The Stalker in All of Us

We like to think that we're nothing like star stalkers, but former
Southern Illinois University School of Medicine psychologist James Houran
and his colleagues have found that the interest in celebrities runs on a
continuum, from Entertainment Tonight regulars all the way to John
Hinckley.

The team has devised a Celebrity Attitude Scale to measure the
span. On the innocuous end of the scale are people who join fan clubs or
buy lousy records out of loyalty--about one in five of us fit this
category, according to the teams' 600-person survey. And these fans
aren't lonely singles at home with their cats. "These people are outgoing
and believe people should have close relationships with others," says
Houran. "For some reason [they don't] feel a part of their social
milieu." Adoring celebrities is normal for children and adolescents,
Houran notes, since they are still figuring out their own
identities.

The next stage of celebrity fascination, Intense-Personal, involves
feelings that are a little stronger--and stranger. "I consider my
favorite celebrity to be my soul mate," people in this category assert.
About 1 percent of those in the survey are true celebrity worshippers,
who agree that "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." These intense fans probably get sucked in when their lives go off
the rails for other reasons, the team theorizes.

Houran's studies indicate that the most deeply obsessed also show
signs of erotomania, the delusion of having a love affair with an
unattainable or uninterested person. Helen Fisher, the Rutgers University
anthropologist who studies courtship and attraction, speculates that
celebrity obsession is a form of romantic love. Romance is associated
with lower levels of the neurochemical serotonin, breeding the obsessive
and addictive behavior characteristic of both love affairs and the
compulsion to buy Us Weekly. Star worshippers, though, are bound to be
disappointed, she points out: "It won't last forever, because the love
can't be returned."