Parasocial relationships. Flashcards
What are para-social relationships?
Those which are similar to ‘normal’ relationships but lack one key element: they are one sided, unreciprocated and usually with a celebrity.
- Horton and Wohl (1956) - based around idea that the ‘fan’ knows all about the celebrity and expends a lot of emotional energy, commitment and time on them. But the celebrity doesn’t know the ‘fan’ exists.
Levels of parasocial relationships: 3-step description.
McCutcheon (2002) developed Celebrity Attitude Scale, which was used in large-scale survey by Maltby et al (2006). Identified 3 levels of parasocial relationships:
1) Entertainment-social: least intense level of celebrity worship.
2) Intense-personal: intermediate level which reflects greater personal involvement in parasocial relationship with a celebrity.
3) Borderline pathological: strongest level of celebrity worship, featuring uncontrollable fantasies and extreme behaviours.
Absorption-addiction model.
- McCutcheon (2002) explain tendency to form parasocial relationships in terms of deficiences people have in their own lives.
- Could also have psychological illnesses and parasocial relationships provide a sense of escapism from their reality or way of finding fulfilment they can’t achieve in their actual relationships.
- Someone who initially has entertainment-social orientation to certain celebrity might be triggered into more intense involvement by some personal crisis or stressful live event; model has two components:
1) Absorption: pre-occupied in their existence and identify with them.
2) Addiction: individual needs to sustain their commitment to relationship by feeling stronger and closer involvement with celebrity. Like addiction to a substance.
Strength of absorption-addiction model: research support.
P: One strength of is research support for the absorption-addiction model.
E: Maltby et al linked the entertainment-social level with extravert personality
trait, the intense-personal level with neurotic traits and the borderline pathological level with psychotic personality types.
C: This supports the model because it shows a correlation between the
level of celebrity worship and different/disordered psychological functioning.
The Attachment theory explanation:
- Psychologists suggest there is tendency to form parasocial relationships in adolescence and adulthood because of attachment difficulties in early childhood.
- Bowlby’s attachment theory suggested these early difficulties may lead to emotional troubles later in life.
- Ainsworth (1979) identified 2 attachment types associated with unhealthy emotional development:
1) Insecure-resistant types: most likely to form parasocial relationships as they need to have unfulfilled needs met without threat of rejection, break-up and disappointment.
2) Insecure-avoidant types: prefer to avoid pain and rejection of relationships altogether, whether social or parasocial.
Limitation of attachment theory: research support.
P: One limitation of the link to attachment theory is a lack of research support.
E: Research has shown that participants with insecure attachments were no more likely to form a para-social relationship with celebrities than participants with secure attachment styles.
C: This is a key assumption of the attachment theory and failure to find support for it raises crucial questions about the explanation’s validity and
predictive strength.
Limitation of parasocial relationships: methodological issues.
P: One limitation is that there are methodological issues which limit the validity of the research.
E: Most of the research studies use self-report techniques to collect data.
These can be affected by forms of bias, for example social desirability bias.
Most of the studies also use correlational analysis which does not show cause and effect.
C: This means that there is no evidence to show that para-social relationships are caused by specific experiences.
