ABSTRACT
This chapter summarises the key theories in psychology and related social sciences that are foundational to our discussion of celebrity. Each of these theories supports the study of celebrity and explains key aspects of our societal and individual fascination with celebrities and the famous. The chapter discusses an application of one of the theories illustrates how theory can apply directly to real-life practice. Albert Bandura was a mid-20th-century psychologist who was one of the first to question key principles of behaviorism, a paradigm that had dominated psychology from 1913 to the 1960s. Vicarious learning and reciprocal determinism are very important in an environment saturated by media, where people known through media become role models for their viewers, and the viewers in turn shape the behavior of the media personalities by their actions. Erik Erikson was the first developmental psychologist to suggest that development is a lifelong process that continues into adulthood.
