Celebrity Worship Syndrome (CWS)

Author: Grace Godwin 

'I'm your number one fan'

There are a lot of amazing and talented people in the world, some of which mirror the kind of people we want to be or they mirror the kind of life we want to live. It is normal to admire these qualities or even admire the people that embody these qualities. 

BUT WHERE DO WE DRAW THE LINE?

Celebrity worship is an extreme feeling of attachment to a celebrity. It can also mean making a celebrity with whom you have had no interactions with, the "centre of your world". 

What then is celebrity worship syndrome?

Celebrity worship syndrome (CWS) is a type of para social relationship that involves an obsessive addictive disorder in which a person becomes overly involved with the details of a celebrity's personal and professional life.

Any person who is “in the public eye” can be the object of a person’s obsession (e.g. actors, authors, politicians, pastors, journalists)

Celebrity worshippers may exhibit narcissistic features, dissociation, addictive tendencies, stalking behavior, and compulsive buying. Studies also indicate that individuals with high levels of celebrity worship are more likely to have poorer mental health as well as clinical symptoms of depression, anxiety, and social dysfunction. Of note, no study to date has examined celebrity worshippers for bona fide Axis I and II psychiatric disorders. However, given that celebrity worship exists along a continuum, it appears that being on the high end of this continuum is likely to be associated with a number of potential psychological maladies. 

Findings reveal that individuals with high scores on celebrity-worship scales (used for the assessment of celebrity worship) tend to display a number of psychosocial characteristics. For example, these individuals may harbor concerns about body image (particularly young adolescents), be more prone to cosmetic surgery, and have a personality style characterized by sensation-seeking, cognitive rigidity, identity diffusion, and poor interpersonal boundaries. 

Celebrity Attitudes Scale

The Celebrity Worship Scale underwent a psychometric metamorphosis into the Celebrity Attitudes Scale.  This new scale identifies individuals who are overly absorbed or addicted to their interest in a celebrity. The Celebrity Attitudes Scale detects three domains of celebrity worship, from normative to the more pathological, which is reflected in three specific subscales. These subscales are;

 1) the entertainment-social subscale, 

2) the intense-personal subscale, and 

3) the borderline-pathological subscale. 

The entertainment-social subscale comprises 10 items and indicates that a celebrity is viewed as entertaining and/or captures the respondent’s attention (e.g., item 15, “Learning the life story of my favorite celebrity is a lot of fun”).

 The intense-personal subscale comprises nine items and indicates that the respondent has intense and obsessive attitudes toward a celebrity with compulsive elements (e.g., item 10, “I consider my favorite celebrity to be my soul mate”). 

The borderline-pathological subscale comprises three items and indicates that the respondent exhibits pathological attitudes and behaviors as a result of celebrity worship (e.g., “If I were lucky enough to meet my favorite celebrity, and he/she asked me to do something illegal as a favor, I would probably do it”).

 The Celebrity Attitudes Scale is the most common scale in the extant empirical literature. 

Admiring celebrities is totally normal and nothing to be ashamed of. However,  there can be a fine line between admiration and obsession.

Out of the three subscales,  where do you stand? 👁