| a construct abstracted from experience in which individual elements are combined to form a whole that is conceptually independent of empirical factors or variables, but against which particular examples of the appropriate class found in life can be measured. |
ideal type
a common mental construct in the social sciences 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 constructed ideal used to approximate reality by selecting and accentuating certain elements
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