Scientists from the University of Southern Mississippi and Baylor University (USA) set out to find out what makes Taylor Swift fans not only listen to her music but also actively buy tickets to concerts and to the cinema. The results were published in the journal Psychology of Popular Media.
The study is based on the concept of parasocial relationships. That is what psychologists call a one-sided connection: a fan feels real emotions toward a celebrity as if toward a close friend, even though the star does not know about them. According to the authors, Swift has formed such a relationship with her audience especially firmly, largely thanks to communication on social media and personal details in her songs.
The scientists surveyed 303 adult US residents over the weekend when the concert film "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" premiered in October 2023. Participants answered questions about their tendency to fear missing something important (this is a stable personality trait called "fear of missing out" or FoMO, from the English fear of missing out), about situational anxiety over the film's premiere, about the depth of their attachment to the singer, and about whether they had gone to concerts and to the cinema.
It turned out that the general tendency toward fear of missing out explains about a third of the differences in the strength of the parasocial connection with Swift. In other words, people who constantly worry that others are having fun without them are more strongly drawn to a fictional friendship with the star. This is a statistical association that by itself does not prove causation.
Both this attachment and the personality trait predicted behavior: as parasocial connection scores rose, participants were almost twice as likely to try to buy tickets to the Eras Tour concerts and noticeably more likely to actually attend stadium shows. The same factors predicted whether a person watched the film over its premiere weekend and whether they plan to watch it later in the cinema or on streaming.
The result related to situational anxiety was unexpected. Those who had already been to a live concert were more afraid of missing the film version than those who had not made it to a show. Going to a concert did not satisfy the desire but, on the contrary, increased the likelihood that a person would want to see the film. The researchers explain this by saying that fans seek to repeat a pleasant experience in order to maintain a connection with the star, and sharing the thrill with thousands of other people (called collective euphoria) fuels demand.
The authors acknowledge limitations. The sample was a convenience sample, and only those who volunteered, knowing that the survey was about Taylor Swift, could take part. About two thirds of respondents called themselves fans, most were women and white people, so the findings should be transferred to the whole population with caution. In addition, the data are based on self-reports: they reveal predictive associations but do not prove cause and effect; other, unaccounted factors are possible.
In the future, the scientists propose studying how fans build relationships with each other on the basis of a shared attachment to one star, and also how social media amplify fear of missing out during major entertainment events.