Parasocial relationships

Question 1

Parasocial relationship

Answer 1

One-sided unreciprocated relationship, usually with a celebrity, in which ‘fan’ expends a lot of emotional energy, commitment and time

Question 2

What is CAS

Answer 2

Celebrity attitude scale
McCutcheon and colleagues
Used in large-scale survey by Maltby et al who identified three levels of parasocial relationship

Question 3

Levels of parasocial relationship

Answer 3

Each level describes the attitudes and behaviours link to ever more extreme forms of celebrity worship
Entertainment-social, intense-personal, borderline-pathological

Question 4

Entertainment-social

Answer 4

Least intense level - celebrities viewed as sources of entertainment and fuel for social interaction
Giles - parasocial relationships were fruitiful sources of gossip in offices

Question 5

Intense-personal

Answer 5

Intermediate level - greater personal involvement - obsessive thoughts and intense feelings

Question 6

Borderline-pathological

Answer 6

Strongest level - uncontrollable fantasies and extreme behaviours - spending large sums of money or willing to perform illegal acts

Question 7

Absorption addiction model

Answer 7

McCutcheon - linked levels to deficiencies people have in their own lives eg low self-esteem and lack fulfilment in everyday relationships
- Personal crisis or stressful life event - escape from reality

Question 8

Absorption

Answer 8

Seeking fulfilment in celebrity worship motivates an individual to focus their attention as far as possible on the celebrity, to become preoccupied with the celebrity and identify with them

Question 9

Addiction

Answer 9

Individuals need to increase their dose in order to gain satisfaction - more extreme behaviours and delusional thinking - ever-stronger involvement with the celebrity

Question 10

Attachment theory

Answer 10

People who had an insecure-resistant attachment in childhood more likely to form a parasocial relationship to meet unfulfilled needs

Question 11

Eval - research support for levels

Answer 11

P - Strength as the predictions are supported by research - predictive validity
E - McCutcheon et al - CAS measure level of parasocial relationships and also assessed problems with intimate relationships
E - Participants that scored as borderline-pathological or intense-personal tended to experience high degree of anxiety - people who scores as entertainment-social level did not
L - Celebrity-worshippers usefully classified into three categories and are predictive of actual behaviour

Question 12

Eval - research support for absorption addiction model

Answer 12

P - Strength as research showing link between celebrity worship and body image
E -Maltby et al - assessed boys and girls aged 14-16 - interested in girls who reported intense-personal parasocial relationship with adult female celebrity whose body shape they admired
E - Addiction-absorption model - deficiency in a person’s life would predispose them to forming parasocial relationship - found girls tended to have poor body image
L - Supports view model’s prediction of association between poor psychological functioning and level of parasocial relationship

Question 13

Eval - universal tendency

Answer 13

P - strength of attachment theory - explain why people all over world have desire to form parasocial relationships
E - Dinkha et al - two contrasting cultures - collective (Kuwait) and individualist (US)
E - Found people with insecure attachment more likely to form intense parasocial relationships with TV personalities and characters - true in both types of culture - ‘driver’ for forming a parasocial relationship is independent of cultural influences
L - supports view that attachment type may be a universal explanation for the need to form parasocial relationships

P - evidence is not support
E - McCutcheon et al - measured attachment types and celebrity-related attitudes in 299 American participants
E - attachment security not affect likelihood - insecure attachments no more likely
L - shows that parasocial relationships are not necessarily a way of compensating for attachment issues

Question 14

Eval - causation and correlation

Answer 14

P - McCutcheon et al’s study use correlation analysis
E - Does not show causal relationship between variables - cannot conclude anxiety in relationships cause borderline-pathologial parasocial involvement - causal relationship could be in other direction - could also be a third factor not measured in study
E - correlations can be valuable - suggest link between variables even through they don’t demonstrate cases
L - such methods may be only option we have when studying people’s behaviour in everyday lives