“Celebrities to lean on!” Perceived celebrity support across two cultures—Iran and the United States

Abstract

Though many people loathe celebrities and their lifestyles, celebrities can also be perceived as being available to provide community support. The purpose of this study was to establish the psychometric properties of the Perceived Celebrity Support Inventory. The scale was developed to capture three aspects of perceived celebrity support to the community: instrumental (i.e., providing tangible and concrete assistance), informational (i.e., advice, explanation, and information), and emotional (i.e., empathizing, encouraging, listening, and comforting) support. Factor and item analyses have revealed robust psychometric properties in samples drawn from the United States (US) and Iran. The US sample perceived higher community support from celebrities than the Iranian sample. In the Iranian sample, perceived celebrity support for the community was associated with more positive attitudes and less hatred of celebrity culture. In the US, perceived celebrity support was associated with negative attitudes and elevated hatred towards celebrities. The findings advance the literature by providing an instrument with which to measure positive aspects of celebrity influence across cultures.

The Influencers’ Attributes and Customer Purchase Intention: The Mediating Role of Customer Attitude Toward Brand

“…Scholars have carried out some studies on the attributes of internet influencers that affect customer attitude and behavior (T. Y. Chen et al, 2021;Ouvrein et al, 2021;Shabahang et al, 2023), and suggested that influencers' attributes drive their success (L. Wang et al, 2021). We define internet influencers' attributes as professionalism, credibility, interactivity, and attractiveness in this study, which originate from the study of F. , and have been applied in some studies, such as the study by L. Wang et al (2021).…”

“…Scholars have carried out some studies on the attributes of internet influencers that affect customer attitude and behavior (T. Y. Chen et al, 2021; Ouvrein et al, 2021; Shabahang et al, 2023), and suggested that influencers’ attributes drive their success (L. Wang et al, 2021).…”