My mind is still mush and offering up simple, probably common words to post, so I do apologize in advance if I’ve bored you over the last few days with these entries.  I don’t have it in me to delve deep enough for more advanced vocabulary… at least not yet.

gestalt (ge·stalt): / guh SHTAHLT / (always italicized)
noun

(1) a pattern, configuration, organized field, or structure of phenomena integrated such that it possesses properties as a functional unit which are impossible to derive from the basic summation of its various components; a unified whole; a group regarded as a single item
(2) an instance or example of the whole being more than the sum of its parts

[From German gestalt meaning “figure, shape, form, structure.”]

Usage: Animal personalities are gestalts that could never be unraveled simply by cataloguing individual experiences, thoughts, and emotions.