A recent study from a group of Hungarian academics claims that people who are more obsessed with celebrities are likely to be less intelligent.
According to Moguldom, the study was published in BMC Psychology in late 2021 and concluded that “there is a direct association between celebrity worship and poorer performance on cognitive tests,” measuring both literacy and numeracy. The study is entitled “Celebrity worship and cognitive skills revisited: applying Cattell’s two-factor theory of intelligence in a cross-sectional study.”
In 1963 psychologist Raymond B. Cattell argued that fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence are two categories of general intelligence. For the study, 1,763 Hungarian adults took a 30-word vocabulary test and a digit symbol substitution test before completing a “Celebrity Attitude Scale” questionnaire to determine their levels of interest in famous people, The New York Post reported.
Participants were asked to answer “yes” or “no” to a series of statements on the Celebrity Attitude Scale, including: “I often feel compelled to learn the personal habits of my favorite celebrity” and “I am obsessed by details of my favorite celebrity’s life.” The research found that high scores on the Celebrity Attitude Scale correlated with lower performance on the two cognitive ability tests. Participants also provided information on their income, assets, and levels of education.
“These findings suggest that there is a direct association between celebrity worship and poorer performance on the cognitive tests that cannot be accounted for by demographic and socioeconomic factors,” the study stated. The study, however, was not totally conclusive. Researchers could not determine whether celebrity obsessives perform poorly on cognitive tests because they used their brainpower thinking about celebrities or whether they were fixated on Hollywood gossip because they were already less intelligent.
“Future studies should seek further support for our suggestion that the cognitive effort invested in maintaining the absorption in a favorite celebrity may interfere with the person’s performance in tasks that require attention and other cognitive skills,” the researchers told PsyPost in an interview. The researchers continued, “Although our research does not prove that developing a powerful obsession with one’s favorite celebrity causes one to score lower on cognitive tests, it suggests that it might be wise to carefully monitor feelings for [them].”
