Are Celebrities Really Admired for Their Morality?

This study examines whether the admiration of celebrities is the same or different from admiration of other persons. The Multidimensional Admiration Scale , Rubin’s Liking Scale , and the Celebrity Attitude Scale were administered to 190 participants from four American universities. Participants were randomly assigned to fill out either the “most admired person” version or the “favorite celebrity” version ( n = 96) of the three scales. We hypothesized that the Multidimensional Admiration Scale is a valid measure of admiration for individuals who are familiar with the morality of the target person, but is invalid for measuring admiration for celebrities. Arguably, this is partly because celebrities are admired mostly for their ability to entertain, and not their morality, which is often unknown or little is known to their fans. The results generally confirmed our hypotheses. The Multidimensional Admiration Scale was not intended as a measure of admiration for celebrities and is not recommended to be used for that purpose.