Parasocial Relationships

• Parasocial Relationships


  One sied relationships where 1 member is heavily invested whilst the other has limited or no awareness of the persons existance; a common relationship between celebrity and obsessive fan
• Levels of Parasocial Relationships - McCutcheon

  The Celebrity Attitudes Scale was developed to classify extent of attitudes and behaviours

  • Entertainment Social - Fan will only follow celebrity and some aspects of life to have info for gossip
  • Intense Personal - Fan feels strong sense of personal connection with celeb, may think and talk about them obsessively
  • Borderline Pathological - Fan overidentifies, feeling celebs successes and failures as own, fantasies become more intense, trying to contact celeb or stalk them
• Absorption Addiction Model - McCutcheon (2002)


  A fans parasocial relationship with a celebrity is an attempt to escape reality and make up for deficits in real life relationships

  • Absorption - Intense involvement in finding personal info in an attempt to feel closer
  • Addiction - Behaviour escalates similar to drug abuse, in result to contact or stalk them
• Attachment Theory Explanation - Bowlby


  Attachment problems in childhood result in adult relationship issues due to a defective internal working model

  • Linked to insecure-resistant relations with the mother

  Resulting in the need to avoid rejection, parasocial relationships offer the need for attachment without rejection
• (+) A03: McCutcheon (2016)

  330 students to complete the CAS and other tests of emotional wellbeing

  • Found higher levels of anxiety when students scored on the 2 higher subscales as well as problematic real life intimate relationships
• (-) A03: Description


  The absorption addiction model is more of a description of parasocial relationships rather than an explanation for why parasocial relationships occur
• (+) A03: Face Validity


  There is significant evidence that early attachment has an effect on adult attachment (McCarthy secure relations), giving the attachment theory explanation face validity
• (-) A03: McCutcheon (2006)


  Measured childhood attachment, celebrity worship, and the tendency to condone celebrity stalking in 299 college students

  • Found participants with insecure types were not more likely to be attracted to celebrities

  Hindering the attachment theory explanation