Bragging Rights : Why Flaunted Wealth Does Not Trigger Hostile Attributions Towards Celebrities 

The participants were recruited from a popular Hungarian news website (444.hu). Participants were invited to complete an online questionnaire focusing on attitudes towards celebrities and cognitive/mental status. Participation was voluntary and anonymity was provided for the respondents. Informed consent was obtained from all participants. The research was conducted with the approval of the research team’s university and was carried out following the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

A total of 1763 Hungarian adults (66.42% male, Mage = 37.22 years, SD = 11.38, age ranged from 18 to 79 years) completed the online survey. The majority of participants reported having a college degree or higher (n = 1244; 70.56%), while another considerable proportion of them reported having a secondary school certification (n = 479; 28.19%), and only 1.25% (n = 22) completed eight or less classes at primary school. Nearly one-third of participants reported having 301,000–600,000 HUF (about 1005–2003 USD) as a monthly household income after taxes (n = 554; 31.42%), one-quarter reported having 101,000–300,000 HUF (about 337–1002 USD) (n = 451; 25.58%), and only a small minority reported having less than 100,000 HUF (about 334 USD) (n = 60; 3.40%). Another considerable proportion of participants reported having 601,000–1,000,000 HUF (about 2006–3338 USD) as a monthly household income after taxes (n = 314; 17.81%), while only a small proportion of participants reported having more than 1,000,000 HUF (about 3338 USD) monthly.