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Fans have a tendency to form one-sided relationships with celebrities who are made famous by both mass and social media. Previous research has shown that celebrity worshipers are more prone to well-being issues than non-worshipers. We studied attitudes toward one's favorite celebrity among Filipino fans and its relationship to their mental health. Three hundred twenty-three young Filipinos (113 males, 210 females) completed the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS), the Public Figure Preoccupation Inventory (PFPI), and the Mental Health Inventory (MHI). Those who were members of organized fandom groups scored significantly higher than those who were not in fandom groups on the CAS and all three of its subscales, as predicted. Members of organized fandom groups scored significantly higher on the PFPI, as predicted, but largely because of a gender interaction effect. There were no significant effects of fandom versus non-fandom group, gender, or an interaction for scores on the MHI. Implications and recommendations are further discussed.
Despite the lack of physical interaction between most celebrities and their audiences, the strong emotional connection that audiences feel for them endures (De Backer, 2012). This emotional connection is what Horton and Wohl (1956) called a parasocial interaction, a one-sided quasi-interaction between an audience and a celebrity. A specific form of parasocial interaction, celebrity worship, has been conceptualized by McCutcheon, Lange and Houran (2002), and it ranges from normal admiration to psychopathological obsession. To further explain celebrity worship, McCutcheon et al. (2002) proposed the Absorption Addiction Model. According to this model, the majority of celebrity worshipers initially are attracted to their favorite celebrities largely for the entertainment and social value that they provide. A minority of these persons subsequently become increasingly absorbed in the personal lives of their favorites, perhaps in an effort to establish an identity and a sense of fulfillment. The psychological absorption element is then hypothesized to take on addictive components, leading fans to endorse more intense attitudes and behaviors in order to maintain the absorption, similar to increased doses of a drug needed to overcome tolerance levels that develop. People who score high on this second level of the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS) tend to show higher levels of depression, anxiety, hostility and impulsiveness as compared to those who score lower on level two (Maltby,...