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Deep Roles: Twelve Primordial Roles of Mind and Organization

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Human Relations

Abstract

The thesis in this paper is that there are 12archetypal roles in groups and organizations. These“deep roles” have their origin in the rolesof the essential family — father, mother, son, anddaughter. In groups and organizations, each of theseimages of family roles will — through the basicdefense mechanisms of splitting and projection —be polarized into a good and bad part: The father as Godor devil, the mother as queen or witch, the son as crownprince or black sheep, and the daughter as princess orwhore. In addition to these eight primary deep roles,there come two secondary ones: the helpers Shaman and Slave whose function are to help the familysurvive spiritually and materially, respectively. Thetwo last deep roles are of a transcendental nature: thehero (winner) and the clown (loser), i.e., the one who has won a good family role, and the onewho has lost it — or never gained it. These 12deep roles are well known from such cultural artifactsas fairy tales and mythology. In groups andorganizations, deep roles are attended with power andinterest. Those who are attributed a deep role in theirorganization will have a similar symbolic power ascharacters in fairy tales and mythology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Master of Management Program in Applied Organizational Psychology, Norwegian School of Management, Oslo, Norway

    Paul Moxnes

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Moxnes, P. Deep Roles: Twelve Primordial Roles of Mind and Organization. Human Relations 52, 1427–1444 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016924801073

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