Idol worship, religiosity, and self-esteem among university and secondary students in Hong Kong

Abstract

Objectives: this study aims to provide psychometric validation of the Idol Worship Questionnaire (IWQ), and investigate the relationship between idol worship, religiosity, and self-esteem. It was hypothesised that idol worship was negatively correlated with religiosity and with lower self-esteem, religiosity would boost self-esteem, females would have more intensive idol worship attitudes than males and idol worship across participants’ age would show an inverted V-shape pattern. Method: the Idol Worship Questionnaire (IWQ), the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS), the Age-Universal I-E Scale-12 (AUIE), and the Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale (RSES; 1962) were given to 800 participants for completion. Results: Five factors were identified in the IWQ: Romantic Fantasy, Physical Attractiveness, Psychological Identification, Worship Decision, and Worship Expenditure. It also showed positive correlations between idol worship and religiosity. Two regression analyses also showed that idol worship or religiosity does not predict self-esteem significantly. Sex acts as a more reliable construct in idol worship attitudes, whereby females have higher idol worship attitudes and males have higher self-esteem. It also moderates the effect of worship conformity attitude in predicting self-esteem. A delayed transition from adolescence to adulthood is also observed in the pattern of idol worship attitudes. Conclusions: this study serves to validate the IWQ and AUIE with regard to their applicability and factor components in Hong Kong. It also shows evidence for the concurrent validity of the IWQ with another measurement on idol worship, the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS). Participants with various religious beliefs and backgrounds should be sampled. Further validations for the AUIE should also be conducted in the future. Last but not least, the types of idols people worship should also be measured and assessed to see if there is any difference.