The role of media figures in adolescent development: relations between autonomy, attachment, and interest in celebrities
Section snippets
Participants
The participants were 191 schoolchildren (93 males, 98 females), aged between 11 and 16 years (Mean age=13.57; S.D.=1.4), sampled from a number of schools in South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire regions of England.
Forty-eight respondents were in Year 7 of school, 47 respondents were in Year 8 of school, 47 respondents were in Year 9 of school, 25 respondents were in Year 10 of school, and 24 respondents were in Year 11 of school. The most frequently cited ethnic group was White British (n=109),
Bivariate analyses
The Pearson product–moment correlations between the subscales and demographic variables are displayed in Table 1.
The variable of age has significant positive correlations with all the measures in the study with the exception of closeness (no association), and the parents and security subscales of the AORI, with which it has significant negative correlations. These findings are in line with the predictions that celebrity interest and emotional autonomy increase during middle adolescence, and
Discussion
The results from the multiple regression lend support to the hypothesis that emotional autonomy and attachment to celebrities increase during adolescence, and are positively related to one another. Age was highly correlated with both measures, but emotional autonomy still explained a significant portion of celebrity interest after age had been entered on the first step of the regression equation, suggesting that the relationship between the two measures cannot be accounted for entirely by
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