Sorry to burst your delulu bubble, but we’ve got to share this.
According to research from over 2 years ago, people who are said to be obsessed with Hollywood gossip and celeb culture may be less intelligent. This was a Hungarian study published in BMC Psychology, where researchers had pinpointed a “direct association between celebrity worship and poorer performance on cognitive tests.”
Researchers conducted a survey with 1,763 Hungarian adults, along with a 30-word vocabulary test and digit symbol substitution test. The respondents also answered a “celebrity attitude scale” questionnaire, which scaled their interest in famous people and celebrities. The questions included were answerable by a “yes” or “no.”
The statements included were: “I often feel compelled to learn the personal habits of my favorite celebrity,” “I am obsessed by details of my favorite celebrity’s life,” and “If I were lucky enough to meet my favorite celebrity, and he/she asked me to do something illegal as a favor I would probably do it.”
Researchers concluded that the people who scored higher on the celebrity questionnaire were the ones who also scored lower in the two intelligence and cognitive tests. At the same time, the researchers could not determine whether this obsession would celebrities and A-listers was a cause or a consequence of being more cognitively challenged.
In an interview with PsyPost, the researchers said, “Future studies should seek further support for our suggestion that the cognitive effort invested in maintaining the absorption in a favorite celebrity may interfere with the person’s performance in tasks that require attention and other cognitive skills.”
“Although our research does not prove that developing a powerful obsession with one’s favorite celebrity causes one to score lower on cognitive tests, it suggests that it might be wise to carefully monitor feelings for one’s favorite celebrity, keeping in mind that most celebrities are human beings who have some flaws just like average persons have.”
Welp. So much for bursting the bubbles of our fellow ‘delulus’ out there, it’s still a scientific sign that we should keep ourselves in check. Like, we can daydream about our favorite idols, but we should still place our feet on the ground and well, touch some grass because not every human being is how we imagine them to be.
Yes, we can still be delulu—but without our heads on the clouds.
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