The tabloids, magazines and newspapers are full of articles about Tiger Woods personal life, with particular reference to the recent crash surrounding his admitted infidelity. Why should this occurrence, despite the public's knowledge that approximately 70% of married men admit cheating on their spouses? Why do we have this obsession with the lives of the rich and famous?
In an article written by Shelley Fralic, in the Vancouver Sun, December 16, 2009, she says our admiration for sports heroes and how we treat them like gods tests our bounds of societal self-respect. Fralic states, "celebrity should never be confused with character, that talent doesn't always equate to sportsmanship," and "we are suckered by the pedestal-unworthy Woods, as we have been by so many other false idols in the sporting firmament." And in response to the argument that the popularity of sports is a reason for the attention and enormous salaries of sports heroes, Fralic points out that the daytime soap The Young and the Restless draws six million viewers five days a week while the U.S. Open in which Tiger Woods participated, drew less than four million.
Some blame the media for aggrandizing the importance of sports figures beyond human proportions, yet that same media claims it is just feeding the public what it demands. And why is the idolatry for sports figures any different than the public's appetite for movie stars and public celebrities such as Paris Hilton?
In 2003, the New Scientist magazine reported that 30% of Americans were suffering from something it called celebrity-worship syndrome, or CWS, indicating that the phenomena was on the rise. Helen Fischer of Rutgers University, and author of Why We Love, explains the phenomena by saying that gossip about celebrities is the equivalent of sitting around the campfire with stories during our ancient tribal times. Mark Shaller, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, sees it as an issue of familiarity. After seeing actors in their underwear and a lot less in media, we recognize them and they become familiar, like family, so we make a family-like connection. Douglas Kenrick at Arizona State University argues that we believe celebrities are the highest part of our gene pool, and we allocate them special status as a result. Fisher extends this ideas to explain how our brain's chemistry works, and for some, following celebrities becomes addictive behavior, stimulated by increased dopamine levels in their brains.
Researchers A.C. North and his colleagues, reporting in the British Journal of Social Psychology concluded, "Much research has been conducted about who engages in celebrity worship and what drives the compulsion. Celebrity worship for purely entertainment purposes likely reflects an extraverted personality and is most likely a healthy past time for most people. This type of celebrity worship involves harmless behaviors such as reading and learning about a celebrity. Intense personal attitudes towards celebrities, however, reflect traits of neuroticism. The most extreme descriptions of celebrity worship exhibit borderline pathological behavior and traits of psychoticism. This type of celebrity worship may involve empathy with a celebrity’s failures and successes, obsessions with the details of a celebrity’s life, and over-identification with the celebrity."
So with respect to Tiger Woods or any other celebrity, the public desire to put them on a pedestal to attain almost God-like status and them participate in anguish, pity or loathing when they fall, seems to have less to do about the celebrities, and more to do with the mental states of those that allocate them celebrity status. It seems like the familiar expression--"get a life"--might be appropriate for people obsessed by the lives of the famous.
