The psychology of celebrity and fandom

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The psychology of celebrity and fandom
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The attraction of celebrity
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Social psychological explanations
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Familiarity and physical attractiveness

• Psychological attraction occurs through repeated
  exposure and beauty as a positive central trait
  of impression formation.

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Physical attraction

• Landy and Sigall (1974) found that male
  participants rated essays thought to be written
  by a more attractive woman more highly.

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Dion (1972)

• Using photographs of 7 year old children found
  that attractive children were less likely to be
  thought of as anti-social than unattrative
  children.
• Probably the best-known example of a 'laboratory
  type' investigation into
• the role of attraction comes from Elaine Walster
  and her colleagues.

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Walster and Berscheid's 'computer dance'
experiment

• Arranged a computer dance for 376 male and
  female students. Before the dance they were all
  asked to fill in a personality questionnaire,
  ostensibly for use in pairing, in fact the
  pairing was done randomly and the questionnaire
  used to provide data about similarity. Later
  the participants were asked to rate their date.

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Walster and Berscheid's cont.

• They found the most important factor in
  determining whether a woman would be asked for a
  second date was her physical attractiveness,
  regardless of the mans.

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Exposure and Familiarity

• Zajonc investigated the mere exposure effect,
  which suggests that, all other things being equal
  people prefer stimuli that they have seen more
  often. Close proximity clearly increases the
  chances of repeated exposure, which may lead to
  familiarity and a sense of trust.

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• Zajonc et al (1971) asked participants to
  evaluate photos of strangers and found that those
  strangers who appeared more often than others
  were rated more positively. This effect has also
  been found for repeated exposure of music
  paintings, and political candidates.

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• Segal (1974) studied police cadets who were
  assigned to their rooms and classroom seats
  alphabetically, and found that they were more
  likely to rate someone as a friend who was close
  in the alphabet to them.

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Heiders balance theory

• Liking for celebrities may be a simple matter of
  maintaining cognitive consistency because we like
  their music, acting, fashion, view etc.

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• Heider (1958) proposes Balance Theory as a simple
  system for describing the way our environment is
  perceived by us. He says a person's environment
  is made up of entities (people, ideas and
  events), and relations between these entities.
  Balance theory deals with three kinds of
  entities. The person (P) whose subjective
  environment we are concerned with, another person
  (O) and the object (X), which may be a third
  person.Balance theory is concerned with how
  relations between the three entities, POX, are
  organised in terms of the person's (P's)
  cognitive structure. Balance theory proposes that
  with three entities, person-another person-object
  (POX), three sets of relations exist i.e. Between
  P and O between P and X and between O and X

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• Each of the three relations, P-O, P-X and O-X,
  can have one of two values. You can either 'like'
  () or 'dislike' (-). With three sets of possible
  relationships, each taking on one of two values
  (/-) eight possible states of affairs
  exists.Here is a schematic of Heider's Balance
  Theory, which is represented by eight triads for
  three entities with positive or negative
  sentiment relations.

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• The four triads on the left are balanced, the
  four on the right imbalanced. (Heider, 1958).

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• Rosenberg and Abelson (1960), maintain that
  attitude change occurs according to a principle
  of minimum effort, which states that the attitude
  that requires the least effort to change will be
  the one that changes. Or to put it more simply
  the one you feel is the least important to you.
  Balance theory is quite good with our intuitions
  about harmony and disharmony between people and
  the significant things in life.

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• Where it breaks down is when the object (X) is
  another person. Maybe this is why marriage
  guidance in a situation of an affair is such a
  struggle. Why do you think this would be the
  case?
• Balance theory has a number of downsides. It
  suggests that relations between entities are
  either positive or negative.
• Degree of like or dislike is not taken into
  account. It also can only deal with relationships
  between three entities.
• Multiple relations often exist between people
  and/or objects.
• Generally, Balance theory oversimplifies, but is
  quite successful within it's own domain.

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Social construction of celebrity roles

• celebrity is constructed by the mass media via
  advertising for economic gain the celebrity is
  well known for their well knowness (Boorstin
  1961)

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Social role identification

• Celebrities are attractive and exert referent
  social power (people wish to be like and identify
  with them) because celebrities possess traits and
  abilities found in the ideal-selves of the
  audience, or symbolise their fans lifestyle
  aspirations of achievement and success (McCracken
  1989)

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Evolutionary psychology explanations

• Physical attractiveness and status as fitness
  indicators celebrities usually possess higher
  levels of both these indicators of reproductive
  success, confirmed by Busss (1989)
  cross-cultural data from 10000 respondents in 37
  countries on the preferred characteristics of
  potential mates.

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• Talent and sexual selection celebrities often
  come from sports or entertainment industries and
  so have the chance to show displays of skill that
  distinguish themselves from their same-sex
  competitors (e.g. Miller, 2000) in the eyes of
  potential mates.

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Evaluation

• Social theories do not always explain the
  ultimate origin of attraction to the physical
  beauty and other desirable traits of celebrities,
  whereas evolutionary theories find it more
  difficult to account for modern celebrity fame
  based on no particular achievement or quality.

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Dimension of Fandom

• McCutcheon et al (2005)
• Developed the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS), on
  the basis of which three distinct dimensions of
  fandom have emerged, which vary in terms of the
  parasocial interaction between fans and
  celebrities and the purpose they serve

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• Entertainment-social fans are attracted to a
  celebrity because they find him or her
  entertaining and a source of social interaction
  and gossip.

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• Intense-personal there is a strongly personal
  aspect of attraction to a celebrity a person may
  feel something bad happening to a celebrity as
  though he or she were experiencing it personally.

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• Borderline-pathological this is characterised by
  obsess ional behaviour fantasies about the
  celebrities people may imagine that they have a
  special relationship with the celebrity.

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Research on intense fandom
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Celebrity worship

• Giles (2003) points out that the word fan comes
  from the Latin fanaticus meaning of the
  temple and cites two pieces of research that
  draw parallels between fandom and religion

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• Jindras (1994) analysis of Star Trek fans
  behaviour argued that it showed enough criteria
  to be classed as a civil religion, including
  organisations, dogmas, recruitment systems, and
  religious rituals.

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• Frow (1998) analysis of fan worship as a cult of
  the dead proposed that film star images become
  disembodied and worshipped once they are recorded
  on film.
• Celebrity worship represents an extreme form of
  para-social interaction where people respond to
  media figures or their media portrayals (e.g.
  character roles) as if they were real people in
  their lives talking abot, interacting and
  assuming a social relationship with them despite
  no actual social contact.

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• Such papa-social interactions vary in degree,
  from sympathising with and talking about (or to!)
  the media figure on television as if they were in
  a real relationship, to modelling ones behaviour
  after, seeking contact with, or even stalking
  them, and experiencing para-social bereavement
  when they die e.g. the deaths of Princess Diana
  and Jill Dando in the UK (Giles 2003).

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Explanation of celebrity worship include

• Personality factors e.g. fantasy proneness,
  cognitive-deficits, low self-esteem, low levels
  of life control.

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• Self-concept over-identification fans are often
  attracted to and identify with celebrities who
  possess traits and abilities found in their
  ideal-self. McCutcheon et al (2002) suggest
  celebrity worship is due to over-identification
  based on psychological absorption and addiction.

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• Companionship needs through exposure and a
  sense of familiarity and intimacy (due to
  extensive media details of their private lives),
  celebrities provide para-social friendships
  (perhaps as a compensation for loneliness,
  deficiencies in social life, or dependency on
  television).

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• Social identity Theory celebrity worship for
  some may be reinforced by social group benefits
  of fan group membership, such as the rewarding
  social interaction of discussion forums or the
  acquisition of subcultural or countercultural
  identities.

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Stalking

• Stalking refers to the obsessive following of
  individuals (e.g. media figures) usually with
  unwanted attempts of physical contact and
  intrusion upon their lives, often leading to
  harassment, intimidation, or even physical
  assault.

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• Pakes and Winstone (2007) point out that although
  there have been many well-publicised cases of
  fans stalking celebrities, research indicates
  that stalking occurs relatively frequently to
  non-celebrities, often by ex-partners and
  acquaintances more than strangers, and that there
  are different types of stalkers and motives for
  their behaviour.

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Explanations of stalking

• Sheridan and Boon (2002) identified five types
  based on 124 cases of staling serious enough to
  warrant police involvement

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• Ex-partner harassment/stalking often motivated
  by anger and bitterness and likely to involve
  impulsive violence.

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• Infatuation harassment less malicious,
  threatening and intrusive stalking motivated by
  intense yearning for and romantic fantasy about
  the victim.

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• Dangerous delusional fixation stalking often of
  high-status women or celebrities, motivated by
  belief of a hidden relationship and a history of
  mental health problems with a high risk of
  violence upon rejection.

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• Less dangerous delusional fixation stalking
  again based on a delusional assumed relationship
  of mutual affection with the victim but one that
  is understandably thwarted by external factors,
  e.g. existing marriages, so less likely to lead
  to violence.

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• Sadistic stalking more calculated and likely to
  escalate to violence, related to psychopathy and
  desires of control.

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• Meloy (1989) suggested staling arises from
  attachment pathology, a theory that could be
  supported by Dutton et al.s (1994) finding that
  individuals with preoccupied and fearful
  attachments were more likely to show jealousy,
  following and surveillance behaviour.

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• Kienlan et als (1997) study of a small sample of
  imprisoned American stalkers found the majority
  had lost their primary caretaker in childhood and
  had a major loss (usually a personal
  relationship) in the six months prior to the
  onset of their stalking behaviour.