Celebrity Worship as a Predictor of Materialistic Values among Pakistani Youth: A Quantitative Study

Abstract

Celebrity worship has become one of the more consequential media and psychological forces shaping young people's values and consumption in the digital age, yet its link with materialism has rarely been studied outside Western cultures. Drawing on Parasocial Interaction Theory (Horton & Wohl, 1956) and Cultivation Theory (Gerbner et al., 1986), this quantitative cross-sectional study examined the relationship between celebrity worship and materialistic values among Pakistani university students (N = 316) recruited through convenience sampling. Both measures performed excellently: the Celebrity Worship Scale (CWS; α = .975) and the Material Values Scale (MVS; α = .904). Celebrity worship and materialism were very strongly related, r = .746, p < .001, well above the r = .30-.50 typically reported in Western samples, and celebrity worship alone accounted for 55.6% of the variance in materialistic values (R² = .556, β = .746, p < .001). Strikingly, 47.5% of the sample scored in the Borderline-Pathological range of the CWS, pointing to a high prevalence of obsessive celebrity attachment within a clinically meaningful range. Men and women did not differ significantly on either celebrity worship or materialism. These results offer some of the first quantitative evidence from Pakistan directly linking celebrity worship (as distinct from general influencer exposure) to materialism, and carry clear implications for media-literacy education, mental-health support, and youth-focused digital media policy.

Keywords: Celebrity Worship, Materialism, Pakistani youth, Parasocial interaction, social media, Quantitative research