On Thursday, BrainBlogger posted an interesting entry that delves into the research regarding “celebrity worship,” which includes probably a lot more Americans than most people realize.
Much research has been conducted about who engages in celebrity worship and what drives the compulsion. Celebrity worship for purely entertainment purposes likely reflects an extraverted personality and is most likely a healthy past time for most people. This type of celebrity worship involves harmless behaviors such as reading and learning about a celebrity. Intense personal attitudes towards celebrities, however, reflect traits of neuroticism. The most extreme descriptions of celebrity worship exhibit borderline pathological behavior and traits of psychoticism. This type of celebrity worship may involve empathy with a celebrity’s failures and successes, obsessions with the details of a celebrity’s life, and over-identification with the celebrity.
I think that if people keep up with celebrities as a hobby (much like I keep up with technology trends), it’s fine and there’s nothing wrong with it. But when people look at celebrities as actual role models, or people whom they would like to model their lives after, that’s when I think it’s taking things a little bit too far.
Is celebrity worship good or bad?
Research provides us with a mixed picture. North et al. (2007) found that there’s a certain type of person that seems drawn to celebrity worship:
[… E]ntertainment social celebrity worship (arguably the most normal form) appears to have no implications for attributional style or self-esteem, intense personal celebrity worship was related to positive self-esteem but also to a propensity toward stable and global attributions, and borderline pathological celebrity worship (arguably the most disordered form) was related to external, stable, and global attributional styles and was close to being associated negatively with self-esteem.
This suggests that people with the most extreme celebrity worship engage in an attributional style that believes the cause of most events in the person’s life are external, that is, they are outside the control of the person experiencing the event. People who have stable, global attributions share such an attribution style with people who are depressed. So people who have the most extreme celebrity worship look to the outside world for explanations, and believe celebrities might hold a piece of that cure.
North and his colleagues (2007) also provide a nice overview of what prior research has found in this area:
Several studies have addressed the correlates of celebrity worship, such as a higher incidence among young people (Ashe & McCutcheon, 2001; Giles, 2002; Larson, 1995); employment of a game-playing love style (McCutcheon, 2002); a negative association with some forms of religiosity (Maltby, Houran, Lange, Ashe, & McCutcheon, 2002); and links with different aspects of Eysenck’s (e.g. Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975) personality dimensions (Maltby, Houran, & McCutcheon, 2003).
Most interesting in the context of this research, Maltby et al. (2004) concluded that intense personal celebrity worship was associated with poorer mental health, and particularly with poorer general health (depression, anxiety, somatic symptoms, social dysfunction) and negative affect (negative affect, stress, and low positive affect and life satisfaction). Similarly, Maltby, McCutcheon, Ashe, and Houran (2001) found that intense personal celebrity worship was associated with depression and anxiety.
Celebrity worship is especially disturbing and prevalent amongst teenage girls:
Findings suggest that in female adolescents, there is an interaction between Intense-personal celebrity worship and body image between the ages of 14 and 16 years, and some tentative evidence has been found to suggest that this relationship disappears at the onset of adulthood, 17 to 20 years (Maltby, 2005).
I think these findings are not surprising when taken into context. Teens seek positive role models that they can emulate. Sadly, our culture continuously reinforces the important and value of celebrities, so it’s no shock that teenage girls might focus their attention on them.
Also, when our own lives start to go down hill, we gain some value (and perhaps a little boost to our mood and self-esteem) when we can read about the most famous and popular people in our culture who suffer from not dissimilar woes from our own. They breakup, they makeup, they wear bad clothes, they have hangovers, just like us.
And maybe that’s the real key… That we’re seeking a sign of humanity that we can relate to and that feels familiar to us, despite how far away, unreal, and unattainable such lives really are.
Read the full article: Are We Worshipping Celebrities or Heroes?
References:
Maltby, J., Giles, DC., Barber, L. & McCutcheon, L.E. (2005). Intense-personal celebrity worship and body image: Evidence of a link among female adolescents. British Journal of Health Psychology, 10(1), 17-32.
North, A.C., Sheridan, L. Maltby, J. & Gillett, R. (2007). Attributional style, self-esteem, and celebrity worship. Media Psychology, 9(2), 291-308.
16 comments
I’m hoping that children see their parents reading all sorts of material and encouraging each to have a life interesting enough in itsef without livin vicariously through people they “think” happy because they are famous.
I think that people that follow others, lock self esteem, confidence, and self love!
I’m a lot more interested in knowing where the extreme, personal animosity to this or that celebrity comes from instead. Just take a glance at TMZ or any similar site. The comments made by users regarding various entertainment figure are brutally harsh, degrading and personal. In my opinion, hatred (not an exaggeration) of celebrities is more on the rise than celebrity worship.
I think that celebrity worship stems from the fact that we only see certain parts of the celebrity’s life. When a problem do arise in their life, it is oftentimes solved in privacy. So the next thing that is reported to us is that the crisis is over. It seems to the public that everything works out for celebrities which is not true.
Celebrity worship is the celebrity problem arises and we can tell that even those personality having the same problem with us.
I do think much of what is said here is valid, but quite a bit is pretty biased as evidenced by the sentence:
“But when people look at celebrities as actual role models, or people whom they would like to model their lives after, that’s when I think it’s taking things a little bit too far”
Why is that necessarily wrong? I can’t help but sense a bit of a value judgement going on here. Would you same thing if the ‘celebrity’ was a psychologist vs a pop star or actor? If the celebrity in question inspires someone to pursue the arts or get involved in a good cause, that’s a good thing.
Seems to me it’s open season on fans and fandom right now, but yet what about sports fanatics and how self destructive some of them are…torching stadiums and overturning cars and fighting at events? Why single out only those who are into Hollywood celebrities? What about those who obsess over politics? Some of them are far more dangerous than those interested in Hollywood celebrities!
I think it can become dangerous if you can relate to a celebrity a bit too much. It only makes you want to be closer to that celebrity. I suppose it can turn you into a phsycho stalker, but then you’d have to be completely obssessed with the person to do that. To the point where it takes over your life. Celebrity dependence can never be a good thing. There’s only so much a famous person can do to satisfy their fans. Just look at the guy who shot John Lennon.
I equate “celebrity” with ‘celebrator’ or one who is ‘celebrating’ frequently, such as the ‘clinking’ of their glasses together with other “celebrities”. It can be a respectable description, but the word “celebrity” is overused describing certain individuals in ‘news’ articles of today. And sometimes an embarrassing togetherness develops when those same “celebrities” are reported to also ‘clinking’ their ‘arzes’ together. … I would rather see the word “celebrity” dropped from the English Language, as it is used wrongly and/or is very misleading when used by overzealous ‘reporters’ whose journalistic talents are poor. Especially when they group together both “celebrity” and “famous” in a single line, and most often of a person who has no talent, can not sing, not act, or able to converse without scattering several unintelligible thoughts in one hurried breath. And additionally, their Life up to that point has been less than enviable in the way of any kind of real, proud, social accomplishment of themselves for others to admire (ex.: the “celebrity” is sleeping with someone else, pregnant by someone other than the real husband, DUI, etc. …. this is ‘news’? )
… If a few more definitive words were used instead of ‘celebrity’, and encompassing the person’s accomplishments and/or notable background. Then it would be a much more intelligent description and approach to attract more readers with a little change in reporting on “celebrities” from today’s style of ‘journalistic articles’.
… Dean Martin was a “celebrity” actor/singer.
… William Holden was a “celebrity” actor.
… George Washington was “famous”.
… Adolph Hitler became “infamous”.
… Bob Hope was “famous” for his comedy, not acting.
The first two examples were also ‘glasses-clinking-celebrators/celebrities’.
However …
… W.C. Fields was BOTH ‘celebrator’ and ‘famous’.
This syndrome needs to be examined in much greater detail. There are other types of celebrity worship. I have found that celebrity worship is more of a coping method for feeling trapped in some aspect of one’s life. It could be anything such as being trapped in an unwanted marriage, avoiding unpleasant decisions, or even emotional abuse in relationships.
There is a type of celebrity worship that does not result in stalking. Some introverted people have fantasy worlds where they are in a relationship with their chosen celebrity. They are 100% aware that it is not real, and some are even terrified to meet their celebrity obsession.