A cross-cultural investigation of the short version of the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS-7) across five countries

Rita Horváth^{1

2}, David C Watson³, Lynn McCutcheon⁴, Yohanes Budiarto⁵, Róbert Urbán², Zsolt Demetrovics^{2

6

7}, Fransisca Iriani Roesmala Dewi⁵, Reza Shabahang^{6

8}, Benyamin Mokhtari Chirani⁹, Joshua L Williams¹⁰, Carlota Cruces Serrano¹¹, Nancy G McCarley¹¹, Jonathan E Roberts¹¹, Mara S Aruguete¹², James D Griffith¹³, Jeanne Edman¹⁴, Thomas Green¹⁵, Ho Phi Huynh¹⁶, Blaine L Browne¹⁷, Bethany Jurs¹⁸, Emilia Flint¹⁹, Michael J Bernstein²⁰, Hyeyeon Hwang²¹, Marc Eric S Reyes²², Ágnes Zsila^{2

23}

Affiliations

¹ Doctoral School of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
² Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
³ MacEwan University, Edmonton, Canada.
⁴ North American Journal of Psychology, Winter Garden, Florida, United States of America.
⁵ Universitas Tarumanagara, Jakarta, Indonesia.
⁶ Flinders University Institute for Mental Health and Wellbeing, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, Bedford Park, South Australia, Australia.
⁷ Centre of Excellence in Responsible Gaming, University of Gibraltar, Gibraltar, Gibraltar.
⁸ Department of Software Systems & Cybersecurity, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
⁹ University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran.
¹⁰ Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia, United States of America.
¹¹ Georgia Southern University, Savannah, GeorgiaUnited States of America.
¹² Lincoln University, Jefferson, Missouri, United States of America.
¹³ Shippensburg University, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
¹⁴ Consumnes River College, Sacramento, California, United States of America.
¹⁵ Elon University, Elon, North Carolina, United States of America.
¹⁶ School of Medicine and Psychology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
¹⁷ Valdosta State University, Valdosta, Georgia, United States of America.
¹⁸ Neuroscience Program, Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, United States of America.
¹⁹ Black Hills State University, Spearfish, South Dakota, United States of America.
²⁰ Psychological and Social Sciences Program, Pennsylvania State University Abington, Abington, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
²¹ University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, Missouri, United States of America.
²² Department of Psychology, College of Science, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines.
²³ Institute of Psychology, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, Hungary.

PMID: 40934197
PMCID: PMC12425179
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0331696

A cross-cultural investigation of the short version of the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS-7) across five countries

Rita Horváth et al. PLoS One. 2025.

. 2025 Sep 11;20(9):e0331696.

doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0331696. eCollection 2025.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Doctoral School of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
² Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
³ MacEwan University, Edmonton, Canada.
⁴ North American Journal of Psychology, Winter Garden, Florida, United States of America.
⁵ Universitas Tarumanagara, Jakarta, Indonesia.
⁶ Flinders University Institute for Mental Health and Wellbeing, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, Bedford Park, South Australia, Australia.
⁷ Centre of Excellence in Responsible Gaming, University of Gibraltar, Gibraltar, Gibraltar.
⁸ Department of Software Systems & Cybersecurity, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
⁹ University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran.
¹⁰ Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia, United States of America.
¹¹ Georgia Southern University, Savannah, GeorgiaUnited States of America.
¹² Lincoln University, Jefferson, Missouri, United States of America.
¹³ Shippensburg University, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
¹⁴ Consumnes River College, Sacramento, California, United States of America.
¹⁵ Elon University, Elon, North Carolina, United States of America.
¹⁶ School of Medicine and Psychology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
¹⁷ Valdosta State University, Valdosta, Georgia, United States of America.
¹⁸ Neuroscience Program, Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, United States of America.
¹⁹ Black Hills State University, Spearfish, South Dakota, United States of America.
²⁰ Psychological and Social Sciences Program, Pennsylvania State University Abington, Abington, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
²¹ University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, Missouri, United States of America.
²² Department of Psychology, College of Science, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines.
²³ Institute of Psychology, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, Hungary.

PMID: 40934197
PMCID: PMC12425179
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0331696

Abstract

Background: Celebrity worship, conceptualized as an obsessive admiration of celebrities, has generated considerable research interest over the past two decades. Admiration towards a favorite celebrity has been commonly assessed by the 23-item Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS). Recently, a 7-item short version (CAS-7) was developed on a representative sample of Hungarian adults. This study aimed to provide further evidence for the validity and reliability of the CAS-7 measure by extending the investigation of its factor structure to other cultures and populations.

Methods: Data from 4,353 participants (64.4% women, Mage = 28.22 years, SD = 11.80, age range: 14-93 years) across five countries (Canada, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, US) were used, which was collected through online questionnaires.

Results: Consistent with previous findings, the bifactor structure with celebrity worship as a general factor and entertainment-social and intense-pathological specific factors showed the best fit in all samples. Reliability indices for the celebrity worship general factor were good.

Conclusions: The present findings confirmed the reliability and the consistency of the factor structure of the CAS-7 across different samples, providing further evidence for the applicability of the CAS-7 in different cultures.

Copyright: © 2025 Horváth et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

References

1. McCutcheon LE, Lange R, Houran J. Conceptualization and measurement of celebrity worship. Br J Psychol. 2002;93(Pt 1):67–87. doi: 10.1348/000712602162454 - DOI - PubMed
1. Lian B, Aruguete MS, Huynh H, McCutcheon LE, Murtagh MP. Is gambling addiction related to celebrity addiction? SIS J Proj Psychol Ment Health. 2019;26(2):87–96.
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A cross-cultural investigation of the short version of the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS-7) across five countries

Affiliations

A cross-cultural investigation of the short version of the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS-7) across five countries

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

References

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Miscellaneous