Role of Parasocial Interaction with Narcotic-Addicted Celebrities and worshiping them in the Prediction of Addiction Potential

Abstract

Given the remarkable expansion of celebrities' culture, celebrities and parasocial interaction with them are among the social factors that can influence the addiction susceptibility of their fans. The present study was conducted to determine the role of parasocial interaction with narcotic-addicted celebrities and worshiping them in the prediction of addiction potential. The research design was descriptive and correlational. The population of the study consisted of male students of Guilan University in 2018. Among them, 120 people (M = 24.16, SD = 7.58) interested in narcotic-addicted celebrities were selected by purposive sampling. The Iranian addiction potential scale (Zargar, 2006), celebrity parasocial interaction scale (Bocarnea and Brown, 2007), and celebrity attitude scale (McCutcheon, Lange, & Houran, 2002) constituted the data collection instruments. Finally, the data were analyzed by Pearson correlation and stepwise multiple regression. The results of this study showed a significant positive correlation between parasocial interaction with narcotic-addicted celebrities and worshiping them with addiction potential (<em>p</em> <0/01). Also, the results indicated the role of parasocial interaction, celebrity worship, and its subscales, including entertainment-social, intense-personal, and borderline-pathological, in the prediction of addiction potential (<em>p</em> <0/01). Considering the role and prominence of parasocial interaction with narcotic-addicted celebrities and worshiping them in addiction potential, it is likely to reduce the addiction potential by designing and providing interventions that reduce parasocial interactions with narcotic-addicted celebrities and fascination with them.