Parasocial relationships

• Levels of parasocial relationships

  • Celebrity attitude scale (CAS) was used by Maltby et al to identify 3 levels :
  • Entertainment - social = least intense , celebs viewed as entertainment+ fuel for social interaction
  • Intense- personal = intermediate level, become more personally involved with celeb + obsessive thoughts
  • Borderline- pathological = strongest level of celeb worship , uncontrollable fantasies + extreme behaviour
• Absorption-addiction model

  • McCutcheon suggests parasocial relationships can make up for personal deficiencies - can be an escape from mundane lives
  • Absorption = seeking fulfilment in celeb worship motivates individual to focus attention on celeb - identity with them
  • Addiction = like physiological addiction , needs to increase ’dose’ of involvement to gain satisfaction- lead to extreme behaviours + delusional thinking
• Attachment theory explanation

  • Early difficult attachment = difficult to form successful relationships later on - can lead to preference for parasocial relationships
  • Insecure resistant = most likely to form parasocial relationships as want to have their unfulfilled needs met where there is no real threat of rejection
• Strength of parasocial: real life application for absorption addiction model


  • Maltby et al studied female teens who reported an intense personal relationship with a female celeb whose body shaped they admired
  • Tended to have poor body image - often a precursor to an eating disorder
  • Supports model as shows correlation between level of celeb worship + disordered psychological functioning
• Limitation of parasocial : attachment theory lacks support 


  • McCutcheon et al found that pps with insecure attachments were no more likely to form parasocial relationships with celebs than those with secure
  • This contradicts the claim made by attachment theory explanations + suggests that there is no link between attachment type and parasocial relationships.
• Limitation of parasocial: methodological issues 


  • Most research uses self-reporting techniques = may not reflect the true picture ( social desirability bias )
  • Research also uses correlational analysis- can’t make causal links between body image + celeb worship
  • This lowers the validity of these explanations, making them less applicable to real life
• Grenade

  Nomothetic

  • Absorption-Addiction Model attempts to establish universal principles of behaviour + misses out on deep insight into the reasons for behaviour
  • idiographic approach may be better suited to the reasons for why people develop them