L10 - Parasocial Relationships: The Absorption-Addiction Model Flashcards
What are parasocial relationships?
prefix para means ‘resembling’ so parasocial relationships are those which are similar to normal relationships but lack a key element in that they are a one-sided unreciprocated relationship usually with a celebrity on which the ‘fan’ expends a lot of emotional energy, commitment and time.
Who measured parasocial relationships & how?
- McCutcheon et al. (2002) developed the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS) & this was used in a large-scale survey by Maltby et al. (2006) who identified 3 levels of parasocial relationships:
- L1 - Entertainment - Social
- L2 - Intense - Personal
- L3 - Borderline - Pathological
L1 - Entertainment - Social
Giles and Malty suggest that most people engage in parasocial relationships at some point in their lives, but most stay at the first level (Entertainment - Social), where celebrities are seen as a source of entertainment and as a topic for lighthearted gossips with friends. This is the least intense level of celebrity worship.
L2 - Intense - Personal
- This is a deeper level of parasocial relationships. At this level a person has a more intense relationship with a celebrity.
E.g. they may see them as a soulmate and they have an intense interest in the celebrity’s personal life, such as their dress sense, food they like and entertainment in which they take part. - This type of parasocial relationship is typical for teenagers who seem to be obsessed with every little detail of their favourite celebrity’s lifestyle.
L3 - Borderline - Pathological
This is the most intense level of parasocial relationships. At this level, a person takes celebrity worship to an extreme, has obsessive fantasies about the celebrity, spends large sums of money to obtain memorabilia and may engage in illegal activities such as stalking. At this level, it is also usual for people to believe that if only they were given a chance to meet their favourite celebrity in person, their feelings will be reciprocated
There are 2 theories to explain parasocial relationships
- adsorption-addiction model
- attachment theory
Adsorption-Addiction Model
- McCutcheon (2002) linked the levels approach to the deficiencies that people have in their own personal lives and proposed the Absorption- Addiction Model to explain parasocial relationships.
- suggests that people engage in celebrity worship to compensate for some deficiencies in their life, such as difficulty forming intimate relationships, poor psychological adjustment and lack of identity.
- Forming parasocial relationships with a celebrity allows them to achieve the fulfilment they lack in everyday life and adds a sense of purpose and excitement.
Adsorption phase
- McCutcheon explains that looking for satisfaction in celebrity worship makes a person focus intensively on parasocial relationships and achieving a sense of fulfilment motivates them to become even more intensely attached to the celebrity.
- This is the first stage of the model, absorption.
Addiction phase
- The second stage of the model is the addiction - and can be compared fo physiological addiction
of a psychoactive substance. - The individual needs to increase their ‘dose’ in order to gain satisfaction.
- This may lead to more extreme behaviours and delusional thinking, for example, stalking a celebrity because they believe that the celebrity really wants to reciprocate their feelings but someone (such as the celebrity’s manager) is stopping them from getting involved.
Evaluation of the adsorption-addiction model
strengths
- research support (1)
- teenagers body image
- +ve correlation
- research (2)
- applications of research
- universal phenomenon
weaknesses
- universal principles
Research support (1)
- research support that is linked to the levels of parasocial relationships proposed by McCutcheon et al (2002).
- McCutcheon et al (2016), used the CAS to measure level of parasocial relationships and also assessed participants’ problems in their intimate relationships.
- found that pps who scored Level 3 - borderline-pathological or Level 2 - intense-personal tended to experience a high degree of anxiety in their intimate relationships. Whereas Pps who scored on the Level one - entertainment-social did have other relationship problems.
- suggests that the levels of parasocial relationships are a good indicator of actual behaviour. This study therefore leans towards supporting the absorption addiction model which is based on the levels of parasocial relationships.
Research support (1)
- research support that is linked to the levels of parasocial relationships proposed by McCutcheon et al (2002).
- McCutcheon et al (2016), used the CAS to measure level of parasocial relationships and also assessed participants’ problems in their intimate relationships.
- found that pps who scored Level 3 - borderline-pathological or Level 2 - intense-personal tended to experience a high degree of anxiety in their intimate relationships. Whereas Pps who scored on the Level one - entertainment-social did have other relationship problems.
- suggests that the levels of parasocial relationships are a good indicator of actual behaviour. This study therefore leans towards supporting the absorption addiction model which is based on the levels of parasocial relationships.
Teenagers body image
Furthermore research offers some support for absorption-addiction model. Maltby et al.
(2005) measured the relation between celebrity worship and body image in teenagers. They found that teenage girls who were at the intense-personal level of celebrity worship tended to have a poor body image, especially if they particularly admired a celebrity’s physical appearance.
Positive correlation
Also, Schiappa et al. (2007) found a significant positive correlation between the amount of TV participants watched, the degree to which they perceived a TV character as ‘real’ and the level of their parasocial relationship.
Research support (2)
Research also supports a link between loneliness and engaging in parasocial relationships. For example, Greenwood and Long (2009) found some evidence that people may develop celebrity worships as a way of dealing with a recent loss or loneliness. However, other research (e.g. Chory-Assad and Yanen, 2005) failed to find any significant correlation between intensity of loneliness and intensity of a parasocial relationship, so the evidence is not conclusive.
