Are Celebrity-worshippers More Prone to Narcissism? A Brief Report
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lynn-Mccutcheon/publication/233858426_Are_celebrity-worshipers_more_prone_to_narcissism_A_brief_report/links/5a1da08c45851537318aa698/Are-celebrity-worshipers-more-prone-to-narcissism-A-brief-report.pdf
Pasteable citation
Ashe, D. D., Maltby, J., & McCutcheon, L. E. (2005). Are celebrity-worshippers more prone to narcissism? A brief report. North American Journal of Psychology, 7(2), 239-246.
Those who worship celebrities tend to be in worse places psychologically than those who do not.
Consequently, a personality profile of the celebrity-worshipper has begun to emerge. For example, it appears as though celebrity -worshippers, those who score high on the CAS, tend to report poorer psychological well-being than nonworshippers (Maltby, McCutcheon, Ashe, & Houran, 2001).
Those who are strongly attached to a celebrity may be trying to outsource critical features of the human experience to a sensory one through the celebrity, these usually are creativity, general information, and critical thinking. This shows that the celebrity-worshipper may not be doing well on average. In my own personal research, this reflected in discussions on r/DeppDelusion citing fans saying that "Johnny was innocent in one breath" and backing it up based on how he looked in a Dior ad. This is a clear example of outsourcing critical thinking, namely justice, to a sensory experience of the celebrity, namely how they felt, sensorily, in an ad. This particularly dangerous as sensation is not a compensation for cognition under any circumstances, yet this is precisely what is seen in celebrity worship.
Furthermore, those who are more strongly attached to their favorite celebrity are likely to score lower on cognitive measures of creativity, general information, and critical thinking (McCutcheon, Ashe, Houran, & Maltby, 2003). This paints a somewhat unflattering portrait of the celebrity-worshipper.
Definition of narcissism
Narcissism is recognized as a personality disorder by the American Psychiatric Association (1994). It is characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance and superiority, an excessive need for admiration, a lack of empathy, exploitative tendencies, and a sense of being entitled to special privileges. Consequently, the interpersonal relationships of narcissists fluctuate between contempt for others and over-idealizing them (Rhodewalt & Morf, 1995; Rosenhan & Seligman, 1989).
Narcissists need to be adored, lack empathy, and are exploitative. Narcissists therefore do better in relationships that are one-sided, called a parasocial connection. Narcissists cite a need to keep a distance and know as little as possible about the celebrity to avoid being disenchanted. Receiving photos and images of something that they have no internal experience of the reality of is best for the narcissist psychologically as the internal and actual reality would almost inherently disenchant their expectations. Therefore, images and illusions captured from a distance serve as compensations for relational emotions. This is where they do best.
Narcissists may have favorable attitudes toward their favorite celebrities according to the following scenario. Narcissists are known to have difficulty maintaining social relationships because of their lack of empathy, their exploitative tendencies, and their demand for adulation. However, they might fare better in a parasocial relationship, one in which the narcissist forms an attraction to a celebrity; the typical celebrity-fan relationship is entirely one-sided, with the fan learning much about the celebrity through the mass media, but the celebrity remaining unaware of the existence of any particular fan (Horton & Wohl, 1956).
This prevents the painful experience of someone with a real internal experience and prevents the lowering of expectations.
If it is true that narcissists expect too much from social relationships, they might find a parasocial relationship with a celebrity to their liking because they would never get close enough to the celebrity to experience lowered expectations.
Narcissists may be the first fans to try to domineer the celebrity from the sidelines. The paper cites these opportunities are not existent, but a fan who felt snubbed who tried to work their way in with more and more aggression is often cited by celebrity security, as well as things like Taylor Swift's show being cancelled due to aggression from men. These may be narcissistic attempts to domineer from what is supposed to be a parasocial,one-sided position showing that the narcissist mind struggles to not accept they are not actually in a relationship with the object of their fixation.
For example, the extreme self-adulation might make it difficult to admire anyone else, including celebrities. Narcissists like to be domineering in social relationships (Morf & Rhodewalt, 1993; Raskin, Novacek, & Hogan, 1991), but opportunities to be domineering in a parasocial relationship with a celebrity are virtually nonexistent.
Most non-narcissist celebrity fans are in an unhealthy self-esteem situation where they defer to others without making sure they are ok (an overall citing of low psychological self-esteem). This somewhat self-destructive tendency may be encouraged just for this result, showing tell-tale need for adulation and feelings of superiority.
Feelings of superiority make it difficult for them to defer to others (Wallace & Baumeister, 2002), yet deference seems to be implicit in the relationship between fans and celebrities.
Celebrity-worshippers tend to have inferior performance, but their narcissist worshippers who tend to have a higher need to domineer them tend to exhibit superior performance. These celebrity worshippers therefore have low self esteem.
Previous research suggests that celebrity-worshippers tend toward inferior performance, at least on cognitive variables (McCutcheon, Ashe, Houran, & Maltby, 2003), but narcissists sometimes exhibit superior performance, especially under certain conditions (Wallace & Baumeister, 2002). Research also shows that celebrity-worshippers tend to score "high" on measures of anxiety and depression (Maltby, McCutcheon, Ashe, & Houran, 2001), variables which are negatively related to selfesteem (Fleming & Courtney, 1984). Self-esteem, in turn, has been found to correlate moderately with measures of narcissism (Sedikides, et al., 2004; Wallace & Baumeister, 2002).
Even in a parasocial celebrity relationship, a narcissist will become angry if they donât feel deferred to or acknowledged, sometimes becoming violent stalkers. A pervading sense that they are one among many does not make it into the narcissistic cognitive space, as that would undermine underlying beliefs of specialness.
However, narcissists typically find it difficult to maintain normal social relationships even under ordinary conditions; to do so when the focus of the group is on some celebrity, rather than the narcissist himself, might be especially difficult.
Narcissists show an absorption-addiction facet of celebrity worship, which may result in punishment and violence when the âhighâ isnât âhigh enoughâ meaning they donât get enough information about the celebrity they have the addiction to.
Apparently, one of the ways that narcissism is manifested is in the tendency to worship celebrities in ways that seem to be unhealthy, according to the absorption-addiction model of celebrity worship.
The only healthiest relationships to celebrities tend to be through things like tabloids and soaps that at the very least lead to connection between people who are also interested, though, unto themselves, they would be in parasocial relationships. Without this, the attachment is entirely unhealthy and meant to destroy self-esteem showing again the need to feel superior and the need for adulation.
It holds that people become interested in the lives of celebrities largely because the stories are entertaining and they provide a basis for social interaction with others. However, some persons become increasingly absorbed in the personal lives of celebrities to the point that it interferes with their own lives.
Low self-esteem is seen and often encouraged in non-social-circle non-narcissist celebrity worshippers. However, this is an unhealthy attachment that can lead to isolation and internalizing that itâs ok to be isolated. Only popular discussion among fans is the healthiest attachment. Neither the isolated non-narcissist or the demanding/potentially violent narcissist fan is. Narcissistic fans can be the first to be heard trying to control the celebrity from the sidelines and even getting violent, aggressive and even becoming so in person if they donât feel they got what they wanted.
At the highest level, the worshipper is tempted to perform acts that are clearly not in the best interest of the worshipper, suggesting that the worshipper has become âaddictedâ to his or her favorite celebrity.
Self-esteem is the causal relationship here. Low self-esteem and celebrity worship go hand in hand, often because the human psyche is not designed for one-sided relationships, but those who are narcissists do best in them precisely because the returning input cannot risk destroying the relationship. Non-narcissists only have real, vested healthy celebrity worship as well when they are establishing and creating true connections within the fanbase, though the relationship to the celebrity themselves remains parasocial.
Furthermore, when self-esteem was partialed out, the overall relationship between narcissism and celebrity worship was non-significant.
Entitlement and delusion is often the result of this being in the public eye. Thousands, if not millions, think they are the one-to-one soulmate of one person. The narcissist then becomes upset and feels they âdeserve their fair chanceâ. Since it is immersive and addictive for the narcissist, no amount of chances would be enough. This is unsustainable for any one human being, showing why celebrity is mainly about the hidden management infrastructure behind the scenes and not the actual person.
âI consider my favorite celebrity to be my soul mate.â Perhaps the connecting link is that narcissists are absolutely convinced that they have marvelous social skills. If only their favorite celebrity would give them a chance to demonstrate these skills, the celebrity would discover what a wonderful person the narcissist really is.
The conclusion is that the problematic features of celebrity worship correlate with narcissism.
Overall, problematic dimensions of celebrity worship appear to be positively correlated with the tendency to be narcissistic. This trend is more pronounced for the United Kingdom sample, and for the particular narcissistic dimensions of exploitativeness, self-sufficiency, and exhibition. Further research is needed to determine if age or culture best accounts for the cross-cultural differences we found.
To avoid celebrity culture becoming a weapon of capitalism used to convince you to not like yourself, you can still radically prefer and like yourself while being part of a fanbase that creates internal connections while referring to healthy emulation and admiration at the root and beginnings of celebrity culture. In contrast, the narcissistic need to abuse, control, and hurt the actual celebrity individual from the sidelines or a narcissistic need of any particular celebrity to exploit, extort adulation, and manipulate oneself into feelings of superiority would be peak unhealthy celebrity worship and would in fact delineate the beginning of the end of the emulation and admiration roots which are actually antithetical to a key narcissistic symptom, envy. Preserving the American emulation/admiration brand of the celebrity tradition is critical as it is under threat to opposing more narcissistic models, such as the plastic surgery and skin obsessed alternatives coming in from Korea, Japan or Chinese webcam celebrity culture, or strict narcissistic-fanbase battering relationships as seen for celebrities like Fan Bing Bing which focus more on narcissistic scrutiny of commodifactions and less on emulation, mutual fondness and admiration of the more relationally focused American model. As it stands, the American tradition is a worldwide exemplar of the transcendence of envy but as more models from different governments become more and more powerful, forgetting how to transcend the toxic power of envy and narcissism becomes more and more under threat as we lose everything the world loved about America and its promise of transcending just these ills and prejudices through mutual, easy, and natural admiration, adulation, and emulation of celebrities and their fanbases.
5 years before Heard's aggressive takedown by the Shan Xiangshuang pseudo-lookalike Johnny Depp only to be "protected" by Musk now in a much more silent position (Shan has a Musk connection through Tesla, and he is a member of the CCP of which Xi JinPing is the head) Fan Bing Bing saw an envy-based enforced disappearance by Xi Jinping in China (reddit.com/r/envystudies). It set the precedent for everything that would happen to Heard that is being described as unprecedented and setting feminism back years just for the sheer cruelty of the trial that showed the same "enforced disappearance" impulse that had been boiling across the ocean years before.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/25/asia/fan-bingbing-china-opinion-intl/index.html
https://www.ft.com/content/14d8b9dd-a415-4f2a-90e1-a3f9417e402f