parasocial relationships

• PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIP

  • a one sided imagined relationship where one person doesn't realise there is a relationship between them - usually involves celebrities/famous people
  • maltby et al found 3 types of parasocial relationship
  • entertainment-social - lighthearted and seen as a topic of gossip between friends
  • intense-personal - person has more intense relationship with celebrity and have interest in celebrities everyday life
  • borderline-pathological - extreme relationship, has deep obsession and celebrity consumes there life, may even stalk celebrity/undergo illegal activity
• absorption/addiction model

  proposed by McCutcheon et al - states individuals usually undergo par asocial relationships if they have difficulty forming intense relationships, or have a lack of identity

  • ABSORPTION part of the model means imagines 'relationship' with celebrity consumes their life
  • ADDICTION part of the model refers to the increasing dependence that the person has for the celebrity; the craving they experience for the celebrity, possibly leading to the addicted person taking extreme measures to fuel their addiction 
• BOWLBYS ATTACHMENT THEORY

  • an individual with an insecure-resistant attachment type is more likely to be involved in a parasocial relationship (due to lowering the risk of rejection and pain, alongside unfulfillment associated with real-life relationships), as well as those with an insecure-avoidant attachment type (but with an emphasis on avoiding the feelings above, rather than being exposed to them in the first instance).
• A03

  -There is a lack of support for attachment theory explanations. McCutcheon et al examined the correlation between attachment type and celebrity worship levels using 229 participants, and found no link between insecure-resistant attachment and more intense levels of parasocial relationships. This contradicts the claim made by attachment theory explanations and suggests that there is no link between attachment type and parasocial relationships.
• A03

  -Another weakness of studies into parasocial relationships is that they rely heavily on self-report methods, such as interviews and questionnaires. These methods may not reflect the true picture, as participants may want to answer in a way that reflects them in better light (social desirability bias) and may not respond truthfully to the questions. This means that the reasons for developing parasocial relationships may be different from the ones uncovered by research, which lowers the validity of these explanations, making them less applicable to real life.
• A03

  +Research into parasocial relationships has useful applications. Maltby linked types of personality (extravert, psychotic and neurotic) to levels of parasocial relationships. He found that extraverts were more likely to be at the entertainment-social level, neurotics at the intense-personal level and psychotics at the borderline-pathological level, supporting the absorption-addiction model. This suggests that research into parasocial relationships can be used to improve professionals' understanding of psychological disorders and help people struggling with psychological disorders.