Tests of Specific Research Hypotheses

Background Information - The Association Between Life Experiences and Adult Adjustment: There is considerable evidence from previous research that life experiences influence psychological well-being.

Celebrity as a Life Experience The experience Of celebrity and involvement in the entertainment industry presents unique benefits and unique stressors. Do the positive or negative aspects of celebrity predominate? What is the impact of celebrity on adjustment?

The Importance Qf the Parent-Child Relationship: Most people are well aware that childhood relationships with parents are an essential foundation for healthy psychological adjustment in adulthood. Favorable parent-child relationships tend to have a buffering effect on the influence of negative life events. Two elements are particularly important to an optimal parent-child relationship during development: parental warmth and encouragement of the child's autonomy (independence). Retrospective views of one's parents in this regard are strongly related to adult adjustment.

In general, adult views of childhood relationships with one's parents are associated with many other aspects of psychological well-being (e.g., personality, psychological disorders, the quality of love relationships, and basic beliefs about oneself and the world). Certainly, people's views may change over time, and they may become distorted due to events and interpretations of those events along the way to adulthood. So, we look at current views of parental relationships for what they tell us about the person now, and not whether their view of the past is totally accurate. However, there is good evidence that people are fairly accurate in their reports of past relationships with their parents. For example, some studies showed that adult perceptions of childhood relationships with parents are strongly associated with corroborative information obtained from parents and siblings.

Childhood Celebrity and the Parent-Child Relationship:

1.What aspects of the young-performer experience affect views of the parent-child relationship?

Self-determined involvement in the entertainment industry: Participants with healthy parental attachment tended to perceive that the choice to become a child actor was theirs versus someone else's e.g., a parent).

Satisfaction with money management. Participants dissatisfied with money management had poorer attachment to their parent. This may reflect a retrospective bitterness toward the parent for failing to protect their best interest.

Supportivel/accepting childhood peer network. May reflect the parent providing a "normal" childhood environment.

The specific nature of professional experience in the entertainment industry: In essence, it appears that being very successful (i.e., leads in film) is associated with enhanced parental attachment, whereas a career marked by struggling with a large number of supporting roles and commercials is associated with less favorable attachment to parents. Even a few leading roles in films represent the highest artistic status and financial return, as well a slow-paced and more stable work environment. In contrast, a large number of supporting roles in television likely indicates a more high-paced struggle to achieve: less status, more changes in the work environment, more exposure to the stress and competition of auditions, and more experience of rejections.

2. Parent-Managers: What are the effects on parental attachment and adult adjustment?

As adults, former young performers whose parents served as their Professional managers viewed their mothers, but not their fathers, as less caring and encouraging of their autonomy than did performers whose parents were not their managers. In the present sample, mothers served as the child's manager in the vast majority of cases. Children of parent-managers were no more successful in their endeavors than were those children whose parents relinquished control of their careers to an entertainment professional.

Possible explanations for this finding. It may be that the inherent duties of the manager role introduce conflict to the parent-child relationship; thus, regardless of their true nature, parent-managers are subsequently perceived by their children in a less optimal light than are parents who were not managers. Alternatively, it may be that parents who choose to be managers tend to have a more businesslike nature that is accurately perceived by their child as a less warm, take-charge style.

3. The Moderating Effects of Parental Attachment The Young Performer Experience

The nature of childhood experience in the entertainment industry was related to psychological wellbeing in adulthood; however, it appears that only those individuals with histories of poor parent-child relationships are a greater risk of being affected by their experience.

* In general, participants with favorable attachment to their parents turned out well-adjusted, and there was no relationship between the nature or level of success in the entertainment industry and adult adjustment. This suggests that the foundation of good parenting provided some immunity to the stresses of the young performer experience.

* In contrast, among participants with poor parent-child relationships, there was a strong association between experience in the business and adult adjustment. Specifically, among these individuals, very successful participants turned out we11; however, less successful participants tended to have more psychological problems.