Thou shalt worship no other gods — unless they are celebrities: the relationship between celebrity worship and religious orientation

Abstract The Celebrity Attitude Scale, Quest Scale, and the Age-Universal I-E scale-12 were given to 307 British participants in an attempt to provide further psychometric validation of the former and determine the relationship between celebrity worship and religiosity. Results generally supported those of an earlier study showing that the Celebrity Attitude Scale has good psychometric properties. Results also indicated that as religiosity increases for both men and women the tendency to “worship” celebrities decreases. However, the mean of the 12 relationships reported here was only −0.20, suggesting that many religious people apparently ignore the religious teaching that “Thou shalt worship no other Gods,” or fail to connect it to their “worship” of celebrities. A series of multiple regressions revealed combinations of celebrity-related and religiosity measures that predicted scores on the Celebrity Attitude Scale and its three factors.

[1]  David F Duncan,et al.  Sexuality Attitudes and Behaviors of Self-Described Very Religious Urban Students in Middle School , 1999, Psychological reports.

[2]  James Ward,et al.  The British Journal of Psychology , 1904 .

[3]  C. Batson,et al.  Measuring Religion as Quest: 2) Reliability Concerns , 1991 .

[4]  G. Āllport,et al.  Personal religious orientation and prejudice. , 1967, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[5]  J. Maltby,et al.  Religious attitude and practice: the relationship with obsessionality , 1995 .

[6]  Ronald P. Philipchalk.  Psychology and Christianity , 1988 .

[7]  J. Maltby,et al.  Amending a measure of the Quest Religious Orientation : applicability of the scale's use among religious and non-religious persons , 1998 .

[8]  J. Brooks-Gunn,et al.  Adolescent sexual behavior. , 1989, The American psychologist.

[9]  J. Maltby.  Personality Dimensions of Religious Orientation , 1999 .

[10]  Peter L. Sheras,et al.  "From Jerusalem to Jericho": A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior. , 1973 .

[11]  Howard B. Lee,et al.  A first course in factor analysis , 1973 .

[12]  Sigmund Freud,et al.  Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement Between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics , 2013 .

[13]  R. Gorsuch,et al.  Psychology of Religion , 1988 .

[14]  J. Maltby.  The internal structure of a derived, revised, and amended measure of the Religious Orientation Scale: The 'Age-Universal' I-E Scale-12 , 1999 .

[15]  B. Altemeyer,et al.  Enemies of Freedom: Understanding Right-Wing Authoritarianism , 1988 .

[16]  M. Jindra.  Star Trek Fandom as a Religious Phenomenon , 1994 .

[17]  R. Gorsuch,et al.  Development of an "Age Universal" I-E scale. , 1983 .

[18]  Vicky Genia.  I, E, quest, and fundamentalism as predictors of psychological and spiritual well-being , 1996 .

[19]  J. Carroll,et al.  Religiosity and Prejudice in Northern and Southern Churches , 1973 .

[20]  S. Freud.  The Future of an Illusion , 1927 .

[21]  Rense Lange,et al.  Conceptualization and measurement of celebrity worship. , 2002, British journal of psychology.

[22]  R. R. Troiden,et al.  Does sexual ideology correlate with level of sexual experience? Assessing the construct validity of the SAS , 1987 .

[23]  C. Batson,et al.  Religion and the Individual: A Social-Psychological Perspective , 1993 .

[24]  D. Wann.  PRELIMINARY VALIDATION OF THE SPORT FAN MOTIVATION SCALE , 1995 .

[25]  C. Cooper,et al.  Personality effects in personal and public orientations toward religion , 1995 .

[26]  S. McFarland.  Religious orientations and the targets of discrimination. , 1989 .

[27]  Gayle S. Stever.  The Celebrity Appeal Questionnaire , 1991 .

[28]  L. Cronbach.  Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests , 1951 .

[29]  F. A. Diblasio,et al.  Adolescent Sexual Behavior , 1990 .

[30]  A. Rubin,et al.  LONELINESS, PARASOCIAL INTERACTION, AND LOCAL TELEVISION NEWS VIEWING , 1985 .

[31]  C. Batson,et al.  Measuring Religion as Quest: 1) Validity Concerns , 1991 .

[32]  J. Maltby,et al.  Religious orientation and schizotypal traits , 2000 .

[33]  S. Freud.  Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices , 1970 .

[34]  R. Gorsuch,et al.  Prejudice and Religion Revisited: A Cross-Cultural Investigation with a Venezuelan Sample , 1988 .

[35]  M. Argyle,et al.  The psychology of religious behavior, belief and experience , 1997 .

[36]  Paul Kline.  A Handbook of Test Construction , 1987 .

[37]  S. Freud.  The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud , 1953 .

[38]  Dale G. Shaw,et al.  Religion, Intrinsic-Extrinsic Orientation, and Depression , 1991 .

[39]  R. Rubin,et al.  Development of parasocial interaction relationships , 1987 .