Personality and coping: A context for examining celebrity worship and mental health

Abstract

The adaptational‐continuum model of personality and coping suggests a useful context for research areas that emphasize both personality and coping. The present paper used Ferguson's (2001) model integrating personality and coping factors to further conceptualize findings around celebrity worship. Three hundred and seventy‐two respondents completed measures of celebrity worship, personality, coping style, general health, stress, positive and negative affect and life satisfaction. Celebrity worship for intense‐personal reasons is associated with poorer mental heath and this relationship can be understood within the dimensions of neuroticism and a coping style that suggests disengagement. Such findings suggest the utility of examining the relationship between celebrity worship and mental health within both personality and coping variables, which have practical implications for understanding and addressing mental health problems that may occur as the result of engaging in celebrity worship for intense‐personal reasons.

Relationships between Personality and Coping with Stress: An Investigation in Swedish Police Trainees

“…However, individuals were found to relatively consistently prefer and employ particular coping behaviour across a wide range of situations (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989). Since then, various attempts have been made to conceptualise and to investigate relationships between personality and coping with statements ranging from: personality and coping represent comprehensive and closely interrelated constructs, but are not identical (Fickova, 2001;McWilliams, Cox, & Enns, 2003;Murberg, 2009); their indicators are interrelated; personality and coping represent parts of a continuum based on adaptation (Costa, Somerfield, & McCrae, 1996;Maltby, Day, McCutcheon, Gillett, Houran, & Ashe, 2004); there are structural similarities between measures of personality and coping behaviour; personality influences the appraisal process and consequently the choice of coping style; personality affects coping strategy selection (Bolger & Zuckerman, 1995); certain personality traits are likely to facilitate particular coping behaviours (Vollrath, 2001;Suls & Martin, 2005); personality influences effectiveness of coping (Bolger & Zuckman, 1995;DeLongis & Holtzman, 2005); personality and coping partly share their genetic basis (Kato & Pedersen, 2005;Jang, Thordarson, Stein, Cohan, & Taylor, 2007); coping as "personality in action under stress" (Bolger, 1990: p. 525); coping responses are only epiphenomena of personality traits, with no causal status independent of personality traits (McCrae & Costa, 1986); to "coping ought to be redefined as a personality process" (Vollrath, 2001: p. 341).…”

Celebrity worship, addiction and criminality

“…Maltby and colleagues concluded that celebrity worshippers have lower psychological well-being than non-worshippers (Maltby, McCutcheon, Ashe, & Houran, 2001;Maltby et al, 2004). In the first of these studies, data from 307 UK adults identified that scores on the Entertainment ÁSocial subscale of the CAS accounted for unique variance in social dysfunction and depressive symptoms, while scores on the Intense ÁPersonal subscale accounted for unique variance in depression and anxiety scores.…”

Relationship between Students’ Personality and Mental Health at University of Guilan (Faculty of Humanities)

“…Mental health is the prevention of mental illness appearance and wholesome till society's persons can by balance personality and mental make a relationship with environmental ingredients and in the way of securing needs, talents' efflorescening and effort to reach their sublimity individual and social aims [4]. From these introductions for mental health could get a result that Mental Health's goal is prevention and treatment of mental disorder till this person successes in healthy and positive adjustment with self and social environment.…”