Pschology of celebrity: Intense fandom

Question 1

CAS

Answer 1

CAS: The celebrity attitude scale

• Developed by McCutcheon (2002)
• A way of judging where celebrity attraction ends and celebrity worship begins

Question 2

Three degrees of fandom according to CAS

Answer 2

• Entertainment-social: Social focus of activities; discussions with friends
• Intense-personal: Fans develop compulsive feelings about their fav celebs
• Borderline-pathological: Fans develop uncontrollable behaviours and fantasies with fav celebs

Question 3

Celebrity worshipers

Answer 3

• For a person to be a celebrity worshiper their life is completely preoccupied by the celeb and their behaviour is obsessive.
• Behaviours including parasocial bereavement and feeling like the celebrity is their soul mate

Question 4

Parasocial bereavement

Answer 4

“When my favourite celebrity dies, I feel like dying too”

Question 5

The three dimension model of celebrity worship, parallels the three dimensions of Eysencks personality theory…

Answer 5

• Of Extraversion, Neuroticism and Psychoticism
• The Entertainment-social reflects extraversion
• The intense personal relates to neuroticism
• The border-line pathological relates to psychoticism

Question 6

Maltby et al. (2003)

Answer 6

Found significant positive correlations:

• 0.3 between extroversion and entertainment-social worship
• 0.3 between neuroticism and intense personal celebrity worship
• 0.2 between psychoticism and borderline-pathological celebrity worship

Question 7

Ashe and McCutcheon (2001)

Answer 7

-Found that CAS scores correlated positively with self-reported number of movies watched per week

Question 8

McCutcheon et al. (2006)

Answer 8

• Found alpha reliability coefficients of
• 0.9 = ES
• 0.8 = IP
• 0.7 = BP

(Alpha reliability coefficient is a measure of the internal reliability of a scale. The closer to 1 the more reliable, and a score of 0.7 is acceptable.)

Question 9

Types of validity for research above:

Answer 9

• Concurrent validity- correlating with Eysencks dimensions

- Predictive validity- Ashe & McCutcheon, it predicts people will behave the same way in real life

Question 10

Characteristics of celebrity worshippers: Description

Answer 10

-McCutcheon et al. (2003):
Measured cognitive ability in various ways- verbal creativity, critical thinking, spatial ability, and need for cognition
There was consistently high negative correlation between CAS scores and Cognitive ability scores; those who are less intelligent are more likely to become a celebrity worshipper.

Question 11

Characteristics of celebrity worshippers: Evaluation

Answer 11

• Measures cognitive ability in more than one way and therefore accounts for individual differences. Intelligence and cognitive ability are very subjective; this method of measurement doesn’t create bias because there are different ways of measuring it.
• One limitation is that you cannot infer causality, as it is correlational and so it could be that you become less intelligent because you become engrossed in the celebrities life style rather than the other way around.

Question 12

Absorption addiction model: Description

Answer 12

-Giles ( 2003):
Parasociability can be seen as a normal step to developing independence and identity; however some fans who have severe defects in their personal identity and problems in real life go to extremes. They become so involved in the celebs life to escape from reality, to achieve fulfilment and develops a feeling of closeness with them.
-This can lead to a state of addiction, where they crave the closeness and indulges in delusional forms of thinking and behaviour.

Question 13

Absorption addiction model: Evaluation

Answer 13

• One advantage of this AA model is its practical application and it can help us understand eating disorders.
• Maltby et al. (2005) found that when celeb worship was associated with eating disorders the group at risk comprised of some female who did not discuss their celeb with their friend but instead have a intense personal relationship with the celeb

Question 14

Celebrity stalking

Answer 14

More extreme aspect of intense fandom

-‘A course of conduct involving two or more events of harassment causing fear, alarm or distress.’

Question 15

Celebrity stalking can include

Answer 15

• Physically following the celebrity: Giles (2000) - a fan who sat on the steps of a recording studio for 110 days in the hope of meeting her idol.
• Sending unwanted letters and phone calls
• ‘Cyber stalking’ – sending unwanted texts or e-mails
• Physical violence, even homicide, as in the case of Mark Chapman who shot and killed John Lennon

Question 16

Description: McCutcheon (2006)

Answer 16

-299 students completed a parental bonding
scale which asked participants to recall
early relationships with parents and a
celebrity stalking scale. Participants had to indicate on a scale how appropriate the
behaviours were. Participants who were insecurely attached (the study did not differentiate between Types A and C) were more likely to think that celebrity stalking was acceptable.

Question 17

Evaluation: McCutcheon (2006)

Answer 17

• Celeb stalking is a rarity; individual differences as some may interpret severity differently
• Social desirability bias; pps would have been unlikely to say they thought the behaviours were ok, or reveal they had bad parental relationships
• Theoretical situations- expressed attitude towards stalking rather than the actual stalking behaviour itself.
• Population validity; students only.

Question 18

Description: Robert (2007)

Answer 18

• 200 students reported on (a) actual attempts they had made to contact celebrities (such as hang up telephone calls, sending gifts) and (b) tendencies towards avoidance (discomfort with depending on others) and anxiety (fear of rejection and abandonment). There was:
• A positive correlation between attachment related anxiety and the frequency of self-reported approach behaviour towards a celebrity
• A negative correlation between attachment related avoidance and the frequency of self-reported approach behaviour towards a celebrity.

Question 19

Evaluation: Robert (2007)

Answer 19

• Social desirability bias; unlikely to say they have anxiety or have stalked celebrities.
• Correlational data; causality issues
• Scale of anxiety and discomfort could be interpreted differently
• They should have measured the severity as well as the frequency of attempts.

Question 20

Well triangulated…

Answer 20

Because studies cover both actual events and theoretical events and show the same results.