tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post4371959768896217939..comments2024-03-27T23:28:20.274-04:00Comments on Face to Face: Celebrity super-couples: Pervasive vs. minimal presence over timeagnostichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-81125444986046967122013-10-27T07:21:42.833-04:002013-10-27T07:21:42.833-04:00Only socially isolated folks desperately glom onto...<i>Only socially isolated folks desperately glom onto celebrities to vicariously feel a sense of direction and achievement, and celeb super-couples to fill the void in their romantic life left by profound distrust of the opposite sex (whether they're single or in an emotionally distant relationship).</i><br /><br />I think there is some work on the association of Big 5 personality traits with celebrity worship, within our society, rather than over time.<br /><br />E.g.<br /><br />http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/North-American-Journal-Psychology/256864602.html- <br /><br />Describes a survey scale called the Celebrity Attitude Scale, which apparently breaks out into three separate factors, "Entertainment-social (ES)" - interested in celebrity for the purposes of gossip and as social glue, "Intense-personal (IP)" - interested in celebrity and "Borderline-pathological (Path)". <br /><br />Under the Eysenckian 3 Factor Personality Model, entertainment-social positively relates to trait extroversion, while intense-personal relates to trait neuroticism and borderline-pathological with trait psychoticism. This appears to replicate under the Big 5, except that as there is no factor representing anything like trait psychoticism, only weak relationships with Openness are present with pathological interest in celebrities.<br /><br />Shyness tends to show up as a mix of low trait extroversion and high trait neuroticism - some shy people don't get that much out of people so don't approach or interact much, while others get lots out of others, but have a lot of crippling inhibition and negative emotions that prevent interaction (and mixes of these traits).<br /><br />Assuming no trait interactions, I'd expect the archtypical celebrity obsessed person, in a generalized sense, to be high trait extroversion and high trait neuroticism. They want lots of social connections and get lots out of them (they are "people loving persons") and like to talk about relationships. But they are rather insecure and negatively emotional. So interpersonal relationships don't work out for them very well, and they haven't got many personal relationships to discuss. Neuroticism also seems to bias people towards an interest in other people's negative emotions and tragedies, as it biases people to be "in feeling" with them. Therefore the turn to celebrity.<br /><br />Emotionally stable, introverted persons, in contrast, would be the least obsessed or interested. For a given amount of celebrity worship, high trait extroverted people are more healthy, but low trait extroversion people are less celebrity obsessed.<br /><br />That might help explain differences between women and men in celeb worship - women aren't more extroverted than men, but they are more interpersonal relationship oriented, and also have higher trait neuroticism.<br /><br />The increase in our time does seem more plausibly related to increases in mental illness (neuroticism linked).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-4607060825232084932013-10-26T23:58:37.321-04:002013-10-26T23:58:37.321-04:00Right, since today's are more cynical publicit...Right, since today's are more cynical publicity stunts, and yesteryear's were not (not obviously anyway), the cause can't be cynical PR offices. It must be more like disconnected audiences demanding the best vicarious experiences, and actors not trusting people outside their industry for dating and marriage.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-29994268885762399132013-10-26T17:44:57.959-04:002013-10-26T17:44:57.959-04:00"cynical sham spouses"
I don't thin..."cynical sham spouses"<br /><br />I don't think that phrase accurately describes Tracy and Hepburn (they famously had an affair that was hidden from the public) or Newman and Woodward (they were happily married for 50 years -- although he did leave his first wife for her).<br /><br />Fake Herzognoreply@blogger.com