The Fame Motive (article), - psychologists study fame

The Fame Motive

Excerpts:

August 22, 2006
By BENEDICT CAREY

Psychologists are discovering what propels people who seek fame above all else.

.... For most of its existence, the field of psychology has ignored fame as a primary motivator of human behavior: it was considered too shallow, too culturally variable, too often mingled with other motives to be taken seriously.

But in recent years, a small number of social scientists have begun to study and think about fame in a different way, ranking it with other goals, measuring its psychological effects, characterizing its devoted seekers.

People with an overriding desire to be widely known to strangers are different from those who primarily covet wealth and influence.

Their fame-seeking behavior appears rooted in a desire for social acceptance, a longing for the existential reassurance promised by wide renown.

These yearnings can become more acute in life’s later years, as the opportunities for fame dwindle, “but the motive never dies, and when we realize we’re not going to make it in this lifetime, we find some other route: posthumous fame,” said Orville Gilbert Brim, a psychologist who is completing a book called “The Fame Motive.”

The book is based on data he has gathered and analyzed, with the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The urge to achieve social distinction is evident worldwide, even among people for whom prominence is neither accessible nor desirable.

In rural Hindu villages in India, for instance, widows are expected to be perpetual mourners, austere in their habits, appetites and dress; even so, they often jockey for position, said Richard A. Shweder, an anthropologist in the department of comparative human development at the University of Chicago.

“Many compete for who is most pure,” Dr. Shweder said. “They say, ‘I don’t eat fish, I don’t eat eggs, I don’t even walk into someone’s house who has eaten meat.’ It’s a natural kind of social comparison.”

.... Yet for all the dreamers, only one or two in 100 rate fame as their most coveted goal, trumping all others, the data collected by Dr. Brim and others show.

.... Therapists and researchers, including Dr. Brim, have traced longing for renown to lingering feelings of rejection or neglect.

After all, celebrity is the ultimate high school in-group, writ large. It appears a perfect balm for the sting of social exclusion, or neglect by emotionally or physically absent parents.

Dr. Erikson’s dogged pursuit of recognition, she writes, was partly due to a sense of abandonment: he never knew his biological father, who disappeared before he was born.

Decades later, Dr. Erikson still sought comfort and guidance from others, “but his pursuit of reassurance was not simply the charming humility it was generally interpreted to be,” she writes. “It expressed a persistent and tormenting self-doubt.”

Another factor may also be at work in many people who are preoccupied with becoming famous, one linked to a subconscious but acute appreciation of mortality. In recent experiments, psychologists have shown that, when reminded that they will one day die, people fixate on attributes they consider central to their self-worth.

“Given this awareness of our mortality,” said Jeffrey Greenberg, a psychologist at the University of Arizona, “to function securely, we need to feel somehow protected from this existential predicament, to feel like we are more than just material animals fated only to obliteration upon death.

“We accomplish that by trying to view ourselves as enduringly valuable contributors to a meaningful world. And the more others validate our value, the more special and therefore secure we can feel.”

The odds of achieving some measure of notoriety — a Nobel, an Oscar, a plaque in the Curling Hall of Fame — are so remote that it is no surprise when unrealized ambition curdles into psychological struggle.

In a 1996 study, Richard M. Ryan of the University of Rochester and Dr. Kasser, then at Rochester, conducted in-depth surveys of 100 adults, asking about their aspirations, guiding principles, and values, as well as administering standard measures of psychological well-being.

The participants in the study who focused on goals tied to others’ approval, like fame, reported significantly higher levels of distress than those interested primarily in self-acceptance and friendship.

Surveys done since then, in communities around the world, suggest the same thing: aiming for a target as elusive as fame, and so dependent on the judgments of others, is psychologically treacherous.

.... What of fame-seekers who actually slip through the looking glass and make it? Few celebrities confess to their fame-yearnings, and few if any have consented to anything like a psychological study of motivation and psychological well-being. And someone at the center of a scandal has an experience different from a beloved writer of children’s books.

Many prominent novelists, actors, writers and musicians find lasting satisfaction in seeing others moved by their work. And the limos and V.I.P. seating and private beach parties cannot be too difficult to endure.

Public recognition can bring a heightened focus on the self. Mark Schaller, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, studied the careers of Kurt Cobain, Cole Porter and John Cheever.

In their works, Dr. Schaller found, all three of these artists began referring to themselves more frequently after they became famous.

The increase was slight in the case of Mr. Cobain, the rock star who committed suicide in 1994 at age 27.

It was far more pronounced in Mr. Porter’s songs, and in the stories of Mr. Cheever, who also reported drinking more heavily after receiving wide acclaim.

These three artists are hardly a representative sample, and each probably had some self-destructive tendencies before achieving popular success.

But increased self-consciousness can plunge almost anyone into rumination over soured relationships or lost opportunities, psychologists find.

And famous people in particular are forced to judge themselves against ideals set by others.

Book:

Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America's Favorite Addiction
by Jake Halpern

The Washington Post

Jake Halpern badly wants to believe, and to persuade us to believe, that fame is addictive: for those who seek it, those who serve it, those who worship it.

"Anyone who has ever been in the limelight, even for participating in a high school musical or telling a good story at a cocktail party, can attest to the fact that there is a rush that comes with commanding everyone's attention," he writes, and then asks: "Isn't it possible that many behaviors related to fame -- including becoming famous, being near the famous, and even reading about the famous -- trigger a rush that is potentially addictive?"

He poses the question, then mulls it over for 200 pages, but mercifully concludes in the end that there's just not enough proof. Mercifully, that is, because it's become an American habit to explain away any disagreeable behavior as addictive, thus freeing individuals of responsibility for their own actions.

Along the way, though, Halpern presents a lot of evidence about America's obsession with fame and celebrity: some of it funny, some of it surprising, much of it disturbing.

He tries to find answers to three questions: "Why do countless Americans yearn so desperately for this sort of fame? Why do others, such as celebrity personal assistants, devote their entire lives to serving these people? And why do millions of others fall into the mindless habit of watching them from afar?"

In many ways, the oddest of the three sections of Fame Junkies is the first, in which Halpern takes a look at the International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA), which has become, in effect, the college-board examination for young people who want to become celebrities or whose parents are pushing them in that direction.

The IMTA regularly holds conventions in New York and Los Angeles at which celebrity wannabes strut their stuff and occasionally -- very, very occasionally -- get contracts with modeling firms or Hollywood studios.

"Even by modest estimates," Halpern writes, "a family of four attending an IMTA convention . . . could easily spend $10,000." Yet families not only pony up these substantial sums but often make significant sacrifices in order to do so and, in some cases, return to the IMTA over and over in hope of getting that ever more elusive contract.

They also pony up a lot of money -- usually several thousand dollars -- for training at modeling and acting schools, many operated by one of "the oldest and most reputable," John Robert Powers, but some offering little more than the vague promise that "You could be the next big star!"

As Halpern describes it -- and his description seems fair -- the IMTA convention is a glorified meat market or cattle call. The explanation for its great success -- its former owner estimates that the New York and Los Angeles conventions gross "more than $5 million annually" -- is difficult to pin down.

But there is a good deal of evidence that young people have been lured by "celebrity-focused TV shows," celebrity magazines and especially "American Idol" into the belief, which in some cases hardens into what they perceive as an entitlement, "that they themselves will be famous someday."

A disproportionately large number of them have had unhappy childhoods and seem "to fervently hope that becoming a celebrity would right these wrongs," a theme that recurs often in every aspect of the celebrity culture that Halpern examines.

One reason people are encouraged to chase the chimera of fame is that with the rise of the celebrity-obsessed media, the need for celebrities has increased exponentially and apparently will continue to do so.

All those talk shows and feature writers need "a steady supply of telegenic actors, singers, cooks, talk-show hosts, and meteorologists to fill the increasing number of celebrity slots," or, as Nora Ephron wittily put it three decades ago: "The celebrity pool has expanded in order to provide names to fill the increasing number of column inches currently devoted to gossip; this is my own pet theory, and I use it to explain all sorts of things, one of whom is Halston."

However rapidly the celebrity pool may be expanding, it's scarcely big enough to fulfill the longings of all those kids who think there's a place in it for them, who may have been encouraged in this belief by "our commitment to teaching self-esteem in the schools," whether or not that self-esteem actually has been earned.

But once it dawns on them that they aren't going to be swimming in the celebrity pool, there's still a chance for some of them to achieve what apparently is perceived as an exceedingly attractive second-best: jobs as personal assistants to stars.

"Most assistants describe the bulk of their work as drudgery -- doing laundry, fetching groceries, paying bills. And unlike lawyers and agents, who rub shoulders with the stars and often make millions of dollars, assistants are not paid particularly well."

They "typically make about $56,000" and are on the job around the clock.

Into the bargain -- if "bargain" is the word for it -- they often face what one described to Halpern as "a problem with this job -- sometimes there is a loss of self."

Still, there is, as Halpern writes, "a definite quid pro quo in these relationships: Followers get a sense of belonging, security, and importance; and leaders feed off their admiration and devotion."

Halpern argues that the need to bond with celebrities is a small manifestation of a general trend toward loneliness in American society -- the "Bowling Alone" theme -- and people's need to counteract it in their own lives.

Perhaps so. But there does appear to be evidence that the personal assistants, like the celebrity wannabes, are motivated to varying degrees by a desire to make up for unhappy childhoods.

Ditto for the most intense, obsessive fans. One of them -- a middle-aged woman whose life is almost literally devoted to the rock musician Rod Stewart -- told Halpern: "I just had such a terrible childhood that I never wanted to have children . . . . I guess I didn't get a whole lot of love or acknowledgment as a kid, and that's something I seek when I go to a Rod concert."

At People and Us Weekly magazines, as well as their supermarket counterparts, "the process of demystifying the famous" has enabled fans to view them as equals and friends, and to live vicariously through them.

All of which is true so far as it goes, but there's one aspect of the celebrity culture that Halpern approaches only indirectly: the extent to which ordinary Americans, unencumbered by miserable childhoods or loneliness, talk and read and think about celebrities.

At the next table in a restaurant, the talk is as likely to be of Jen and Brad as of Bush and Cheney -- indeed, a lot more likely to be about Jen and Brad, even here in Washington. Surveys that Halpern cites indicate that younger Americans would rather be a Hollywood celebrity -- or a celebrity personal assistant! -- than president of a major corporation or a high elected official.

I'll pass on the opportunity to sermonize about that, but Halpern's useful book doesn't exactly leave one brimming with optimism about the American future.

I think this celebrity obsession is bad for the nation. Too many kids these days simply want to be famous. They don't care how they're going to achieve fame, they just want it. I don't think it's just kids either - plenty of adults want to be famous for seemingly nothing and I think they all mistakenly believe that great wealth comes with fame. Sometimes it does, but that wealth doesn't always last.

It's why those stupid reality shows are so popular - it's an easy way to become famous for almost nothing. I hope it doesn't get so bad that there aren't enough people willing to do non-glamorous, non-fame-bringing jobs but I think we're on that path.

I absolutely agree MM. Im a teenager myself, and I don't understand why people are deluded enough to be casted on bad reality shows for, what they think, newfound fame. And plus I kind of feel embarssed for those young adults that show their problems on MTV's True Life.