Childhood Celebrity, Parental Attachment, and Adult Adjustment: The Young Performers Study

Abstract

The associations between celebrity, parental attachment, and adult adjustment were examined among 74 famous, former young performers in television and film. As adults, former young performers whose parents served as their professional managers viewed their mothers as less caring and more overcontrolling than did performers whose parents were not their managers. Other factors affecting the quality of the parent-child relationship included dissatisfaction with money management, poor peer support, the perception that involvement in acting was determined by others, and the specific nature of professional experience. Together, these variables accounted for 59% of the variance in perceived caring and 40% of the variance in perceived autonomy support. The relation could not be attributed to a generalized response bias, as attachment was unrelated to degree of positive thinking. A Celebrity times Parental Attachment interaction indicated that the quality of the parent-child relationship moderated the effects of celebrity on adult adjustment: Among participants with good parental attachment, there was no relation between professional experience and adjustment; however, among participants with poor attachment, this relation was strong. Possible implications for parenting child actors and analogous populations of talented children in high-stress arenas are discussed.