Handing in my dissertation this week was the best feeling ever. Unbelievable amounts of research, time and effort went on that bad boy and I am genuinely proud of it. I think it’s actually quite interesting, and that’s coming from someone who finds their degree pretty boring at times! So I thought I’d give you a gloss over of it, in a completely easy to understand, non boring way!
I decided to do my research on celebrity worship. Specifically, gender differences in celebrity worship and what impact it has on psychological wellbeing. I’m not a fan of celebrities myself if I’m honest, I care about their lives probably the same amount they care about mine! But I find crazy fans and the celeb obsessed people proper strange, and that is what got me researching celebrity worship.
Basically, there is little theoretical knowledge on celebrity worship, as it’s new to the world of psychology, but it is rapidly increasing thanks to social media, the real media and the rise of media communications. What research we do have on celebrity worship points to the idea that individuals with high levels of celebrity worship (and there are three different types by the way) are more likely to have poor psychological wellbeing; poor body image, stress, depression, anxiety, social dysfunction, narcissism, and that’s only in the past 10 years!
Celebrity worship occurs when an individual becomes absorbed by the celebrity, which can happen from small interactions over a long period of time, and allows them to feel they have special knowledge of the celebrity. After a while, they get motivated to maintain this ‘special relationship’ and engage in behaviours that increase it, for example joining fan bases. They can become addicted to engaging in behaviours that allow them to feel connected to the celebrity, and may even become delusional about the nature of their relationship.
For my research, I predicted that women would have higher levels of celebrity worship than males, based on parasocial relationship research, but I won’t bore you with that. I did find women had higher levels of celebrity worship, but not by a statistically significant amount. So, for now, there isn’t any evidence to suggest women have higher levels of celebrity worship than men. But we shall see in the future!
I do regret taking psychology as a degree most of the time, I wish I’d taken something marketing related to be honest, but I do appreciate how important psychology is. For example, finding that celebrity worship can cause anxiety and depression, and then separately finding what factors can cause celebrity worship means that psychologists can come up with ways to prevent and treat depression and anxiety in celebrity worshippers, which is pretty cool.
I’d love to know your opinions on this post, as I’m not sure if people will find it boring or not! But my dissertation, and my degree, have been a huge part of my life so I wanted to share it!
