Celebrities as informal life coaches.

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We have understand that a relationship between a coach and a coachee must be one of giving feedback and keeping track of the progress a coachee has been having during the time of this relationship. But when we consider a celebrity as a life coach it becomes a parasocial interaction, as it has been originally stated by Horton and Wohl. The coachee would extend emotional energy, time and interest, while the other party would be completely unaware of the other’s existence. It becomes a one-sided relationship between the celebrity and the coachee and eventually becoming an illusionary experience. This kind of relationship is not one that would favor a person into becoming his better self. Instead celebrities can only be seen and considered as role models, as their success being seemed as attainable can influence people positively into their own expectations of success.

But what exactly is a role model? ‘Role models are often seen as a way of motivating individuals to perform novel behaviors and inspire them to set ambitious goals’. ‘There are three recurring, and interrelated, themes among existing definitions of role models: (a) they show us how to perform a skill and achieve a goal — they are behavioral models; (b) they show us that a goal is attainable — they are representations of the possible, and (c) they make a goal desirable — they are inspirations.’ (Morgenroth, Ryan & Peters 2015)

Achieved celebrities can be considered as behavioral models, as they possess particular qualities and skills from which an aspirant would like to learn. For example, Ibarra and Petriglieri (2008) describe role models as those who are successful in a profession and imitated by those attempting to assume a professional role. In this case the achieved celebrity has become famous as for her unique talent, and the aspirant can learn from the celebrity´s experience instead of doing it by trial and error. As stated before, celebrities can also be representations of the possible. They can be an example on how a particular goal might be achieved, not just by offering us a guide on how to achieve it, but mainly on the idea that that goal is something possible to achieve, and giving the aspirant motivation and hope. The third definition would be that a role model can also serve as an inspiration, differing from the representation of the possible, this definition gives the aspirant new goals to look up to, instead of being guided on how to achieve their already set goals. As Gauntlett (2002 p.211) definition of what a role model is ‘someone to look up to and base your character, values and aspirations on’. This will give the aspirant new insights, new things and ideas to look up too, thus becoming a better self.

But what are really the characteristics that we look for in a role model? According to Marilyn Price-Mitchell PhD, on a recent study she made about the qualities young people search for in their role models she found the five most important characteristics. The first one is passion and the ability to inspire, they have a clear set of values, they have commitment to community, selflessness and acceptance of others and an ability to overcome obstacles. With these basic qualities we can easily identify which celebrities presented to us in the media could qualify as good role models. Its important for us to identify this before hand, as we are now facing a radical change in entertainment. We often see stories of celebrities having a degradable behavior, being in sex scandals, having alcohol and drug addictions, getting married and divorce thus showing a lack of commitment. This all is leading us to a ranging psychological dysfunction known as narcissism. Pinksy and Young address this issue in their book The Mirror Effect stating that young people are mirroring these negative traits of narcissism that include: authority, superiority, vanity and exhibitionisms. By mirroring these traits young generations in our society are engaging in a destructive behavior that encourages and supports narcissism, not only from celebrities, but from their environment and people that surrounds them. This ends up being a never ending cycle, as they will transmit these wrong values to their children and so on.

Pinksy and Young also state that that people’s obsession with celebrities have only been growing, celebrities are now having constant public exposure on a 24-hour basis. The demand for celebrity gossip is insatiable: magazines like, Us Weekly, In Touch, People have been growing at a rate of 50 percent per year. Now we tend to see the narcissistic behavior of several celebrities as something normal, or something expected from them. This kind of discernment in celebrity’s behavior is affecting our youth, who now think that that behavior is acceptable as many celebrities get away with it and have little to no consequences for their actions. But the reality for most people is not that, and we do have consequences for our actions.

But not all celebrities have a negative effect on society. We can also take good examples from several of them by acknowledging some of their skills and talents and use them as positive influence and behavior to incorporate to our lives. Some of the positive influence that celebrities can have can be: raising consciousness in different social campaign, raising awareness in health issues, and encouragement of a positive lifestyle. One example of this can be Angelina Jolie, who is well known for her activism and participation in different social campaigns. Thanks to her fame she has been able to transmit a positive message to people and raise awareness in the different campaigns she has been supporting. Her most important decision in 2013 to undergo a double mastectomy after discovering she carried a genetic mutation that increased her chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer, raised enormous awareness in woman dealing with the same situation, and people felt identify by her reality and more confident of making the same decision as her. Being aware that celebrities have also real problems make them a little more down to earth to us, and makes us realize that they are humans too, just like us, with real life problems and health issues. This can help us identify with them and sympathize in their struggles.

This sympathizing with the celebrities must remain on a healthy level. Its ok to hear or read news now and then of celebrities, it will be impossible not to, as we are surrounded by media on a 24/7 daily basis. But we should not make our interest take over our lives, as if a person gets overly involved with the details of a celebrity’s personal life it can lead to and obsessive-addictive disorder known as celebrity worship syndrome. As James Chapman firstly described this term in 2003, and states that nearly 36 percent of people