Why people fascinated with celebrities

And now, Chanel is interrogating the idea further with an insightful new series. Instantly recognisable, by both scent and appearance, it is without doubt the A-Lister of the world of fragrance. It became a cultural icon itself. For that reason, the house has enlisted academics, journalists and performers to explore the power of celebrity, including Oscar-winning actor Marion Cotillard, former Vanity Fair editor in chief Graydon Carter and, indeed, Laurie Santos herself.

You can join their journey here. One could suggest that the fact that these people live in mansions, walk red carpets and fly in private jets would not necessarily endear them to us mortals.

But their proximity to us via their public projects means that celebrity influence is almost subliminal. We see celebrities on the television when we're in our home, and that can trick our brains to allow us to think that celebrities are closer to us than we really think.

Naturally, the rise of social media has increased these links tenfold. From the Oscar's red carpet to the tabloids lining supermarket checkout lines, celebrity obsession is everywhere. Even the most casual moviegoer might find him or herself flipping through a slideshow of Academy Award fashion after the big event.

So why do we fixate on celebrities? In most cases, it's perfectly natural. Humans are social creatures, psychologists say, and we evolved — and still live — in an environment where it paid to pay attention to the people at the top.

Celebrity fascination may be an outgrowth of this tendency, nourished by the media and technology. They're an easy fix. It's only relatively recently in human history that people have had near-constant access to celebrity news and gossip. But celebrities themselves are nothing new. People have long looked to monarchs for social, and even fashion, cues: The now-ubiquitous white wedding dress caught on after Queen Victoria wore one in Even hunter-gatherer societies in which material goods are relatively scarce have status hierarchies, said Daniel Kruger, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Michigan.

Other primate species also keep a close eye on the dominant individuals in their groups. Knowing what is going on with high-status individuals, you'd be better able to navigate the social scene. Whether Brad Pitt is on good terms with his ex Jennifer Aniston isn't likely to affect the average person's life one way or another, of course, but the social tendency to care is deeply ingrained, Kruger said.

Stars and the media exploit this tendency. A fair amount of research points to issues surrounding the self and social needs as reasons for a fascination with celebrities. In some instances, people may be attracted to celebrities to help remedy chronic feelings of inadequacy or emotional distress.

Other people, however, may gravitate toward celebrities as part of a more normal human need to seek out, form and maintain social connections. Lynn McCutcheon and his colleagues have developed a theory of celebrity worship that describes behaviors motivated by both the empty self and the social self.

Their theory describes three successively deeper and more pathological levels of celebrity worship. Therefore, the degree of celebrity worship that a person might have can be viewed as being on a continuum, with lower levels being relatively normal and governed by the social self, and deeper levels being more abnormal and motivated by the empty self.

People enjoy discussing celebrities with their friends as part of everyday social interactions. At this level people show greater preoccupation with celebrities than they normally should. At this deepest level of celebrity worship, people are too enthralled with celebrities, possibly to the exclusion of real life friends and activities.

McCutcheon and his colleagues propose that interest in celebrities can be addictive and lead to increasing levels of preoccupation with celebrities in order to satisfy the addiction. Indeed, research on the theory has strongly supported the prediction that deeper levels of celebrity worship are related to negative outcomes , such as depression, anxiety and neuroticism, as well as poorer self-esteem and lower life satisfaction. McCutcheon et al.

Cushman has proposed that the empty self emerged in the latter half of the 20th century in the West due to a combination of demographic, economic, sociocultural and psychological factors. Over time, the development of an independent secular personality was emphasized at the expense of religious character and a clear set of internal values. For some people, this has resulted in a version of the self that is too individualistic, independent of others, narcissistic and isolated, leading to a loss of shared communal values and meaning, values confusion, depression, lower self-esteem and relationship problems.

The empty-self experiences a chronic, vague emotional need that the person unsuccessfully attempts to fill through such activities as ceaseless consumption of material goods, drug and food addictions, serial romantic relationships and even unjustified fascination with political figures and celebrities.

Celebrity worship and compulsive buying tendencies have been consistently associated with poorer psychological well-being , including poor self-concept clarity and proneness to boredom. Intense personal celebrity worship has also been found to predict the incidence of elective cosmetic surgery. Some research has observed evidence for a cultural shift over time, with more books, television shows and song lyrics featuring narcissistic behavior and generational increases in narcissism. There is also evidence that materialism is increasing over time among young people.

Shrum and his colleagues have argued that materialism is motivated by a desire to construct and maintain identity, for example, to increase self-esteem, or to foster belongingness and acceptance by others. We have a need to belong , requiring ongoing positive relationships with others who care about us, and we gravitate toward others and enjoy positive social interaction under normal circumstances. These social tendencies are believed to be genetic, or wired in , and necessary for survival according to evolutionary theory.

Interest in celebrities can be seen as a natural result of this need for social connection. Celebrities are often portrayed as attractive and wealthy, with glamorous, exciting lives, in contrast to the more mundane, dull existence of fans. Information about the lives and work of celebrities permeates everyday existence, and the celebrity news cycle runs 24 hours a day. This coverage provides a compelling narrative that increases interest in celebrities, according to Neal Gabler also see his book Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality.

Studies show that the most common leisure activity among Americans, the English and citizens of other European countries is choosing to become absorbed in imaginary experiences and social worlds provided by television, movies, books and video games, which typically feature celebrities. Related research by Shira Gabriel and her colleagues has shown that social needs can even be met with the use of social surrogates , which are only symbolic in nature.

People who have lower self-esteem have been shown to boost their self-concept by thinking of a favorite celebrity. Similarly, people who feel rejected have had their sense of social connection restored by involvement in a favorite television show.

Gayle Stever believes that parasocial relationships with both actual and fictional mediated personalities are to be expected from an evolutionary perspective, and that in most cases these non-reciprocated relationships are adaptive in helping people meet social needs for safety and security.

For this minority of fans, the empty self is more likely motivating the attraction to celebrities. There are additional reasons for the easy connections that fans have with celebrities. We experience the same emotional responses to fictional events as we do to real events, and although the former may be a bit weaker, they are, nonetheless, real emotions. Therefore, media representations of celebrities cannot be easily distinguished from actual encounters with people.

Consistent with this reasoning, Kanazawa speculates that people lower in intelligence may have a more difficult time distinguishing between their real friends and characters that they see on television. Emerging research on social media, however, shows that fans and celebrities can have actual relationships that go beyond parasocial ones. Fans who use Twitter to communicate with their favorite celebrity feel a more intimate connection.