Social Psychological Explanations of Attraction of Celebs (10 marks)

One Social-Psychological Explanation for the Attraction of Celebs is the ‘Absorption-Addiction Model’ (AAM) which says that people follow celebs because they lack something in their own life so use this as a way of escape but most people never go beyond admiring celebs because of their entertainment or social value, however in some people this can lead to addiction with certain celebs. Giles and Maltbycame up with three stages of this process:

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Entertainment-Social – Fans are attracted because of their ability to entertain and they become a source of gossip

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Intense-Personal – Intense and Compulsive feelings for the celeb develop and obsessive tendencies

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Borderline-Pathological – Uncontrollable Behaviour and fantasies about celebs occur

A supporting study was carried out into the AAM by Malty (2003) who looked at the link between mental health and the three levels of the AAM. He used the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire to assess the relationship between levels of Celeb attraction and personality. He found that Intense-Personal was linked to neuroticism. This would support the AAM as neuroticism is linked to anxiety and depression which could be the reason for someone moving up the levels of the AAM to try and find that escape and fulfil what they are lacing in their own life.

​However this study was carried out using a self-report method which means that participants could have shown demand characteristics and given answers which they thought were socially desirable rather than truthful ones meaning any conclusions drawn from this study could be based on untruthful evidence. 

​Another Social psychological explanation for theattraction of celebs is Parasocial Relationships. Parasocial relationships are where and individual is attracted to another individual who has no idea that they exist. An individual who had poor attachment as a child is more likely to form a parasocial relationship as it is easier to form an attachment with a celeb as there is no risk of rejection.

​Schiappa et al (2007) conducted a study to support Parasocial Relationships by doing a meta-analysis of studies into parasocial relationships. It was concluded that parasocial relationships were more likely to form with someone attractive and similar to the individual forming it. This supports Parasocial relationships as an explanation of the attraction of celebs as it shows that people look for the same thing in a parasocial relationship that they would in a relationship as they want a real relationship but are less likely to get rejected through a parasocial one suggesting poor attachment as a child.

 There is a big cultural bias in the majority of research into social psychological explanations of attraction of celebs as research focuses on celebs in the media which is a mostly western concept and therefore more research is carried out on western cultures meaning we cannot generalise the results to other non-western cultures.