IDEAL TYPE

in the social sciences, mental construct derived from observable reality although not conforming to it in detail because of deliberate simplification and exaggeration. It is not ideal in the sense that it is excellent, nor is it an average; it is, rather, a logical ideal used to order reality by selecting and accentuating certain elements. The concept of the ideal type was developed by the early-20th-century German sociologist Max Weber, who used it in his historical studies. Some writers confine the use of ideal types to general, suprahistorical phenomena (e.g., bureaucracy) that recur in different times and places, although Weber also used them for historically unique occurrences (e.g., his famous Protestant ethic). Problems in using the ideal type include its tendency to focus attention on extreme, or polar, phenomena, while overlooking the connections between them, and the difficulty of showing how the types and their elements fit into a conception of a total social system.