Celebrity worship and body image among young girls fans of K-pop girl groups

Currently, K-pop girl groups are some of the favorite celebrities who often become the ideal standard for young girls. K-pop girl figures are often displayed with ideal body standards, such as having a slim body, white skin, thin face, and high nose, thus making fans adore and want to have a physical appearance like their idol. This study aimed to examine the relationship between celebrity worship and body image among female adolescents who idolized K-pop girl groups. A sample of 414 female adolescents aged 18-22 years participated online in the current study by filling in the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS) and the Multidimensional Body-Self Relation Questionnaire-Appearance Scale (MBSRQ-AS). Results showed that the entertainment-social aspect of celebrity worship proved a significant positive correlation with the appearance orientation dimension of body image. In contrast, the borderline-pathological aspect had a significant negative correlation with the body areas satisfaction dimension. Nonetheless, the intense personal aspect of celebrity worship did not correlate significantly with all dimensions of body image among young girls fans of K-pop girl groups. Thus, each level of celebrity worship correlates differently with each dimension of body image. Entertainment-social is the most common celebrity worship among adolescent girls fans of K-pop girl groups and affects young girls' body image by increasing their attention to appearance.


Introduction
Currently, K-pop girl groups are some of the favorite celebrities who often become the ideal standard for young girls. K-pop girl figures are often displayed with ideal body standards, such as having a slim body, white skin, thin face, and high nose, thus making fans adore and want to have a physical appearance like their idol. This study aimed to examine the relationship between celebrity worship and body image among female adolescents who idolized K-pop girl groups. A sample of 414 female adolescents aged 18-22 years participated online in the current study by filling in the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS) and the Multidimensional Body-Self Relation Questionnaire-Appearance Scale (MBSRQ-AS). Results showed that the entertainment-social aspect of celebrity worship proved a significant positive correlation with the appearance orientation dimension of body image. In contrast, the borderline-pathological aspect had a significant negative correlation with the body areas satisfaction dimension. Nonetheless, the intense personal aspect of celebrity worship did not correlate significantly with all dimensions of body image among young girls fans of K-pop girl groups. Thus, each level of celebrity worship correlates differently with each dimension of body image. Entertainment-social is the most common celebrity worship among adolescent girls fans of K-pop girl groups and affects young girls' body image by increasing their attention to appearance. 102 ISSN 2598-6368 (online) / ISSN 1693-7236 (print)

Tresna et al. (Celebrity worship and body image among young girls fans of K-pop girl groups)
The two previous studies of celebrity worship have not been conducted on fans of any particular celebrity. This study will examine the relationship between celebrity worship and body image, especially among young girls who adore K-pop girl groups. In contrast to previous studies that examined overall body image, this study will examine the relationship between each level of celebrity worship and each dimension of body image. The researcher wants to explore the peculiarity of the relationship between each level of celebrity worship and each dimension of body image in young girls who are fans of K-pop girl groups. This study focuses on Korean pop girl groups as these groups are a very popular music genre among young girls in Indonesia today.

Method
This study used a quantitative research method. Data were collected online using questionnaires, the Multidimensional Body-Self Relation Questionnaire-Appearance Scale (MBSRQ-AS) developed by Cash (2000), and the Celebrity Attitude Scale developed by Maltby et al. (2005). The researcher asked permission to use the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS) and the Multidimensional Body Self-Relation Questionnaire-Appearance Scale (MBSRQ-AS) from the authors of the two scales. The researcher forward-translated the two scales from English (the original version) into Indonesian and then back-translated into English to ensure that the Indonesian version of each scale had the same meaning as the original version. In addition, the researcher also asked for a Content Validity Ratio (CVR) assessment from the experts in psychology. According to Lawshe's CVR (Wilson, Pan, & Schumsky, 2012), an item is said to have good content validity if the CVR Index is ≥ .5.
The CVI values in this study were .900 for MBSRQ-AS and .890 for CAS. This study also used an open questionnaire to explore the characteristics of the participants. A set of questionnaires that the experts in psychology have approved was then compiled in a google-form and distributed online.

Participants
Participants in this study were recruited online. The researchers distributed the questionnaire on the social media platform Twitter using google forms link through K-pop girl groups fans. Participants in this study were 414 female adolescents aged 18 to 22 years old and Korean pop girl groups fans. Table 1 shows the characteristics of participants.

Instruments
Multidimensional Body-Self Relation Questionnaire-Appearance Scale (MBSRQ-AS) The MBSRQ-AS is a 34-item scale (Cash, 2000), but there were five items deleted in the current study because the item discrimination index was less than .250. This scale consists of five dimensions as follows.

Tresna et al. (Celebrity worship and body image among young girls fans of K-pop girl groups)
The appearance evaluation dimension consists of 6-items. Examples of items are "My body is sexually appealing" and "I like my looks just the way they are". Each item is rated on a 5-scale ranging from 1 (definitely disagree) to 5 (definitely agree). The reliability coefficient for the current sample was .762, with the item discrimination index ranging from .296 to .683.
The appearance orientation dimension consists of 8-items. Each item is rated on a 5-scale ranging from 1 (definitely disagree) to 5 (definitely agree). The sample of items are "Before going out in public, I always notice how I look" and "Before going out, I usually spend a lot of time getting ready". The reliability coefficient for the current sample was .753, with the item discrimination index ranging from .342 to .581.
The body-areas satisfaction dimension consists of 9-items. Each item is rated on a 5-scale from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied). The sample of items are "Face (facial features, complexion)" and "Lower torso (buttocks, hips, thighs, and legs". The reliability coefficient in the current sample was .733, with the item discrimination index ranging from .261 to .657. The overweight preoccupation dimension consists of 4-items. Examples of items are "I constantly worry about being or becoming fat" and "I am very conscious of even small changes in my weight". Each item is rated on a 5-scale ranging from 1 (definitely disagree) to 5 (definitely agree). The reliability coefficient for the sample in this study was .804, with the item discrimination index ranging from .486 to .662.
The self-classified weight dimension consists of 2 items. Each item is rated on a 5scale from 1 (very underweight) to 2 (very overweight). The items are "I think I am very….." and "From looking at me, most people would think I am….". The reliability coefficient in the current study was .905.

Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS)
The CAS used in this study was developed by Maltby et al. (2005) and consisted of 22 items. In this study, the items were modified for K-pop fans by changing the word "celebrity" to "K-pop girl groups". The items are rated on a 5-point scale with responses ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The items of this scale are categorized into three aspects according to the level of celebrity worship, namely: entertainment-social, intense-personal, and borderline-pathological.
The entertainment-social aspect measures the attitudes and behaviors of fans to their favorite K-pop girl groups. Examples of the items are "My friends and I like to discuss what my favorite K-pop girl groups have done" and "I enjoy watching, reading, or listening to my favorite K-pop girl groups because it means a good time". It consists of 10items. The reliability coefficient for the sample in this study was .797, with the item discrimination index ranging from .320 to .576.
The intense-personal consists of 9-items. Examples of the items are "When my favorite K-pop girl groups dies, I will feel like dying too" and "The successes of my favorite K-pop girl groups are my successes too). The reliability coefficient for the current study was .820, with the item discrimination index ranging from .356 to .669.
The borderline-pathological consists of 3-items. An example of the item is "If I were lucky enough to meet my favorite K-pop girl groups and they asked me to do something illegal as a favor, I would probably do it". The reliability coefficient for the current sample was .502, with the item discrimination index ranging from .290 to .356. Alphas for the borderline-pathological tend to be lower because this aspect is the shortest of the three aspects, comprising few items (McCutcheon, Scott, Aruguete, & Parker, 2006).

Data Analysis
The collected data were imported into SPSS version 24.0. Spearman's correlation coefficient analyses were conducted to test the correlations between aspects of the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS) and dimensions of the Multidimensional Body-Self Relation Questionnaire-Appearance Scale (MBSRQ-AS).
In this study, the data distribution is not normally distributed because the significance value is less than .05. Therefore, hypothesis testing used a non-parametric test (Spearman correlation). The hypothesis is accepted if the significance value (p) < .05. Based on Table 2, the correlation value between the entertainment social and appearance orientation was .108 with a significance value of .028 (Sig. < .05), which means a significant positive correlation between entertainment social and appearance orientation. The significance value of the correlation between intense-personal and appearance orientation and borderline-pathological and appearance orientation were insignificant (Sig. > .05), which meant that the intense-personal and borderline-pathological aspects were not significantly correlated with the appearance orientation dimension.

Results
The correlation between borderline-pathological and body-area satisfaction is -.133 (Sig. < .05). This result means that there is a significant negative correlation between borderline-pathological and body area satisfaction. The higher the borderline-pathological aspect, the lower the individual's body satisfaction, which means the individual is increasingly dissatisfied with the size or appearance of some body parts. The three aspects of celebrity worship were not significantly correlated with three of five dimensions of body image: appearance evaluation, overweight preoccupation, and self-classified weight.   Table 3 shows the cross-tabulation between the participants' body mass index (BMI) and self-classified weight dimension. The participants' self-classified weights were likely to suit the BMIs, except for obese, more participants classified their weight overweight (53.9%) than very overweight (40.8%).  Table 4 shows the median value of the appearance orientation dimension was higher than the other four dimensions of body image. Those were in the moderate category. Table 5 Median Analysis of Celebrity Worship Table 5 shows the median value of the entertainment-social aspect was the highest. In contrast, the median value of the borderline-pathological aspect was the lowest compared to the other two aspects of celebrity worship.

Discussion
The present study aimed to test the correlation between the level of celebrity worship and dimensions of body image among female adolescent fans of K-pop girl groups. Of the most interesting findings was the significant positive correlation between the entertainment-social aspect of celebrity worship and the appearance orientation dimension of body image. Thus, adolescent girls who adored K-pop girl groups for their ability to entertain and attract attention would place more importance and attention on their appearance and strive to improve the way they dress and groom. One of the adolescent characteristics in seeking identity is idolatry. Greene and Adams-Price (1990) suggested that adolescents chose a celebrity such as a pop singer to be their idol or role model. The appearance was one of the reasons adolescents admired their idols which caused modeling in everyday behaviors, including clothing styles (Faujiah, 2018). A study on South Korean female college students found that women made social comparisons by analyzing the appearances in the media and making judgments about themselves (Choi, 2018).
The finding of this current study is quite in line with the result of Noky (2015) among a K-pop Community, UCEE, in Solo, which showed a significant correlation between the entertainment-social aspect of celebrity worship and body image. The main difference was that Noky (2015) examined body image as an overall concept consisting of appearance evaluation, body areas satisfaction, anxiety about being fat, and body categorization, while in this study, body image was examined separately based on its five dimensions. Therefore, Noky (2015) found a negative correlation between the entertainment-social aspect and body image. Whereas in this current study, when the entertainment-social aspect was only correlated with the appearance orientation dimension of body image, it turned out to show a positive correlation.
This study also found that the borderline-pathological aspect of celebrity worship had a significant negative correlation with the body-areas satisfaction dimension of body image. The borderline-pathological aspect is such an extreme level of celebrity worship that it can encourage fans to do anything uncontrollably, including trying to have physical characteristics that resemble their favorite celebrity (Maltby et al., 2005;McCutcheon, Lange, & Houran, 2002). As a result, this type of worship could reduce the satisfaction and acceptance of K-pop girl groups fans toward the size or appearance of their body parts. This finding was in line with a previous study (Kusuma & Yuliawati, 2013) which also showed a negative correlation between the borderline-pathological aspect of celebrity worship and self-esteem because fans would do anything for their idols and imitate their idol behavior excessively.
The intense personal aspect of celebrity worship did not significantly correlate with all dimensions of the body image of K-pop girl groups fans. These findings were in line with Maltby et al. (2005), who found that the intense personal aspect of celebrity worship would disappear when the fans became more mature. Maltby et al. (2005) showed that adolescent girls aged 14-16 years who had intense personal celebrity worship were more likely to have negative body image, but the correlation between celebrity worship and body image would fade in adolescents aged 17-20 years. However, a later study by Maltby and Day (2011) on young adults aged 18-23 found a different result. The study showed that participants' intense personal worship toward celebrities whose bodies were admired would predict elective cosmetic surgery over eight months, which is one of the body image problems.
The difference in the results of the two previous studies shows that the correlation between the intense personal aspect of celebrity worship and body image is determined not solely by the fans' age but also by other characteristics of the fans. There were several characteristics of K-pop girl groups fans in this study (see Table 1) that supported the insignificant correlation between the intense personal aspect and all body image dimensions. Firstly, most of the participants in this study reported that although they often wished to have bodies like idolized K-pop girl groups, the frequency they compared themselves to K-pop girl groups was only sometimes, rarely, and even never. This characteristic indicated that the participants did not have a high intense personal aspect of celebrity worship. They did not report such intense and compulsive feelings towards their 108 ISSN 2598-6368 (online) / ISSN 1693-7236 (print)

Tresna et al. (Celebrity worship and body image among young girls fans of K-pop girl groups)
favorite K-pop girl groups, which did not correlate with their body image. People who score highly on the intense personal aspect may be prone to causing worry or distortion in their body shape (Maltby et al., 2005). Secondly, most of the participants adored K-pop girl groups not only because of their attractive appearance and face (71.7%) but more because of their excellent vocals (79.7%). This characteristic also indicated that participants were not obsessed with the appearance of their favorite celebrity, which is a characteristic of the intense personal aspect, so this aspect was not correlated with the body image of the participants in this study.
All aspects of celebrity worship did not significantly correlate with appearance evaluation, overweight preoccupation, and self-classified weight dimensions of body image. These three dimensions focus more on the personal feelings and evaluation towards physical appearance, weight, and obesity (Cash, 2000). The entertainment-social aspect dominated the participants' celebrity worship in the current study (see Table 5). Participants focused more on the ability of K-pop girl groups to entertain and attract attention than merely physical appearance. Therefore, all aspects of celebrity worship did not demonstrate a significant correlation with the dimensions of appearance evaluation, overweight preoccupation, and self-classified weight. Moreover, some characteristics of participants in the current study (see Table 1) might also contribute to those insignificant correlations. These characteristics of participants include the length of worshipping K-pop girl groups, realistic weight perception, and tendency to choose healthy weight control behaviors when experiencing dissatisfaction.
Most participants had worshipped K-pop girl groups for more than 2 years (see Table 1). This quite long parasocial relationship might cause fans to have such a complete knowledge of their favorite celebrities. This knowledge includes their songs, relations, abilities, and even personal characters. Their admiration was not limited to their idols' physical appearance and was not significantly correlated with their feelings or evaluation towards physical appearance, weight, and obesity. One of the reasons most participants (71.7%) worshiped K-pop girl groups was that they have attractive appearances and faces. In addition, most participants also reported that they often and sometimes wanted a body shape like their favorite idol. Nevertheless, cross-tabulation between participants' BMI and the self-classified weight dimension (see Table 3) showed that most participants still had a fairly realistic perception of their weight. This participant's characteristic might support the insignificant correlations between all aspects of celebrity worship and the self-classified weight dimension. Another characteristic of most participants was the tendency to choose healthy weight control behaviors, such as exercising and reducing food portions, when they were dissatisfied with their bodies. This characteristic might also support the nonsignificant correlations between aspects of celebrity worship and the overweight preoccupation dimension of body image because the dimension contained the use of unhealthy weight control behaviors, such as fasting or going on crash diets.
The median analysis on the celebrity worship aspects (see Table 5) showed that entertainment social was the most dominant aspect of K-pop girl groups fans in this study. Most of the participants reported that they always looked for information about K-pop girl groups they admired through social media such as YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram (see Table 1). Besides, most participants also supported K-pop girl groups by always or frequently listening to songs and streaming music videos, or providing direct support via the V-Live application. All activities related to K-pop girl groups would cause the participants to pay more attention to their idols' appearance and increase their orientation towards appearance. Adolescent fans of K-pop girl groups will pay attention and make the idols' appearance as their standard. Dewi, Agustina, and Faza (2013) explained that the Korean clothing style was considered attractive, unique, casual, and not too flashy, so adolescents imitated their idols' dressing style.
The median analysis also showed that the borderline pathological aspect was at the lowest level compared to the other two aspects of celebrity worship (see Table 5). One of the characteristics of borderline pathological celebrity worship is the willingness to spend a lot of money on the goods related to their favorite celebrity (Maltby et al., 2005). Most of the study participants reported that they never and rarely bought albums and goods or merchandise of K-pop girl groups.
The limitation of this study was related to the characteristic of the google form as a data collection medium, namely the researcher could not directly observe the participants' accuracy in filling out the questionnaire. Consequently, the researcher had to abort some participants because they wrote the K-pop boy group's name. Another limitation lay in the validity of the self-classified weight dimension of body image, which only consisted of two items. Therefore, the discrimination index could not be calculated. Suggestions for further research is that research on the same topic can be carried out on male and female fans of K-pop girl and boy groups as a comparison. In addition, research on celebrity worship and body image can also be carried out using qualitative methods to collect more in-depth data, such as what factors influence celebrity worship at the intense personal and borderline pathological levels. Fans of K-pop girl groups are suggested to idolize their favorite celebrities objectively and not excessively so as not to fall to the compulsive and pathological levels of celebrity worship.

Conclusion
Each level of celebrity worship has a different relationship with each body image dimension. Entertainment social is the most common celebrity worship among female adolescents fans of K-pop girl groups and affects young girl' body image by increasing their attention to appearance. Borderline pathological is the most extreme and dangerous celebrity worship because it negatively affects adolescent girls' body image by reducing their satisfaction with some body parts. The theoretical implication of this research is that celebrity worship can indeed affect the body image of K-pop girl group fans, especially on the dimensions of appearance orientation and body areas satisfaction. The practical implication is that celebrity worship does not negatively affect the body image of young girls fans of K-pop girl groups as long as the adoration is expressed reasonably and not excessively (intense, too personal, and pathological).