Terror Management Theory, I kind of always said "We're just keeping ourselves occupied until we die." didn't know there was a theory behind that.
But I have another one that I've begun to observe as far as a culture theory. I believe all distinct adult hobbies, and fandoms, could be construed from what the adult had utilized to escape from the stresses of late childhood and adolescence.
In essence: If someone is a sports fan, then they played in or got involved with the sports as youth and utilized it to escape the stresses of academia. Adversely, those who grew up into academics were probably more rewarded by the system and used it to escape the stresses of other physical social expectations.
Some may use religion to escape. Other video games, cartoons, movies. When that is found at this time that tends not to change. With the advent of the internet, those who used similar methods are more likely to find one another and thus form fandoms.
But the side of it that may be more interesting to modern social psychology is what happens when the hobby group tends to feel threatened by 'outside forces'. Because this hobby was the thing that 'defended' the childhood psychological health, the person involved in the hobby may tend to will feel the need to defend it. Sometimes just verbally or sometimes violently, probably in proportion to the amount of stress being escaped from.
Things like that can explain things from Gamer Gate movement to fervent religious movements to rioting because your sports team lost in a real close match and was eliminated from a tournament (I mean, the other team basically took away your means of escape from your real life stresses pre-maturely, but you'll eventually calm down when you realize they'll have a go again in less than a year).
In essence, it's sort of what I call 'psychological territory', where each form unique ideological boundaries in which when one crosses it can trigger the same response in individuals or groups that actual physical territory trespass would induce.
Terror Management Theory, I kind of always said "We're just keeping ourselves occupied until we die." didn't know there was a theory behind that.
But I have another one that I've begun to observe as far as a culture theory. I believe all distinct adult hobbies, and fandoms, could be construed from what the adult had utilized to escape from the stresses of late childhood and adolescence.
In essence: If someone is a sports fan, then they played in or got involved with the sports as youth and utilized it to escape the stresses of academia. Adversely, those who grew up into academics were probably more rewarded by the system and used it to escape the stresses of other physical social expectations.
Some may use religion to escape. Other video games, cartoons, movies. When that is found at this time that tends not to change. With the advent of the internet, those who used similar methods are more likely to find one another and thus form fandoms.
But the side of it that may be more interesting to modern social psychology is what happens when the hobby group tends to feel threatened by 'outside forces'. Because this hobby was the thing that 'defended' the childhood psychological health, the person involved in the hobby may tend to will feel the need to defend it. Sometimes just verbally or sometimes violently, probably in proportion to the amount of stress being escaped from.
Things like that can explain things from Gamer Gate movement to fervent religious movements to rioting because your sports team lost in a real close match and was eliminated from a tournament (I mean, the other team basically took away your means of escape from your real life stresses pre-maturely, but you'll eventually calm down when you realize they'll have a go again in less than a year).
In essence, it's sort of what I call 'psychological territory', where each form unique ideological boundaries in which when one crosses it can trigger the same response in individuals or groups that actual physical territory trespass would induce.
But that's just my theory on it.