A Cognitive Profile of Individuals Who Tend to Worship Celebrities

Abstract

Celebrity worship is a form of parasocial interaction in which individuals become obsessed with 1 or more celebrities, similar to an erotomanic type of delusional disorder. Drawing on the cognitive factors implicated in erotomania, the authors hypothesized that celebrity worshippers might be expected to exhibit verbal, visuospatial, and cognitive deficits related to flexibility and associative learning. This general hypothesis was tested in a sample of 102 participants who completed the Celebrity Attitude Scale (L. E. McCutcheon, R. Lange, & J. Houran, 2002), the Entertainment-Social, Intense-Personal, and Borderline Pathological subscales, and 6 cognitive measures that included creativity (verbal), crystallized intelligence, critical thinking, spatial ability, and need for cognition. The results were consistent with predictions and suggest that cognitive deficits only help facilitate an individual's susceptibility to engage in celebrity worship. The results are discussed in terms of the multivariate absorption-addiction model of celebrity worship.