Body Image and Celebrity Worship
Issue: Vol 17 No. 2 (2014)
Journal: Implicit Religion
Subject Areas: Religious Studies
Abstract:
We surveyed college students to determine the relationship between body image and celebrity admiration. We administered the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS), the Self-Objectification Questionnaire (SOQ), the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT), and a slightly modified version of the (ESS,) to 279 participants from three universities and one college. We hypothesized that, as the tendency to worship celebrities increased, so would self-objectification, enjoyment of sexualization, and eating pathology. We thought that this would be particularly true for women and those whose favorite celebrity was perceived as being physically attractive. Results confirmed that men (but not women) who tend to worship celebrities are more likely to show eating disorders and enjoy being sexualized. Our modified version of the ESS has good reliability, and we showed that men are just as likely to enjoy being sexualized as women are. Further, the correlation between ESS and EAT scores was stronger for men than for women. Implications for the further study of attitudes toward celebrities and the need to include males in research on enjoyment of being sexualized were discussed.
Author: Mara Aruguetem, James Griffith, Jeanne Edman, Thomas Green, Lynn Mccutcheon
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