Parasocial relationships

• levels of parasocial relationships

  • entertainment-social
  • intense-personal
  • borderline pathological
• entertainment-social

  least intense

  celebrities are viewed as sources of entertainment and social interaction
• intense-personal

  intermediate

  fan might have frequent thoughts and intense feelings for a celebrity
• borderline pathological

  strongest level

  fan has uncontrollable fantasies about a celebrity and engages in extreme behaviour
• absorption-addiction model

  people form parasocial relationships out of deficiencies in their own lives.

  e.g. weak self-identity and lack of fulfilment

  absorption - individual preoccupied with celebrity and identifies with them

  addiction - ever-stronger involvement with the celebrity. increase 'doses' to feel satisfaction
• attachment theory

  people who had an insecure-resistant attachment in childhood are more likely to form a parasocial relationship to meet unfulfilled needs without rejection
• strength - support for attachment theory

  Dinkha et al. (2015) found that people with an insecure attachment type were the most likely to form intense parasocial relationships with TV personalities and characters. This was true across both collectivist (Kuwait) and individualist (USA) cultures, showing that the ‘driver’ for forming a parasocial relationship is universal and not culturally constructed.
• limitation - correlations

  Most studies in this area use correlational analysis. Strong correlations are found between celebrity worship and body image, for example. But the conclusion that an intense-personal parasocial relationships causes girls to have a poor body image is unwarranted. Poor body image could be the cause of celebrity worship or there could be a third, intervening variable causing both.
• strength - research supporting absorption-addiction

  Maltby et al. (2005) investigated whether poor body image (a ‘deficiency’ in a person’s life) predisposes teenagers to forming parasocial relationships. They assessed boys and girls aged 14 to 16 years. They found that girls who reported an intense-personal parasocial relationships with an adult female had poor body image.
• limitation - research against attachment theory

  McCutcheon et al. (2006) measured attachment types and celebrity-related attitudes in 299 American participants and found that attachment security did not affect the likelihood of forming a parasocial relationship with a celebrity. Those with insecure attachments were no more likely to form such relationships than those securely attached