Predicting the stalking of celebrities from measures of persistent pursuit and threat directed toward celebrities, sensation seeking and celebrity worship

Maria M. Wong,

The stalking of celebrities is a serious issue for thousands of celebrities worldwide who are occasionally confronted by fans who merit the label “fanatic.” We administered measures of obnoxious celebrity stalking, celebrity worship, persistent pursuit of celebrities, threat directed toward celebrities, boredom susceptibility, disinhibition, experience seeking, thrill and adventure seeking, relationship styles, and anger to 596 college students from the U.S.A. We developed a model consisting of all but the latter five measures that successfully predicted actual obnoxious stalking behaviors of celebrities. Our results partially replicate earlier research and presents some new findings. Individuals who have personal thoughts about their favorite celebrity frequently, feel compelled to learn more about them, pursue them consistently, threatened to harm them and were prone to boredom were more likely to engage in celebrity stalking. Controlling for these predictors, individuals who admire their favorite celebrity almost exclusively because of their ability to entertain were less likely to engage in celebrity stalking.

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Introduction

Stalking can be defined as the unwanted attention, harassment, or invasion of privacy that threatens or intimidates a person [1]. A large-scale study of stalking suggested that it is far more common than many persons would assume. An estimated 1.7 million people are stalked each year in the United States [2]. The numbers of celebrities that are stalked each year is much smaller, of course, but reaches the level of a societal problem “…when fandom becomes fanaticism in the pursuit of association with the celebrity” (p. 287) [1]. The death of John Lennon, as well as attacks on President Reagan and tennis star Monica Seles, bring to mind the seriousness of celebrity stalking. In one study 25 percent of fans admitted to wanting to be a celebrity’s spouse or romantic partner [3]. A study of threatening fan letters revealed that many letter writers indicated that they believed they already had some kind of a personal relationship with the celebrity. Almost half of them (41%) apparently perceived themselves as a friend, acquaintance or advisor to the celebrity [4].

The development of a model that successfully predicts the actual stalking of celebrities is a worthwhile priority. In this article we attempt to predict actual celebrity stalking through a combination of variables that previous research has directly linked to the tendency to condone some celebrity stalking behaviors, and to others that appear to be indirectly linked to celebrity stalking.

The Obnoxious Fan Activities Scale-18 (OFAS-18) was derived from a list of behaviors that fans sometimes direct toward celebrities [1]. The list consisted of 60 behaviors, but it was reduced by eliminating ‘normal’ fan activities (e.g., seeking autographs, joining a fan club), ambiguous items (writing to a celebrity may or may not be normal depending on the content), and reducing overlap (“obtaining memorabilia” is similar to “purchasing items associated with the celebrity”). The remaining 18 items went far beyond the range of normal fan behaviors [5]. Every item involved a fan activity that could be construed as annoying or downright dangerous to a celebrity (e.g., “following the celebrity in public,” “sending threats or threatening objects,” “expressing attraction or sexual interest,” and “trespassing on the celebrity’s property”). One study found that OFAS-18 scores correlated significantly with a measure of attraction to one’s favorite celebrity and two related measures of attitudes condoning celebrity stalking, namely persistent pursuit and threat. In the same study, OFAS-18 scores significantly predicted scores on attitudes condoning the threatening type of celebrity stalking [5].

Over the course of two decades, McCutcheon and colleagues [6–11] measured admiration for celebrities, beginning with the underlying notion that admiration could be best studied by conceptualizing it in terms of degrees of admiration for a favorite celebrity. They created scale items to measure the extent to which individuals admired their favorite celebrities. To date more than 90 published articles have used the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS) in one form or another and these studies confirm its convergent and external validities (for example, see Griffith et al., 2013). Most of these studies found personality variables that correlated with CAS scores [12].