BMC Psychology published a study late last year that showed people who worship celebrities tend to score lower on measures of cognitive ability.
The study looked at over two decades of research with mixed findings on the relationship between celebrity worship and cognitive skills.
That’s right, a few Kim K fans might be kicking themselves to learn that cognitive performance is slightly reduced among super fans.
It could be said that celebrity worship has really gone to new levels in the last two decades with the assistance of shitty social media behaviours.
The study authors, Lynn E. McCutcheon, Ágnes Zsila, and Zsolt Demetrovics explained in a statement to PsyPost: “Interest in the topic of celebrity worshipers spans almost two decades. From several studies, over that period, research showed a weak to moderate tendency for those who showed the strongest admiration for their favorite celebrity to have lower cognitive skills, using a variety of cognitive measures,”
“However, most of these studies did not control for a variety of extraneous variables. The current study did control for several possibly relevant variables.”
The study surveyed 1,762 Hungarian adults, having them complete two intelligence tests designed to measure their abilities in vocabulary and digit symbol. Digit symbol tests brain sensitivity.
The study controlled for demographic variables, material wealth and self-esteem and still found notable results that indicated celebrity worship was associated with lower performance on the cognitive tests.
It sounds like we could be better off keeping up with some light reading instead of a family of famous hotties… No real surprise there.
