Discuss research into celebrity stalking. (4+6)

Question 1

Celebrity stalking

Answer 1

An even more extreme aspect of intense fandom - the British Crime Survey defines stalking as ‘a course of conduct involving two or more events of harassment causing fear, alarming or distress’.

Question 2

Celebrity stalking can include:

Answer 2

Physically following the celebrity, Sending unwanted letters and phone calls, ‘Cyber-stalking’ - sending unwanted texts or emails, Physical violence - even homocide

Question 3

Giles

Answer 3

an example of a fan who sat on the steps of a recoding studio for 110 days in the hope of meeting her idol

Question 4

John Lennon

Answer 4

shot and killed by Mark Chapman - physical violence

Question 5

McCutcheon et al

Answer 5

asked 299 students to complete a parental bonding scale which asked participants to recall early relationship with parents and a celebrity stalking scale - participants had to indicate on a scale how appropriate the behaviours were - found that participants who were insecurely attached were more likely to think that Celebrity Stalking was acceptable

Question 6

Evaluation of McCutcheon

Answer 6

Subjective scale
Social Desirability (might lie about how they feel)
Doesn’t distinguish between Type A and Type C

Question 7

Roberts

Answer 7

200 students reported on: 1. actual attempts they had made to contact celebrities, 2. tendencies towards avoidance and anxiety - Type C, a positive correlation between attachment related anxiety and the frequency of self-reported approach behaviour towards a celebrity - Type A, a negative correlation between attachment related avoidance and the frequency of self reported approach behaviour towards a celebrity

Question 8

Evaluation of Roberts

Answer 8

Social desirability
Correlation / only showed association 
Did distinguish attachment types
Not as extreme as stalking
Knowing the psychological characteristics association with celebrity stalking might be helpful in designing treatment interventions > Practical application

Question 9

Other research into stalking

Answer 9

Other research into stalking after relationship breakdown shows that stalkers (in this case not of celebrities) are more likely than non-stalkers to have preoccupied attachment

Question 10

Triangulated evidence

Answer 10

Unlikely that the students’ harmless attempts to contact celebrities in Roberts’ would have altered their personalities, so taken together those two studies suggest that Type C attachment is the one causal factor of celebrity stalking

Question 11

Methodological issues

Answer 11

Questionnaires are generally used - a response to a statement on a Likert scale might not give a true picture of participants’ feelings about celebrity - use measures whose validity has been assessed in provisos research (e.g. Cole and Leets used Hazan and Shaver’s questionnaire. Previous research shows proportions classified as A, B and C on this measure are similar to those found for infants in the strange situation.)
Validity problem - social desirability
Evolutionary explanations of celebrity attraction cannot be tested in the usual way
Use of non-experimental methods leads to problems in drawing causal conclusions / extraneous variables
Issue of protection of participants
Issue of confidentiality