Admiration and adoration: Their different ways of showing and shaping who we are

Abstract

Admiration and adoration have been considered as emotions with the power to change people, yet our knowledge of the specific nature and function of these emotions is quite limited. From an interdisciplinary perspective, we present a prototype approach to admiration and what has variously been labelled adoration, worship, or reverence. Both admiration and adoration contribute to the formation of personal and collective ideals, values, and identities, but their workings differ. We offer a detailed theoretical account of commonalities and differences in the appraisal patterns and action tendencies associated with the two emotions. This analysis reveals that admiration motivates the internalisation and emulation of ideals embodied by an outstanding role model. Adoration motivates adherence to the teachings and expectations of a meaning maker and benefactor perceived as superhuman or sacred. Thus, the primary function of admiration is to promote individual learning and change, whereas adoration primarily serves to bind communities together.

Keywords:

• Admiration
• Adoration
• Worship
• Other-praising emotions
• Formation of personal and collective identities
• Ideals

Acknowledgments

This paper was made possible through the support of the Cluster of Excellence “Languages of Emotion” at Free University Berlin, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the German Excellence Initiative.

 We would like to thank Christian von Scheve for valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper. We are grateful to Chris Fagundes and Jason Groves for proofreading the manuscript.