Works by author and radio producer Jake Halpern include Braving Home (2003), a study of people who live in extreme places, and Dormia (2009), a fantasy novel. The selection here comes from Fame Junkies (2007), Halpern’s analysis of celebrity worship. Its references to sources have been adapted to illustrate MLA style.

1

Americans now appear to be lonelier than ever. In his book The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies, the Yale political scientist Robert Lane notes that the number of people who described themselves as lonely more than quadrupled in the past few decades (85). We have increasingly become a nation of loners — traveling salesmen, Web designers, phone-bank operators, and online day traders who live and work in isolation. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, we also marry later in life. In 1956 the median age for marriage was 22.5 for men and 20.1 for women; by 2004 it was 27.4 for men and 25.8 for women (Russell). This helps to explain something else the Census Bureau has noted: Americans are increasingly living alone. The share of American households including seven or more people dropped from 35.9 percent in 1790, 5.8 percent in 1950, and 1.2 percent in 2004. Meanwhile, the number of households consisting of just one person rose from 3.7 percent in 1790 to 9.3 percent in 1950 and 26.4 percent in 2004. Nowadays, one out of four American households consists of a single person. In recent years this trend has been especially discernible° among young people (Cushman 599; U.S. Census Bureau). Since 1970 the number of youths (ages fifteen to twenty-five) living alone has almost tripled, and the number of young adults (ages twenty-five to thirty-four) living alone has more than quadrupled (Russell).

2

The combination of loneliness and our innate° desire to belong may be fueling our interest in celebrities and our tendency to form para-social relationships° with them. Only a few research psychologists have seriously explored this possibility, among them Lynn McCutcheon and Dianne Ashe. McCutcheon and Ashe compared results from 150 subjects who had taken three personality tests — one measuring shyness, one measuring loneliness, and one measuring celebrity obsession, on something called the Celebrity Attitudes Scale, or CAS. The CAS asks subjects to rate the veracity° of statements such as “I am obsessed by details of my favorite celebrity’s life” and “If I were lucky enough to meet my favorite celebrity, and he/she asked me to do something illegal as a favor, I would probably do it.” McCutcheon and Ashe found a correlation among scores on loneliness, shyness, and the CAS (Ashe and McCutcheon 129). Their results led McCutcheon to observe in a subsequent paper, “Perhaps one of the ways [we] cope with shyness and loneliness is to cultivate a ‘safe,’ non-threatening relationship with a celebrity” (McCutcheon et al. 503).

3

Another investigation, led by Jacki Fitzpatrick, of Texas Tech University, looked at the correlation° between para-social relationships and actual romantic relationships. Fitzpatrick asked forty-five college students to complete a questionnaire containing several psychological measures, including one that gauged para-social relationships (the Para-social Interaction Scale) and another that gauged romantic relationships (the Multiple Determinants of Relationship Commitment Inventory). She and her colleague, Andrea McCourt, discovered that subjects who were less invested in their romantic relationships were more involved in para-social relationships. They concluded, “It makes sense that individuals may use para-social relationships as one way to fulfill desires or address needs (e.g., for attention, companionship) that are unmet in their romances” (Fitzpatrick and McCourt).

4

The Rochester survey,* too, provides evidence that lonely teenagers are especially susceptible to forming para-social relationships with celebrities. Boys who described themselves as lonely were almost twice as likely as others to endorse the statement “My favorite celebrity just helps me feel good and forget about all of my troubles.” Girls who described themselves as lonely were almost three times as likely as others to endorse that statement.

5

Another survey question asked teens whom they would most like to meet for dinner: Jesus Christ, Albert Einstein, Shaquille O’Neal, Jennifer Lopez, 50 Cent, Paris Hilton, or the President. Among boys who said they were not lonely, the clear winner was Jesus Christ; but among those who described themselves as lonely, Jesus finished last and 50 Cent was the clear winner. Similarly, girls who felt appreciated by their parents, friends, and teachers tended to choose dinner with Jesus, whereas those who felt underappreciated were likely to choose Paris Hilton. One possible interpretation of these results is that lonely and underappreciated teens particularly want to befriend the ultimate popular guy or girl. Regardless of who exactly this figure is at a given time, it’s clear that many of us — lonely people in particular — yearn to belong to the popular crowd.

*The Rochester, NY, survey of 653 fifth to eighth grade students, conducted by Jake Halpern and Carol M. Liebler, is discussed in full in Fame Junkies (New York: Houghton Mifflin2007). [Editor’s note]

Works Cited

Ashe, D. D., and Lynn McCutcheon. “Shyness, Loneliness, and Attitude Toward Celebrities.” Current Research in Social Psychology 6.9 (2001): 124–33. Print.

Cushman, Philip. “Why the Self Is Empty: Toward a Historically Situated Psychology.” American Psychologist 45.5 (1990): 599–612. Print.

Fitzpatrick, Jacki, and Andrea McCourt. “The Role of Personal Characteristics and Romantic Characteristics in Para-social Relationships: A Pilot Study.” Journal of Mundane Behavior 2.1 (2001): n. pag. Web. [Author’s date of access not known.]

Lane, Robert E. The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000. Print.

McCutcheon, Lynn, Mara Aruguete, Vann B. Scott, Jr., and Kristen L. VonWaldner. “Preference for Solitude and Attitude Toward One’s Favorite Celebrity.” North American Journal of Psychology 6.3 (2004): 499–505. Print.

Russell, Cheryl. newstrategist.com. New Strategist Publications, n.d. Web. [Author’s date of access not known.]

United States Census Bureau. Fertility and Family Branch. HH-4: Households by Size: 1960 to Present. 15 Sept. 2004. U.S. Census Bureau. Web. [Author’s date of access not known.]

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