Theories and perspectives of idol worship

This chapter reviews theories and perspectives of idol worship. Several theories have been offered to explain idol worship. For example, the psychoanalytical theory posits that appropriate parental figures are essential for child development. If parents are good models, the child has a secure base for ego development (Pleiss and Feldhusen 1995). If parents provide an insecure base, the child is likely to be anxious and prone to panic and to display immature ego development. Alternatively, children must evolve identities that imitate and endorse their parents but are distinct from them. As such, idols may provide the secure base required for ego development. Based on previous studies and theoretical propositions, two general and contrasting perspectives have emerged to explain idolatrous behaviors around the world, particularly for adolescents. The compensatory perspective of idol worship (偶像崇拜补储论) regards celebrity worshippers as absorbed, addicted, obsessive individuals who lack meaningful relationships (McCutcheon et al. 2002; Meloy 1998; Szymanski 1977; Willis 1972). Their absorption compromises their identity structure (Cheng 2017) so that they devote their “total attention, involving a full commitment of available perceptual, motoric, imaginative, and ideational resources to a unified representation of the attentional object” (Tellegen and Atkinson 1974, p. 274). They have lost a sense of reality and are overcome with erroneous beliefs that they maintain special ties with the celebrity. Extreme celebrity worship features obsessive-compulsive and even delusional symptoms (Cheng 2017) in which worshippers are deeply motivated to learn about and achieve closeness to the admired celebrity.