside in the personal unconscious, from which they may be retrieved with
varying degrees of difEculty depending on if they are beii actively repressed or not. The
personal unconscious is composed of complexes that profoundly influence one’s subjective
feelings and behavior at varying levels of consciousness. Complexes link the personal
unconscious with the collective unconscious (Samuels, 1985). See Jacobi (1957/ 1974) for
further discussion of complexes.
The collective unconscious, comprised of archetypes, and operating at the deepest
level of the psyche, is the focus of this article. Jung (1919/ 1960) defined the collective
unconscious as a subliminal repository of ancestral history and memory accumulated over
evolutionary time and inherited by all members of the species. He saw the collective
unconscious as a “common psychic substrate” that is present in all humans, and cannot
be explained merely as repressed material. Lewis (1989) summarized several characteristic
features of archetypes: the manifestation of an archetype occurs through the imagery it
produces; the material of the archetype is psychoid, meaning that it is physiologically
controlled, and affects both cognition and emotion; archetypes organize thinking in their
respective realms; archetypal imagery is characteristically numinous, arousing strong
attraction and a sense of awe; and archetypes can be responsible for synchronistic events,
which are related events occurring at the same time seemingly coincidentally. When
archetypes become activated, and are experienced with associated feelings and ideas, the
result in the personal unconscious is a complex. The complexes of the personal unconscious
are independently organized conglomerations of feelings, thoughts, and emotions specific
to an individual that result from interactions among a number of archetypes.

Archetypes and Archetypal Imagery

The collective unconscious is comprised of innate archetypes that are seen as

protctypical categories of objects, people, and situations that have been in existence across
evolutionary time and across cultures. Jung (1954/ 1959a) referred to archetypes as
“primordial images” and as “inherited mode(s) of functioning”. He argued that archetypes
exist universally in the psyche, and that they prepare individuals psychologically to deal
with life experiences that are universally common. He wrote (1931/ 1960, p. 152): “The
collective unconscious, . . . as the ancestral heritage of possibilities of representation, is
not individual but common to all men, and perhaps even to all animals, and is the true
basis of the individual psyche.”
What Jung viewed as “psychic aptitudes” might be seen as a psychological adaptation
by a more evolution-minded thinker. He does not see archetypes as inherited memories,
in the Lamarckian sense; Jung appeared to understand that acquired characteristics are
not genetically inherited. By inherited memories I believe Jung meant something closer
to the modern idea of Darwinian algorithms as information-processing guides than to a
conception of archetypes as something learned and then passed on genetically. He shares
with modem evolutionary psychologists the assumption that thought and emotion in some
cognitive areas are framed and organized by psychological adaptations when activated
by some event in the social or ecological environment.
Jung was careful to differentiate the archetype as it exists in the hard-wired structure
of the human mind, and archetypal imagery, or the archetype as it is experienced. The
former, residing in the collective unconscious, is conceptualized as latent and unavailable
292 - SALLYWALTERS

to conscious thought, whereas the latter is subjectively experienced and variable in content
depending on its experience by the individual. As Jung (1954/ 1960, p. 213) explained:

The (archetype as such) is characterized by certain formal elements and by certain fundamental
meanings, although these can be grasped only approximately. The archetype as such is a
psychoid factor [i.e., the “psychic aptitude” in the preceding quotation] that belongs, as it
were, to the invisible, ultraviolet end of the psychic spectrum.. . . Moreover every archetype,
when represented to the mind [i.e., archetypal imagery], is already conscious and therefore
differs to an indeterminable extent from that which caused the representation.

The concept of synchronicity is an important aspect of Jung’s thinking (Stevens, 1990).

Although not part of the main focus of this article, it deserves some attention for its relation
to archetypes. Jung believed that two events could be connected meaningfully but not
causally; he concluded, for example, that synchronicity was responsible for the connection
between astrological signs and marriage partners (Samuels, 1985). Jung believed that
synchronicity was something parapsychological, that synchronicity was a force of nature
separate from time and space that became manifest under certain psychic conditions
(Jacobi, 1957/ 1974). He claimed that archetypes, with their characteristically numinous
imagery, were responsible for the attribution of of cause-and-effect meaning to such
coincidental occurrences. An example of synchronicity might be dreaming about a person
one had not seen for some time, and then unexpectedly seeing that person the next day.
According to Jung, archetypal thinking would be responsible for the initial dream; the
dreamer’s unconscious evokes the image due to some significant connection between the
dreamer and the person dreamed about. Upon fortuitously seeing the person the next day,
the dreamer’s subjective emotional state, affected by archetypal imagery and numinosity,
produces a feeling of causality between the two events.
Jung’s explanation for synchronicity involved extrasensory perception. He has been
widely criticized for the unfalsifiability and metaphysics of his explanation. However, the
idea that meaningful coincidences are somehow related to archetypes need not involve
metaphysics. Assuming that archetypes underlie the fundamental structural organization
of the psyche, we could reasonably suppose that archetypal ideas, feelings, attitudes, and
perceptions arise repeatedly and may be frequent subjects for clients and their
psychotherapists. Furthermore, assuming that cultural practices including myths and
beliefs reflect the evolved psyche, we can also reasonably assume that cultural practices
will involve archetypal imagery. Finally, if much of human thought is organized around
domain-specific, archetypal frames of reference, then certain events may take on meaning
that is imposed by those frames of reference. Thus, what appear to be coincidental events
may actually have their “coincidentalness” imposed upon them because humans are
organized cognitively to define and attend to the world in predetermined ways. We should
expect a number of seemingly synchronous events if both thought and cultural practice
are based on archetypes in the evolved psyche, because of the expected high frequency
of archetypal imagery which, by definition, involves areas of life that are experienced as
profoundly important. Of course, this speculative explanation cannot account for all
coincidences, actual and apparent-some of which may receive much attention due to
cognitive biases associated with attaching more importance to coincidences than non-
coincidences.
 AlgorithmsandArc- - 293

Jung was a tireless scholar who wrote voltiously on archetypal images and themes
and their essential numinosity. His sources included his own dreams, as well as analyses
of the dreams, fantasies, and pictures produced by his analysands, and the study of religion
and mythology (Stevens, 1982). The emotional tone of recurrent images such as “the Hero”
was what was Jung recognized as an indication of their existence in the collective
unconscious. He described a feeling of “godlikeness” that results from the powerful
experience of a collective image. Although we cannot see the archetype per se, we do
perceive the conscious manifestation of the unconscious archetype; apparently such
manifestation, although somewhat idiosyncratic in nature, will contain the common
elements and the numinosity characteristic of archetypal images because the archetypes
are universal and species-typical. Jung described a feeling of epiphany in his clients when
they confronted the meaning of the archetypal imagery appearing in their dreams. This
is quite reasonable, because by definition archetypal imagery will revolve around life-
situations such as finding a mate, investing in children, finding a secure home, and so
on that are profoundly important.
According to Jung, the collective unconscious is responsible for the spontaneous
generation of myths, visions, religious ideas, and dreams that have commonly occurred
crossculturally and throughout history (Storr, 1973) and that are characteristically
experienced as numinous. In the symbolism of dreams, myths, and legends, Jung found
regularly recurring themes that he felt reflected the archetypes that make up the universal
structure of the collective unconscious. In determining whether the symbols arising in these
sources reflected archetypal content, Jung was careful to include only those instances in
which the individual producing the symbol professed to have no prior knowledge of the
putative meaning of the symbol. Although this approach lacks scientific rigor, Jung’s
method is consistent with early psychoanalytic techniques.

Theories of Archetype Inheritance

Several authors have attempted to examine the inheritance of archetypes (Keutzer, 1983;
Rosen, Smith, Huston & Gonzalez, 1991; Wloch, 1990, 1991). Unfortunately, these
attempts have failed to provide a plausible account of the evolution of psychological
adaptations, particularly because there has been either scanty or misinformed attention
paid to the actual process of natural selection. In a discussion of the archetypal imagery
of religious experiences, Henry (1986) locates archetypes in the neurophysiological events
of the central nervous system that are responsible for the subjective emotional aspects of
behavioral patterns. Thus, archetypes would be genetically inherited along with
neurophysiological architecture, hormonal systems, etc. The present state of knowledge
of the brain precludes identification of archetypes with specific parts of the brain, however,
in locating archetypes within functional brain systems, Henry has at least made explicit
the point that psychological processes must be neurophysiological events, which ancestrally
would have varied genetically and would therefore have been subject to natural selection
if there was any relationship to reproductive success. In another recent attempt to find
a Darwinian explanation for archetypal theory, Percival (1993) concludes that Jung’s
theory of archetypes, while notionally Lamarckian, is basically non-evolutionary,
metaphysical, and unfalsifiable. Although correct in some of his cautionary points
294 - SALLY WALTERS

regarding the attribution of functional design to archetypes, Percival is premature in

dismissing the idea that archetypes may represent some underlying structure in the psyche
that evolved through natural selection.
The major work in which the evolution of archetypes is discussed is Stevens’ book,
Archetype: A Natural H&tory of the Self(1982). Stevens treats archetypes specifically as
biological phenomena that have evolved by natural selection, although he does not discuss
the function of archetypes with respect to the solving of ancestral socioecological
problems. He sees archetypes as a system of largely unconscious predispositions that
coordinate perception, emotion, and behavior in response to species-typical events (e.g.,
birth, puberty, and courting) occurring throughout the life-cycle. Once the archetypal
structure of the psyche is known, Stevens asserts, it will provide a rational basis for the
study and practice of medicine, sociology, and politics.
Stevens sees the archetypal system as a life-long repertoire of psychological
adaptations; he views the psyche as a mainly unconscious coordinator of the basic patterns
of species-typical human behavior that occur throughout the life-cycle. This approach is
similar to the concept of life histories (Crawford & Anderson, 1989; Wittenberger, 1981)
used by evolutionary biologists and psychologists. A life history is the genetically controlled
allocation of time and resources to survival, growth, and reproduction throughout an
organism’s life. Life histories are associated with strategies and tactics-behaviors through
which organisms compete for the resources necessary for achieving their life histories. Life
histories can vary within both species and populations. An example of two somewhat
different life histories within one species is found in human males and females. Females,
for instance, appear to be biologically hardier than males both pre-natally and throughout
life; girls reach puberty earlier than boys; women tend to have fewer sexual partners than
men; women experience reproductive time constraints; and women live longer than men.
In considering the allocation of time, energy, and resources to survival, growth, and
reproduction in humans then, we see several sex-differences that appear to be universal
and species-typical. To some extent Jung observed these stages in human life history in
his descriptions of the common challenges met by individuals during lifetime development.

Jung’s Evolutionary Perspective on Archetypes

Although writing widely on the nature of the collective unconscious, Jung was silent
on the role of natural selection in the shaping of archetypes. We know that he possessed
books by both Darwin and Herbert Spencer, and, clearly, he attempted to create a
biological model of the psyche whose universal archetypes had evolved throughout
evolutionary time. However, we can only speculate on the extent to which he was
knowledgeable of the specifics of evolutionary theory that were in print during his career.
The bibliography to Volume 9 (Part I) of The Collected Works: The Archetypes and the
Collective Unconscious (Jung, 1954/ 1959b) reveals no references to Darwin, Spencer, or
Lamarck. Surprisingly little has been written about Darwin’s influence on Jung. Although
he assumed that the collective unconscious had somehow evolved over evolutionary time,
Jung was unclear on the mechanism of inheritance. His explanations of how archetypes
could be inherited is not clear; at times he appears to believe that the experiences and
memories underlying archetypes were inherited in a Lamarckian fashion. However,
Stevens (1982) concludes that Jung was aware of possible accusations of Lamar&&m and
 Algorithms andAmhehjpes - 295

refuted them by making the distinction between the archetype as a heritable neurobiological
program, and the ideas and images arising from the archetype that are not, in themselves,
inherited. Thus, Jung (1954/ 1959c, p. 66) wrote:

It is in my view a great mistake to suppose that the psyche of a new-born child is a tabula
rasa in the sense that there is absolutely nothing in it. In so far as the child is born with a
differentiated brain that is predetermined by heredity and therefore individualized, it meets
sensory stimuli coming from outside not with any aptitudes, but with specific ones, and this
necessarily results in a particular, individual choice and pattern of apperception. These
aptitudes can be shown to be inherited instincts and preformed patterns, the latter being the
a priori and formal conditions of apperception that are based on instinct.. . . They are the
archetypes, which direct all fantasy activity into its appointed paths and in this way produce,
in the’ fantasy-images of children’s dreams as well as in the delusions of schizophrenia,
astonishing mythological parallels such as can be found, though in a lesser degree, in the
dreams of normal persons and neurotics. It is not, therefore, a question of inherited ideas
but of inherited possibilities of ideas.

Jung’s idea of adaptation is somewhat different from the definition generally accepted
by evolutionary biologists (e.g., Burien, 1983; Thomhill, 1990); Jung frequently discussed
adaptation as something a particular individual must do vis-a-vis his or her current
environment. In contrast, evolutionary biologists view adaptation as a physiological
structure, process, or mechanism that evolved by natural selection due to its enhanced
fitness benefits for ancestral possessors of the adaptation compared to others. Jung
discussed archetypes as striving for actualization. In this sense, archetypes are seen as
somehow struggling to assert a predetermined organization or structure on thinking and
behavior within certain archetypal arenas such as being a mother. Apparently Jung
assumed that evolution operates towards some ultimately “good” goal-a common early
twentieth century belief that is incompatible with the modem synthetic theory of evolution
by natural selection. Unfortunately, we cannot easily get a clear sense of Jung’s beliefs
concerning the mode of inheritance of archetypes; while he appears to take an implicit
evolutionary perspective, his discussions of the specifics of this perspective are vague,
undeveloped, and frequently contradictory. The following quote by Neumann (1954/ 1970,
pp. xvi-xx), a close follower of Jung, illustrates the kind of evolutionary thinking practiced
by Jung and his followers:

In the course of its ontogenetic development, the individual ego consciousness has to pass
through the same archetypal stages which determined the evolution of consciousness in the
life of humanity.. . . The evolution of consciousness as a form of creative evolution is the
peculiar achievement of Western man. Creative evolution of ego consciousness means that,
through a continuous process stretching over thousands of years, the conscious system has
absorbed more and more unconscious contents and progressively extended its frontiers.. . .
In stationary cultures, or in primitive societies where the original features of human culture
are still preserved, the earliest stages of man’s psychology predominate to such a degree that
individual and creative traits are not assimilated by the collective.... The evolution of
consciousness by stages is as much a collective human phenomenon as a particular individual
phenomenon. Ontogenetic development may therefore be regarded as a modified
recapitulation of phylogenetic development.
2% - SALLYWALTERS

Clearly Jung endorsed Neumann’s version of the evolution of the psyche; in fact, in
his foreword to Neumann’s (1954/ 1970) book on the origins of consciousness, Jung wrote,
“[Neumann] has succeeded in constructing a unique history of the evolution of
consciousness . . . [placing] the concepts of analytical psychology . . . on a firm evolutionary
basis . ..” Neumann demonstrates a variety of beliefs about evolution that were common
earlier in this century. First, although more-or-less discrete stages of individual
development may have evolved by natural selection, and, in fact, mammalian
embryogenesis produces evolutionarily archaic forms (Mayr, 1982), the assumption that
personality and cognitive development in infants and children is identical to that in, for
instance, homo habilis or australopithecus is extremely questionable. This assumption is
related to the belief that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Second, Neumann assumes
that the consciousness of individuals in the Western world has been shaped by selection
pressures not experienced by other human groups; but has sufficient time elapsed since
the dispersal of humans throughout the Western world for selection to operate only on
Western individuals? Insufficient time has elapsed for the evolution in one population of
what would appear to be enormous cognitive complexity, not to mention the further
difficulty of identifying selection pressures on consciousness that operated only in the
Western world. Finally, the assumption that so-called primitive individuals are less evolved
than those in the industrialized world is insupportable; modem hunter-gatherers are as
“evolved” as modem European scientists. [Bditor’s Note 2: No one would &ny that all
humans are equally biologically evolved; the question of whether all humans are equally
cognitively evolved is a much more controversial topic. See Warren Tenhouten, “‘Intothe
Wild Blue Yonder-On the Emergence of Ethnoneurologies, ” Journal of Social and
Biological Structures, 14 (4) 1991, pp. 381-408, for example, for a discussion of the
di#iculty of claiming that Australian Aboriginal cognitive structures are less evolved than
European structures; Tenhouten argues that Aboriginal and European cognitive structures
have superiorities in dgferent tasks. On the other hand, I would add that we might well
rank tasks in terms of their pertinence to our survival and development as a species, and
conclude that certain tasks-e.g., preservation of human lfe and its extension via medicine-
have been more effectively performed in cultures other than the Australian Aboriginals.
The role of social culture and naturally selected cognitive structures-what contribution
each makes to the mix that enables successfulpet$ormance of tasks-is the unresolved issue
here. Iwould in any case argue against any cultural relativism that claimed that all cognitive
cultures are equal.-PL]
A further problem in understanding Jung’s vision of the evolutionary significance
of analytical psychology arises from the variable and often capricious language used to
describe archetypes both by Jung and his followers. Jung and his immediate and closest
successors (e.g., Jacobi, 1957/ 1974) struggled with providing a clear and precise definition
of the archetypes. As Jacobi points out (p. 3 l), “It is impossible to give an exact definition
of the archetype, and the best we can do is to suggest its general implications by ‘talking
around’ it.” Furthermore, Jung’s descriptions of archetypes and their imagery are phrased
in terms no longer in general use in psychology, such as “psychoid,” rather than in terms
of information-processing systems instantiated in neural hardware that are currently used
in discussion of Darwinian algorithms. Jung was far more interested in the experience
of archetypal ‘imagery and its consequences for an individual’s well-being than in the
mechanisms by which archetypes as psychological adaptations came into being.
 AlgorithmsandArchetypes- 297

Consequently, he was less than careful in describing his observations of archetypal imagery
and its effects on his patients.
One of the regrettable aspects of Jungian psychology is the tendency to ascribe a wide
variety of behaviors and feelings to the same archetype. Frequently, descriptions of
archetypal experiences are selectively used to confii the existence of a particular
archetype. Such ad hoc theorizing creates significant difficulty in grasping the essential
qualities of particular archetypes as envisioned by Jung, and renders specific archetypes
theoretically empty and unfalsifiable. The advantage of using evolutionary theory to
predict what kinds of psychological adaptations have been naturally selected is thus clear:
if we can predict that a particular adaptation should have evolved, then we are also able
to predict the situations in which that adaptation should be activated, the emotions that
should be experienced when that adaptation fails or succeeds, the kinds of behaviors that
might be guided by that adaptation, and so on.
The absence of much empirical evidence of the existence of a collective unconscious
and reliance on anecdotal evidence and clinical case studies results in a great deal of Jungian
writing that is speculative rather than conclusive. Evolutionary theory might offer insight
to Jungian scholars in their thinking about how the psyche might be organized from an
adaptationist perspective.

Archetypes as Psychological Adaptations

One of the weaknesses of Jung’s conception of archetypes is that he never applied to them
any criterion of functional design that would have given us some indication of the practical
ancestral problems specific archetypes were designed to deal with. Furthermore, Jung’s
archetypal system seems to be rather openended, and Jungian psychologists have defined
as archetypes a large and heterogeneous number of images: the self, the persona, the
shadow, the wise old man, sex, the hero, religion, etc. Thus, the greatest challenge to the
assertion that Jungian archetypes are shaped by natural selection and are, therefore,
universal comes from the problem of defining the features of the ancestral environment
that would have rendered particular archetypes adaptive. If archetypes comprise the
essential core of the human psyche then they must have evolved by natural selection. In
order for archetypes to be psychological adaptations, we need to demonstrate a one-to-
one fit between adaptive problems in the ancestral environment and cognitive, emotional,
perceptual, or motivational solutions inherent in the psychological preparedness provided
to an individual by the archetypes. We must be able to determine what adaptive, ancestral,
reproductively-relevant problem a particular archetype is suited for solving, in order to
hypothesize that it actually evolved by natural selection. If we cannot make this analysis,
then either the archetype did not evolve by natural selection or we have an incomplete
knowledge of the adaptive problems faced by our ancestors.

Predicted Psychological Adaptations and Archetypes

In order to take full advantage of Jung’s insights, we must first use evolutionary theory
to make predictions about the kind of psychological adaptations that could have evolved
in the ancestral environment, and second, determine whether any of Jung’s archetypes
are similar to the predicted psychological adaptations.
298 - SALLY WALTERS

Our present understanding of the human ancestral environment is incomplete. The

environment of evolutionary adaptedness, or EEA, is a concept originally conceived by
John Bowlby (1%9) in his important work on the evolutionary origins of parent-child
attachment. The EEA for ancestral humans consisted of environmental invariances that
operated as selection pressures for particular adaptations throughout our evolutionary
history (Tooby & Cosmides, 199Ob)-for example, during the Pleistocene era. Modem
hunter-gatherers are frequently used as models for ancestral humans due to the presumed
similarities in lifestyle between them and ancestral hunter-gatherers. There are a number
of extant hunter-gatherer groups throughout the world, such as the Yanomamo and Ache
in South America, the Hadza and !Kung of Africa, Australian Aboriginals, the Inuit of
the extreme northern hemisphere, and so on. The lifestyles of all “traditional” peoples
contain many similarities; however, the variations between them as well as their
incorporation of modem Western cultural practices result in an incomplete picture of
ancestral hunter-gatherer groups. Furthermore, although ancestral humans are thought
to have lived in small, kin-based hunting and gathering groups characterized by a fairly
marked division of labor by sex and a good deal of sharing and cooperation (Bernhard
& Glantz, 1992), we need to note that the EEA for different adaptations may, themselves,
be different. For instance, the EEA for the evolution of the digestive system may not be
the same as the EEA for the evolution of reciprocal altruism; neither the socioecological-
physiological environment nor the period of time of selection need be the same.
In discussing the extent to which Jungian archetypes describe psychological
adaptations, I will refer both to the general socioecological environment of pre-agricultural
ancestral human groups, and to the specific aspects of that environment that would have
been selection pressures for particular psychological adaptations. The final section of this
article discusses a number of archetypes most fundamental in Jungian psychology as innate
information-processing psychological adaptations evolved by natural selection. At the
conclusion, I provide a table in which I speculate where some Jungian archetypes match
areas of cognition predicted by evolutionary theory to have domain-specific psychological
adaptations.

Jungian Archetypes

The Persona

The Persona archetype refers to an individual’s social being, which may or may not
accurately reflect the real self. It functions to present socially desirable qualities to others
and to adapt from social situation to situation. The Persona is the mechanism individuals
use to advertise their personalities to others (Stevens, 1982). It provides a framework for
interactions within a variety of relationships, endowing the individual with a repertoire
of social roles within which he or she can comfortably function. The Persona develops
as the individual responds to the requirements of parents, teachers, and society. Essentially,
the concept of a Persona reflects this capacity to adjust one’s outer appearance in response
to the demands of a particular social situation (Hopcke, 1989). For instance, the “face”
or personality portrayed by one individual as he or she moves through the roles of parent,
child, employee, customer, relative, stranger, etc. is likely to vary; among the qualities
 Algorithms andArchetype - 299

that would change depending on the role and situation might include, for example, humor,
politeness, degree of familiarity, and deception. Facial expressions and nonverbal body
language are also likely to vary-dealing with a high-status employer, for example, might
involve more submissive body language than talking to a small child. The Persona
archetype reflects the ability to behave appropriately according to the demands of the social
situation.
Ancestral individuals who obtained the greatest amount of resources associated with
survival and raising a family would have greater reproductive success than individuals who
were frequently exploited by others. Self-interest would clearly produce reproductive
advantages. Good social skills would be a valuable asset in gaining resources; clearly, one
can more easily form friendships, reciprocal exchange relationships, and even manipulative
and exploitive relationships if these are addressed with a pleasant social manner and
assertive self-interest. All of these different social relationships may be governed by cultural
rules that reflect psychological adaptations specific to each.
Ancestral individuals who were not able to regulate their behavior in recurrent and
different social relationships would treat everybody the same way regardless of status,
kinship, degree of reciprocity, etc. Such individuals would be at a distinct fitness
disadvantage; treating all individuals as kin would entail a large amount of costly and
time-consuming resource exchange with and help to unrelated individuals who would be
unlikely to reciprocate. Although theorists have widely assumed that altruism toward non-
kin need not be reciprocated to be adaptive, instances of social exchange between non-
relatives may include more instances of subtle “cheating.” Cost-benefit analyses of decisions
to help others, may include, for instance, inputs such as whether the recipient is kin or
non-kin, whether the recipient will be called upon to reciprocate, and whether the donor
is intent on “cheating.”
All of these relationships and social situations call for social skills sufficient for
balancing self-interest with at least some degree of pleasantry and good manners. But we
cannot clearly conclude that this ability, while adaptive, is an adaptation: the Persona
archetype appears rather to reflect a domain-general ability to change one’s behavior in
a variety of situations, and therefore is unlikely to represent a complex adaptation. This
ability is clearly part of the process discussed above, yet the Persona archetype may reflect
the fortuitous effects of a collection of psychological adaptations mediating social
exchange, rather than a domain-specific adaptation.

The Shadow

The qualities that an individual sees as incompatible with the Persona due to their
social undesirability are repressed, and form the Shadow archetype. The Shadow archetype
is associated with the negative, unpleasant side of personality, and includes, for example,
feelings of guilt, jealousy, greed, lust for power, and other qualities deemed to be
disreputable and shameful.
Jung saw the Shadow archetype as a powerful activator of thought and behavior,
and he noted that bringing the Shadow archetype into conscious awareness was a psychic
necessity that would result in a lessening of negative feelings and actions arising from the
Shadow archetype, such as neuroticism, projection of negative qualities onto others,
paranoia, and suspiciousness. Jung claimed that the Shadow archetype governed thinking
300 - SALLYWALTERS

and behavior once an individual felt free of cultural and societal constraints on morality;
thus, he argued that individuals are governed by a conscience associated with parental,
societal, and cultural ethical prohibitions which suppresses the shadowy side of one’s
personality.
Stevens (1982) claims that a strong biological imperative exists to make the Shadow
conscious, and that this urgency is perceived by individuals as a moral burden that becomes
expressed in feelings of guilt and shame. He interprets the Shadow archetype as
representative of an evolved moral system. He suggests that although cultural differences
in ethical prohibitions exist, the universality of the existence of such prohibitions is evidence
of a naturally selected moral sensibility.
The existence of an evolved ethical system is a persistent and thorny question that
has plagued evolutionary-minded thinkers including Darwin himself. By defining a
Shadow archetype, Jung joined other writers such as Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and
William James, in attempting to incorporate morality into the evolution of human nature
(Richards, 1987). Evolutionary thinkers have long wrestled with the question of innate
morality and goodness; early writing on this topic was marked by a reluctance to relinquish
the notion of inherent human goodness from the theory of natural selection, which is
necessarily amoral. Evolutionary theory accounts for a good deal of selfishness or self-
interest, ranging from extremely subtle cheating in social exchanges to extreme despotic
political systems; it does not predict the evolution of widespread indiscriminate altruism.
Both the Shadow and the Persona archetype relate to balancing culturallydeveloped
moral standards of behavior with the self-interest imposed by genes. Jung’s observations
of feelings and attitudes attributable to the Shadow archetype appear to describe variable
degrees of manipulativeness, selfishness, and acquisitiveness. Does the Shadow archetype
describe extreme forms of a psychological adaptation for self-interest in relationships, or
is the latter too broad a category to mean anything? Once again, self-interest obviously
will take many forms depending on the situation; however, remembering that behavior
is idiosyncratic whereas the psychological mechanism underlying it is universal, we seem
safe to say that the Shadow archetype is indicative of a psychological adaptation for self-
interest. Of course, self-interest is not always comfortable, and is likely to be accompanied
at times by feelings of guilt, shame, and self-disgust-all feelings that Jung described and
indeed attributed to the Shadow.

The Mother and The Father

Several Jungian archetypes deal with aspects of family life: two important ones are
the Mother and the Father. Jung observed universally expressed archetypal Mother
imagery: Mother Nature, Earth Mother, the Goddess of Fertility, the Moon Goddess,
etc. The Mother archetype endows the infant with a psychological expectation for a
Mother, or other maternal object that must be met for normal development. Steven’s (1982)
sees the Mother archetype as part of a dynamic mother-child system, where the archetype
represents the provider, love object, protector, and nurturer in both the child’s and mother’s
psyches. According to Stevens, both the loving feelings and the protective and caring
behaviors of a Mother concerning her infant have common phylogenetic origin within
the psyche in the Mother archetype. Bowlby (1969) originally recognized the fundamental
evolutionary importance of mother-child attachment; Jung’s Mother archetype includes
 Algorithmsand&he&m - 301

the mutual fascination and love normally experienced by both child and mother that
facilitate the attachment bond between them. He suggests that this experience is activated
by the Mother archetype in both psyches; both Mother and child are psychologically
prepared to experience subjective feelings that facilitate the attachment process and insure
care of the infant.
Parent-child conflict has been fruitful ground for evolutionary researchers who have
been interested in how parents allocate resources to offspring at the same time as offspring
attempt to garner the maximum resources possible. Jungian psychology is also concerned
with reducing the anxiety and psychological contlict that may surround the attachment
bond, particularly in the case of adult children. The interaction of the Mother archetype
in the child’s psyche and one’s actual mother is a critical part of the attachment process,
according to Stevens (1982). If the child is deprived of a Mother or other maternal figure,
the child’s Mother archetype is unfulfilled; consequently, Stevens argues, the child will
be susceptible to possibly irreversible disease, mental health problems, and even
retardation, as well as subsequent difficulties in forming loving relationships.
According to Jung, the Father archetype is expressed as the Elder, the King, the Father
in Heaven, the Lawgiver, etc. The Father archetype also has the dual aspects of Good and
Terrible. Jung believed that the Father archetype was activated developmentally later in
the child’s life than the archetype of the Mother; however, once activated after about age
5, it exerted greater influence over the child’s developing personality. According to Stevens
(1982) and Jung (1954/ 1959), the Father archetype is critical for the child’s development
of gender-consciousness; for girls, the Father archetype reinforces the perception of being
the same sex as Mother. For boys the Father archetype is necessary in the realization of
being diierent from Mother. Jung’s work on the Father archetype is comparatively
desultory and most of the writing on this topic has been done by Jung’s successors.
These two parental archetypes, according to Jung, are universally expressed iu
mythology and legend and are experienced with a degree of awe and fascination. The
importance of real parents (or parental-type caregivers) is undeniable for a child’s well-being
and subsequent development. From an evolutionary perspective, the very question of survival
of one’s genes hangs on becoming a parent (or at least on being the close relative of a parent).
The biological imperative to bear and nurture offspring that appears to be a fundamental
component of human psychological makeup may not require much cognitive processing
to be activated; however, decision “rules” regarding the timing of reproduction, allocation
of resources to offspring, spacing of childbearing, etc. may be managed through psychological
adaptations. The Jungian archetypes that relate to family relationships are rather broadly
called upon in Jungian psychology to explain both conflict and cohesion within families.
Using the criteria of adaptation discussed earlier, neither the Mother nor the Father archetype
appear to describe functionally specific psychological adaptations governing specific aspects
of parenting. Both, however, could be applied to areas in which psychological adaptations
are predicted by evolutionary theory-namely, timing and allocation of resources to offspring,
maximizing resource allocation to more than one child, etc.

Jungian Archetypes and Predicted Psychological Adaptations

Table 1 contains a list of areas predicted by evolutionary principles to have evolved

psychological mechanisms for organizing thought, motivation, and behavior due to
302- SALLYWALTERS

Table 1
Areas of Agreement between Evolutionary Psychology and Jungian Archetypes
Areas Predicted to Have Jungian Archetypes Showing Some
Psychological Adaptations Correspondence

Mate selection criteria and competition
for mates
Altruism toward kin
Parental investment in offspring
Reciprocal altruism with non-kin
Social exchange with strangers/
acquaintances/friend/kin’
Selfishness
Avoidance of danger/predators/disease
Acquisition of resources
Preference for power/status
Parent-child conflict over parental investment
the Hero, the Maiden, the Anima, the Animus
the Mother, the Father, the Family, the Child,
the Parents
the Mother, the Father, the Child, the Patents
the Persona, the Shadow
the Persona, the Shadow
the Shadow
the Bad Animal, the Devil, the Dragon,
the Serptent, the Good Mother
the Persona, the Shadow
the Wide Old Man, the Hero
the Wicked Mother, the Witch, the Dragon,
the Bad Father

reproductive advantages conferred on ancestral humans; accompanying this list are

Jungian archetypes that appear to match specific areas. This is not an exhaustive list of
either area; it is intended to speculate about psychological mechanisms in evolutionary
psychology and Jungian psychology that might overlap.

Coneluslon

Jung’s observations of archetypal experiences and his description of the contents of the
putative collective unconscious align well with the interests of evolutionary psychologists.
Questions about the evolution of the unconscious are fundamental to questions about the
kinds of psychological adaptations that have evolved. Jung’s assumptions regarding a
necessarily unconscious part of the psyche remain and have yet to be systematically studied
using an evolutionary perspective, even though there is considerable interest in unconscious
processes by psychologists in diverse fields of research (e.g., Bowers, 1987; Greenwald,
1992; Kihlstrom, 1987). Like Jung, evolutionary psychologists must struggle with the
concepts of the conscious and the unconscious in order to explain how the psyche evolved
to its present form and structure. Jung asserted that archetypes exist only in the
unconscious, although archetypal imagery-the affective and cognitive result of the
archetype per se-was manifest in conscious awareness and reflected in symbols, dreams,
and mythology. The extent to which archetypes or psychological adaptations are not
 Alprithms andAnAetyp - 303

readily available to consciousness is an empirical question. Perhaps such adaptations are

unconscious because there is only limited “workspace” available in the brain, ancestral
hominids who were overwhelmed with information to the extent where thinking became
incoherent and disorganized might well have been unable to function in daily life, and
therefore would not have survived and reproduced. Perhaps conscious awareness of
underlying conceptual organization resulted in an “override” that led to conscious yet “bad”
decision-making and lower ancestral reproductive success (Alexander, 1979).
Very possibly, Jung’s ideas about the putative design of the evolved psyche are merely
metaphorical, representing the “true” structure of the psyche as filtered through his
personal observations of an unsystematic mare of individual experiences and imagination
only fortuitously related to the “true” collection of adaptations that make up the psyche.
That is, agreeing for the moment that there are a number of domain-specifc psychological
adaptations, we do not know whether Jung observed the causal effects of them, or just
some of the fortuitous effects of them. What is lacking from Jung’s observations of
archetypal experiences are expositions of what, exactly, was universal. For instance, when
Jung observed myths, dreams, feelings, and images of the Mother archetype, which of
these observations reflect something universal in, for example, mother-child attachment,
and which reflect idiosyncratic, personal effects that are only fortuitously related to
whatever psychological adaptation(s) govern the Mother archetype?
A skilled observer, Jung collected a huge amount of data concerning what he felt
to be universals in the structure of the human psyche. Of course, merely being human,
and dealing with ordinary problems, introduces a great deal of consistency into what people
think, write, and dream about; the question for evolutionary psychology is whether humans
are equipped with and guided by universal, naturally-selected, functionally-specific
cognitive programs that organize thinking, feeling, and behavior in predictable ways in
dealing with common life-situations.
One of the greatest challenges in understanding Jung lies in consuming and
comprehending his prolific writing; his Collected Works comprise twenty volumes of
difficult prose replete with examples from mythology and the classics. He has often been
criticized for the mysticism, obscurity, confusion, and contradictions that characterize
much of his work (e.g., Storr, 1973; Percival, 1993); one has difficulty at times grasping
the essentials of a particular Jungian construct, but this is perhaps due as much to his
attempt to provide supporting evidence from an extremely large and eclectic body of
sources combined with a tendency to write “stream-ofconsciousness” paragraphs as to
his rather inconsistent use (and perhaps others’ imprecise translation) of his terminology.
Unfortunately, therefore, Jung’s work may be undeservedly ignored by contemporary
psychologists.
Jung’s vision of the evolution of the psyche is incomplete from the standpoint of
current evolutionary biology, particularly in its total neglect of the importance of defining
adaptive problems in the ancestral environment, and it contains many misapprehensions
about the mechanisms of natural selection. However, Jung’s insights into what he
considered to be universals in the human psyche provide fascinating reading for
evolutionary psychologists who are grappling with the same questions. Jung should not
be criticized too severely for his incomplete account of the role of evolution in human
psychology, since his real contribution to modem evolutionary psychology lies in his
assumption that the human mind is not a blank slate at birth, but a functional system
304 - SALLY WALTERS

of psychological adaptations arising through natural selection that profoundly influence

human thought, feeling, and behavior, and that are therefore reflected in culture through
mythology, literature, and art. The large body of literature left by both Jung and his
followers is a rich source of material for evolutionary psychologists, who should
acknowledge his precedence in this area.
Jung’s goals of understanding the human mind and using that understanding to help
people become happier, insightful, and more effective are enormous and difficult, yet
indicative of the potential of psychology. His emphasis on the emotional experiences that
he characterized as archetypal may be a useful future direction for evolutionary psychology,
which seems to have paid less attention to the emotional component of psychological
mechanisms than to the cognitive aspect. One hopes that Jung’s insightful and empathic
attempts to understand psychological adaptations can be built upon by including a more
indepth understanding of the ancestral environment, natural selection, and other
principles of evolution provided by modern anthropologists, psychologists, biologists, and
behavioral ecologists.

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Acknowleidgments

I thank Charles Crawford, Dave Slotnick, and Gerald Beroldi for comments on a draft
of this article. A poster based on this article was presented at a conference on “Evolution
and Human Sciences” at the London School of Economics, June 1993.

About the Author

Sally Walters is a doctoral student studying evolutionary psychology at Simon Fraser

University. Her research interests include evolutionary theories of cognition, female
reproduction suppression, and human sexual selection. She recently published an article
in Ethology and Sociobiology (Vol. 15, 1994, pp. 5-30) on “The ‘Importance of Mate
Attraction for Intrasexual Competition in Men and Women.”