Idol worship as compensation for parental absence

Idol worship refers to psychological identification with and emotional attachment to an idol figure, who is most likely to be a celebrity for young people nowadays. Fragmentary findings in previous research on adolescent idol worship suggest that it may represent compensation for the worshipper's deficits, such as those in parental resources. To illuminate this compensation perspective, the study surveyed 401 Chinese secondary school students in Hong Kong. Its results show that parental absence and socio-economic status tended to affect the adolescents' idol worship desires. The idol worship included the adolescent's liking of pop idols, the age of the idols liked, and the wish to have romantic relationships with idols. They offer good support to the compensation perspective, implying that idol worship is symptomatic of the adolescent's deficits. © 2012 Taylor & Francis.