Attributes and applications of heroes: a brief history of lay and academic perspectives

Research on heroism typically seems fascinating to people in everyday life: they ask insightful and interesting questions about the research, offer their personal reflections on heroes, and sometimes share details of significant life events triggered by the conversation. Heroism is an approachable topic that appears to influence individuals and groups in extraordinary ways. Indeed, heroes have been described as “support for all human life and the inspiration of philosophy, poetry, and the arts” and function as “a vehicle for the profoundest moral and metaphysical instruction” (Campbell, 1949, p. 257). Campbell further suggests that the metaphors by which heroes live have been “brooded upon, searched, and discussed for centuries: they have served whole societies, furthermore, as the mainstays of thought and life” (p. 256).