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Celebrity worship, cognitive flexibility, and social complexity
John Maltby
a,*
, Liz Day
b
, Lynn E. McCutcheon
c
,
Matthew M. Martin
d
, Jacob L. Cayanus
d
a
School of Psychology, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH England, United Kingdom
b
Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom
c
DeVry University, USA
d
West Virginia University, USA
Received 2 June 2003; received in revised form 27 December 2003; accepted 4 February 2004
Available online 12 March 2004
Abstract
To extend previous consideration of cognitive factors in celebrity worship, the aim of the present study
was to examine the relationship between celebrity worship, cognitive flexibility and social complexity. Two
samples of non-student (n¼260) and student respondents (n¼168) completed measures of entertainment–
social, intense–personal, borderline–pathological celebrity worship, cognitive flexibility and social com-
plexity. Findings suggest that cognitive flexibility predicts unique variance in intense–personal aspects of
celebrity worship. These findings help researchers to further conceptualise and understand the individual
who follows a celebrity in an intense and personal way.
Ó2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Celebrity worship; Cognitive flexibility; Social complexity; Cognitive; Attitude
1. Introduction
Not only is there growing interest in celebrities in terms of fans and media coverage, but there is
growing evidence to suggest that celebrity worship may be of interest to psychologists. The
phenomenon occurs more in adolescents or young adults than older persons (Ashe &
McCutcheon, 2001; Larson, 1995), celebrity worshippers are more likely to value a ‘‘game-
playing’’ love style (McCutcheon, 2002), celebrity worship shares a negative association with some
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-116-252-2165; fax: +44-116-252-2067.
E-mail address: jm148@le.ac.uk (J. Maltby).
0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2004.02.004
Personality and Individual Differences 37 (2004) 1475–1482
www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
aspects of religiosity (Maltby, Houran, Lange, Ashe, & McCutcheon, 2002), and related to per-
sonality (Maltby, Houran, & McCutcheon, 2003). However, celebrity worship does not appear to
be related to authoritarianism (Maltby & McCutcheon, 2001) and at best is only very weakly
associated with shyness or loneliness (Ashe & McCutcheon, 2001).
McCutcheon, Lange, and Houran (2002) proposed an ‘‘Absorption–Addiction’’ model to ex-
plain such cases of celebrity worship. According to this model, a compromised identity structure
in some individuals facilitates psychological absorption with a celebrity in an attempt to establish
an identity and a sense of fulfilment. The dynamics of the motivational forces driving this
absorption might in turn take on an addictive component, leading to more extreme (and perhaps
delusional) behaviours to sustain the individual’s satisfaction with the parasocial relationship.
Several studies based on the Celebrity Attitude Scale (McCutcheon et al., 2002; Maltby et al.,
2002; Maltby, McCutcheon, Ashe, & Houran, 2001) are consistent with this proposed model and
suggest that there are three increasingly more extreme set of attitudes and behaviours associated
with celebrity worship. Low levels of celebrity worship have Entertainment–social value and
comprise attitudes and behaviours like ‘‘My friends and I like to discuss what my favourite
celebrity has done,’’ and ‘‘Learning the life story of my favourite celebrity is a lot of fun.’’ This
stage reflects social aspects to celebrity worship and are consistent with Stever’s (1991) observa-
tion that fans are attracted to a favourite celebrity because of their perceived ability to entertain
and capture our attention. Intermediate levels of celebrity worship, by contrast, are characterised
by more Intense–personal feelings, defined by items like ‘‘I consider my favourite celebrity to be
my soul mate,’’ and ‘‘I have frequent thoughts about my celebrity, even when I don’t want to.’’
This stage arguably reflects individuals’ intensive and compulsive feelings about the celebrity, akin
to the obsessional tendencies of fans often referred to in the literature (Dietz et al., 1991; Giles,
2000). The most extreme expression of celebrity worship is labelled Borderline–pathological,as
exemplified by items like ‘‘If someone gave me several thousand dollars (pounds) to do with as I
please, I would consider spending it on a personal possession (like a napkin or paper plate) once
used by my favourite celebrity’’ and ‘‘If I were lucky enough to meet my favourite celebrity, and
he/she asked me to do something illegal as a favour I would probably do it.’’ This factor is
thought to reflect an individual’s social–pathological attitudes and behaviours that are held as a
result of worshipping a celebrity.
There is still a paucity of information about the relationship between specific cognitive variables
and celebrity worship. Martin, Cayanus, McCutcheon, and Maltby (2003) examined the rela-
tionship between celebrity worship and cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility refers to a per-
son’s (a) awareness that in any given situation there are options and alternatives available, (b)
willingness to be flexible and adapt to the situation, and (c) self-efficacy in being flexible (Martin &
Anderson, 1998, 2001; Martin, Anderson, & Thweatt, 1998; Martin & Rubin, 1995). People that
are cognitively flexible are also more interpersonally competent (Parks, 1994). Competent com-
municators are able to adapt their behavior in order to achieve their personal goals. People that
report being cognitively flexible, also view themselves as being assertive, responsive, attentive, and
perceptive (Martin & Anderson, 1996, 1998). Martin and Anderson (2001) found that people who
were higher in cognitive flexibility were more likely to use affinity-seeking strategies. Earlier re-
search has shown that people who have more affinity-seeking strategies in their repertoires and are
able to communicate these strategies are more effective in developing interpersonal relationships
(Martin & Rubin, 1995). People high in celebrity worship are believed to have a weak identity
1476 J. Maltby et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 37 (2004) 1475–1482
structure and seemingly weak interpersonal skills (McCutcheon, Ashe, Houran, & Maltby, 2003),
people that are higher in cognitive flexibility would be expected to be lower in their celebrity
worship. Martin et al. (2003) found cognitive flexibility was negatively related to the dimensions
of intense–personal (r¼0:22, p<0:01) and borderline–pathological (r¼0:17, p<0:05), but
not with the dimension of entertainment/social (r¼0:06, p>0:05). Thus this hypothesis was
partially supported.
There are not only opportunities to examine and confirm this relationship among non-student
samples, but to extend the consideration to other aspects of cognitive processing. One such aspect
is social complexity (Wann & Hamlet, 1994). Social complexity has been defined as one’s desire to
join and maintain memberships in diverse groups (Wann, 2000). Social complexity has been found
to be positively related to positive emotions, personal self-esteem, and collective self-esteem (see
Wann & Hamlet, 1994). Further, negative relationships were found between scores on the
instrument and experiences of negative emotions, stress, and loneliness. Thus similar to the
prediction made by Martin et al. (2003), it is argued that people high in celebrity worship are
believed to have a weak identity structure and seemingly weak interpersonal skills (McCutcheon
et al., 2003) and there would additionally be a significant negative relationship between celebrity
worship and social complexity.
The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between celebrity worship,
cognitive flexibility and social complexity.
2. Method
2.1. Sample
Data was collected from two samples. The first sample consisted of 260 respondents (127 males,
133 females) aged between 18 and 59 years (Mean ¼32.93, SD ¼8.0) sampled from a number of
workplaces and community groups in the North of England. Participants were selected from those
willing to be respondents from the workplaces and community groups visited. Among this sample
the most often reported demographic was White (n¼174), married (n¼116), employed
(n¼111); with most leaving school reported with the equivalent of an education with at least 1 ‘0’
level/GCSE (n¼86).
The second sample comprised 168 university undergraduate students (78 males, 90 females).
Respondents were aged from 18 to 35 years (Mean ¼21.96, SD ¼2.6) and among reported ethnic
demographic was White (n¼113).
2.2. Questionnaires
Respondents were administered:
(1) The Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS: McCutcheon et al., 2002). Originally this scale is a 34-
item Likert-type scale in which respondents are asked to indicate their attitude towards a
favourite celebrity (that they themselves have named) using a number of items that use a response
format ‘‘strongly agree’’ equal to 5 and ‘‘strongly disagree’’ equal to 1. However, from analysis
reported in Maltby et al. (2002) and Maltby et al. (2003), among UK samples, three ‘‘subscales’’
J. Maltby et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 37 (2004) 1475–1482 1477
were formed from 22 of the items; entertainment–social (10 items; e.g. ‘My friends and I like to
discuss what my favourite celebrity has done’, item 5); intense–personal (9 items; ‘I share with my
favourite celebrity a special bond that cannot be described in words’, item 2), and borderline–
pathological (3 items; If I were lucky enough to meet my favourite celebrity, and he/she asked me
to do something illegal as a favour, I would probably do it, item 22). In the present study, this 22-
item measure was used.
(2) The Cognitive Flexibility Scale (Martin & Rubin, 1995) was used to measure cognitive
flexibility. Example items include; ‘‘I can communicate an idea in many different ways’’, ‘‘I am
willing to work at creative solutions to problems’’ and ‘‘I have the self-confidence necessary to try
different ways of behaving’’. Participants respond to 12 items using a 6-point scale: strongly
disagree (1) to strongly agree (6), with possible scores ranging from 12 to 72 and higher scores
indicating greater cognitive flexibility.
(3) The Joiner’s Scale (Wann & Hamlet, 1994) was used to assess social complexity. Example
items include ‘‘I tend to be a member of many different groups’’ and ‘‘I actively seek out new
group memberships’’. Response options to the Likert-style items range from 1 (Low social com-
plexity)to9(High social complexity). Four items are reverse scored, leading to a scale range of 7–
63, with higher scores indicating a greater level of social complexity,
2.3. Results
Table 1 shows the mean scores and standard deviations of all the scales by sex for each sample.
Among the non-student adult sample, females were found to score higher than males on the
measure of social complexity and the intense–personal subscale of the Celebrity Attitude Scale.
Among the student sample, females were found to score higher than males on the measure of the
borderline–pathological subscale of the Celebrity Attitude Scale. In addition, Table 1 shows the
Table 1
Mean scores and alpha coefficients of all the scales by sex
Scale aMales (n¼127) Females (n¼133) t
Non-student adult sample
CAS-entertainment–social 0.92 25.04 (13.1) 24.71 (12.9) 0.21
CAS-intense–personal 0.91 23.84 (10.9) 26.55 (10.2) )2.07
CAS-pathological 0.79 3.92 (2.3) 4.28 (2.5) )1.20
Cognitive flexibility 0.93 37.42 (12.0) 35.77 (12.2) 1.10
Social complexity 0.90 37.98 (15.0) 41.65 (13.2) )2.21
Males (n¼106) Females (n¼115)
Student sample
CAS-entertainment–social 0.82 25.59 (12.4) 25.30 (12.6) 0.15
CAS-intense–personal 0.77 23.95 (9.8) 26.77 (8.8) )1.95
CAS-pathological 0.70 3.67 (1.5) 4.48 (2.7) )2.36
Cognitive flexibility 0.84 38.13 (12.0) 37.76 (12.7) 0.19
Social complexity 0.86 38.87 (14.9) 42.49 (12.8) )1.69
p<0:05.
1478 J. Maltby et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 37 (2004) 1475–1482
Cronbach’s alpha (Cronbach, 1951) computed for all the scales. The present findings suggest that
all the scales demonstrate adequate internal reliability among the present samples.
Table 2 shows the correlations between each of the subscales of the Celebrity Attitude Scale,
cognitive flexibility and social complexity controlling for sex and age. Among both the samples,
the intense–personal celebrity attitude subscale shared a significant negative correlation with both
cognitive flexibility and social complexity. Within the non-student adult sample, the entertain-
ment–social celebrity attitude subscale and shared a significant negative correlation with both
cognitive flexibility and social complexity.
Due to the significant associations between two of the celebrity worship dimensions and both
cognitive flexibility and social complexity, the associations between celebrity attitude, cognitive
flexibility, and social complexity were examined within three standardised multiple regressions
(entertainment–social, cognitive flexibility, social complexity among non-student adults and in-
tense–personal, cognitive flexibility, social complexity among both non-student adults and stu-
dents. Within these models scores on the cognitive flexibility and social complexity scale were used
as predictor variables and the entertainment–social and intense–personal celebrity attitude sub-
scales were used as independent variables.
Among the non-student adult sample, the regression statistic (R) was not significantly different
from zero for scores on the entertainment–social celebrity worship subscale (Fð2;257Þ¼2:25,
p>0:05) using cognitive flexibility and social complexity. Therefore, no further analysis was
performed.
However, among the non-student and student samples the regression statistic (R) was signifi-
cantly different from zero for scores on the intense–personal celebrity worship subscale (Non-
student adult, Fð2;257Þ¼6:44, p<0:01; Student, Fð2;257Þ¼4:66, p<0:05).
Table 3 shows the full results for the unstandardised multiple regression. Included in this table
is the unstandardised regression coefficient (B), the standardised regression coefficients ðBÞ, the
semipartial correlations (sr2), r,r2and adjusted r2. Among both samples, cognitive flexibility
accounted for unique variance in intense–personal celebrity attitude subscale.
Table 2
Correlations between all the variables
12345
Non-student adult sample (n ¼260)
1. Entertainment–social – 0.23 0.14)0.15)0.12
2. Intense–personal – 0.19 )0.21 )0.22
3. Borderline–pathological – 0.10 0.09
4. Cognitive flexibility – 0.37
5. Social complexity –
Student sample (n ¼168)
1. Entertainment–social – 0.34 0.30)0.08 )0.04
2. Intense–personal – 0.28 )0.21 )0.17
3. Borderline–pathological – 0.11 0.13
4. Cognitive flexibility – 0.44
5. Social complexity –
p<0:05; p<0:01; p<0:001.
J. Maltby et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 37 (2004) 1475–1482 1479
3. Discussion
The findings extend on previous findings (Martin et al., 2003) that celebrity worship is related to
cognitive variables, by finding a relationship between celebrity worship for intense–personal
reasons and cognitive flexibility and social complexity in the United Kingdom. However the
findings also fail to replicate previous findings by Martin et al. (2003) that celebrity worship for
borderline–pathological reasons was related to cognitive flexibility and by finding a, albeit very
small, correlation between entertainment–social celebrity worship and cognitive flexibility and
social complexity.
Reasons for the lack of the relationship between the celebrity worship for borderline–patho-
logical reasons and cognitive variable among the present sample may be due to differences be-
tween the samples (USA students and United Kingdom adults and students) and needs to be
further explored. One possible explanation is that the mean scores for the borderline–pathological
celebrity attitude scale (Adults; Male, M¼3:92 Females ¼4.28; Students; Male, M¼3:67
Females ¼4.48) are a lot lower than that reported by Martin et al. (2003), (Mean ¼7.28). Though
these differences in findings may be expected between the different samples, the restricted vari-
ability of scores among the present sample might account for the lack of the relationship.
The significant relationship between entertainment–social celebrity worship and cognitive
flexibility and social complexity probably can be dismissed as due to the size of the sample. The
size of the correlations suggest that the variables share, at best 2%, of the variance, and a model
using these two these cognitive variables as predictors of entertainment–social celebrity worship
do not emerge as statistically significant.
However, the use of the multiple regression suggests that celebrity worship for intense–personal
reasons is associated with lower levels of cognitive flexibility rather than social complexity. This
finding suggests that people who worship individuals for intense–personal reasons tend not to be
aware that in any given situation there are options and alternatives available, don’t tend to be
Table 3
Multiple regression analysis with intense–personal celebrity attitude subscale score used as a dependent variable and
cognitive flexibility and social complexity scores used as predictor variables
Scale BBsr
2
Intense–personal (non-student adult sample)
Cognitive flexibility )0.14 )0.16 0.03
Social complexity )0.07 )0.09
r2¼0:05
Adj r2¼0:04
r¼0:22
Intense–personal (student sample)
Cognitive flexibility )0.12 )0.17 0.03
Social complexity )0.08 )0.11
r2¼0:05
Adj r2¼0:04
r¼0:23
p<0:05; p<0:01; p<0:001.
1480 J. Maltby et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 37 (2004) 1475–1482
willing to be flexible, show low self-efficacy in being flexible. These findings aid the description of
the celebrity worshipper who worships celebrities for intense–personal reasons, as it locates this
cognitive variable to be associated with one particular aspect of celebrity worship. The finding
that this type of celebrity worship is related to unwillingness to become a member of social groups
(social complexity) is better explained by a failure to be cognitive flexible.
These findings may provide an individual cognitive processes context to understand celebrity
worship and its consequences. The present findings suggest that individuals who engage in
celebrity worship for intense–personal reasons are unable to consider options, implement alter-
natives to problems and are unwilling to be flexible. Therefore, when it comes to stressful situ-
ations or daily life, those who are intense–personal in their celebrity worship are ‘locked’ into a
way of viewing the world, and therefore are unable to deal with novel or unusual situations. Such
conclusions are consistent with descriptions of the obsessive or intense–personal celebrity wor-
shipper as someone who are unable to deal with the real world or only see singular value in their
celebrity and very little else (Ashe & McCutcheon, 2001; Larson, 1995; Maltby et al., 2001).
Future research could use such a characterisation in practical ways to test the relationship be-
tween celebrity worship, cognitive flexibility, and mental health indictors to see whether this
cognitive inflexibility has consequences for the celebrity worshipper doing so for intense–personal
reasons.
In summary the present findings suggest that the variable of cognitive flexibility is a useful
factor in describing the celebrity worshipper who does so for intense–personal reasons and this
finding adds to conceptualisation of celebrity worship.
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