Skip to main content
Log in

Gender, age, marital status, and selection of a favorite celebrity of the opposite gender

  • Published:
Current Psychology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS) was administered to 215 participants from the United States through Mechanical Turk along with questions relating to gender, age, and marital status. Results indicate that attraction to one’s favorite celebrity declined slightly with age, and participants who chose a favorite celebrity of the opposite gender did not obtain higher scores on the CAS and its three subscales, as compared to participants who chose a favorite celebrity of the same gender. Females were significantly more likely than males to choose an opposite gender favorite celebrity, and racial centrality (but not gender centrality) was positively related to CAS scores. Implications of the findings were discussed and suggestions for further research were offered.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. When age was entered as a covariate into the 2 (gender: male, female) X 3 (relationship status: single, in a committed relationship but not married, married) factorial ANOVA, the overall model was significant, f (6,208) = 2.63, p < .05, η2 = .07. However, only the age covariate explained a significant amount of the variance, f (1,208) = 11.14, p < .001, η2 = .05. When controlling for age, there was no main effect of gender, f (1,208) = 0.12, p = .73, η2 = .00, no main effect for relationship status, f (2,208) = 1.58, p = .21, η2 = .01, nor an interaction between gender and ethnicity, f (2,208) = 0.44, p = .64, η2 = .00.

References

  • Aruguete, M. S., Huynh, H., Browne, B. L., Jurs, B., Flint, E., & McCutcheon, L. E. (2018). How serious is the ‘carelessness’ problem on mechanical Turk? International Journal of Social Research Methodology. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2018.1563966.

  • Ashe, D. D. & McCutcheon, L. E. (2001). Shyness, loneliness, and attitude toward celebrities. Current Research in Social Psychology, 6(9), 124-133. [on-line]. Available: http://www.uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp/crisp.6.9.htm.

  • Brooks, S. K. (2018). FANatics: Systematic literature review of factors associated with celebrity worship, and suggested directions for future research. Current Psychology, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-9978-4.

  • Buhrmester, M., Kwang, T., & Gosling, S. (2011). Amazon’s mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality data? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(1), 3–5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greene, A. L., & Adams-Price, C. (1990). Adolescents’ secondary attachments to celebrity figures. Sex Roles, 23, 335–347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenwood, D. N., & Long, C. R. (2011). Attachment style, the need to belong and relationship status predict imaginary intimacy with media figures. Communication Research, 38, 278–297.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenwood, D., McCutcheon, L. E., Collisson, B., & Wong, M. (2018). What’s fame got to do with it? Clarifying links among celebrity attitudes, fame appeal, and narcissistic subtypes. Personality and Individual Differences, 131, 238–243.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Griffith, J., Aruguete, M., Edman, J., Green, T., & McCutcheon, L. E. (2013). The temporal stability of the tendency to worship celebrities. SAGE Open, April–June, 3, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244013494221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maltby, J., & McCutcheon, L. E. (2001). Correlations between scores on attitudes toward celebrities and authoritarianism. Psychological Reports, 88, 979–980.

  • Maltby, J., Houran, J., Lange, R., Ashe, D., & McCutcheon, L. E. (2002). Thou shalt worship no other gods––unless they are celebrities: The relationshipbetween celebrity worship and religious orientation. Personality and Individual Differences, 32, 1157–1172.

  • Maltby, J., Houran, J., & McCutcheon, L. E. (2003). A clinical interpretation of attitudes and behaviors associated with celebrity worship. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 191, 25–29.

  • Maltby, J., Day, L., McCutcheon, L. E., Houran, J., & Ashe, D. (2005). Extreme celebrity worship, fantasy proneness, and dissociation: Developing the measurement and understanding of celebrity worship within a clinical personality context. Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 273–283.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCutcheon, L. E. (2002). Are parasocial relationship styles reflected in love styles? Current Research in Social Psychology, 7(6), 82–94. [on-line]. Available: http://www.uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp.7.6.

  • McCutcheon, L. E., & Richman, H. (2016). Do religious skeptics differ from religious believers in their interest in celebrities? Implicit Religion, 19(2), 225–235. https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.29534.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCutcheon, L. E., Maltby, J., Houran, J., & Ashe, D. D. (2004). Celebrity worshippers: Inside the minds of stargazers. Baltimore: PublishAmerica.

  • McCutcheon, L. E., Gillen, M. M., Browne, B. L., Murtagh, M. P., & Collisson, B. (2016a). Intimate relationships & attitudes toward celebrities. Interpersona, 10(1), 77–89. https://doi.org/10.5964/ijpr.v10i1.208.

  • McCutcheon, L., Aruguete, M. S., Jenkins, W., McCarley, N., & Yockey, R. (2016b). An investigation of demographic correlates of the celebrity attitude scale. Interpersona, 10(2), 161-170. doi: 10.5964/ijpr.v.10i2.218

  • Sellers, R. M., Rowley, S. A., Chavous, T. M., Shelton, J. N., & Smith, M. A. (1997). Multidimensional inventory of black identification: Preliminary investigation of reliability and construct validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 805–815.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sellers, R. M., Smith, M. A., Shelton, J. N., Rowley, S. A. J., & Chavous, T. M. (1998). Mutidimensional model of racial identity: A reconceptualization of African American racial identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2(1), 18. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0201_2.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Settles, I. H. (2004). When multiple identities interfere: The role of centrality. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(4), 487–500.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swami, V., Chamorro-Premuzic, T., Mastor, K., Siran, F. H., Said, M. M., Jaafar, J., Sinniah, D., & Pillai, S. K. (2010). Celebrity worship among university students in Malaysia. European Psychologist, 16(4), 234–242. https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040/a000029.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zsila, A., McCutcheon, L. E., & Demetrovics, Z. (2018). The association of celebrity worship with problematic internet use, maladaptive daydreaming, and obsessive desire for fame. Journal of Behavioral Addictions. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.7.2018.76.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brian Collisson.

Ethics declarations

Ethical Approval

All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Collisson, B., McCutcheon, L.E., Edman, J. et al. Gender, age, marital status, and selection of a favorite celebrity of the opposite gender. Curr Psychol 41, 1936–1942 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-00715-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-00715-2

Keywords

Navigation