Parasocial Relationships Flashcards
What are parasocial relationships?
-One-sided relationships, where one person expends considerable time, interest + energy, although the other person is unaware of their existence.
-Typically develop with TV celebrities, the persuasiveness of mass media such as TV and internet gives viewer the illusion of having a face-to-face relationship with a celebrity.
-This association is so strong that the celebrity becomes a meaningful figure in their life + can produce a much more complex set of responses than just simple attraction.
What are the levels of parasocial relationships?
McCutcheon et al developed celebrity attitude scale used in large scale study by Maltby et al (2006 where they identified 3 levels:
Entertainment Social:
-least intense, celebrities are viewed as sources of entertainment + fuel for social interaction.
Intense-Social:
-intermediate level, reflects a greater personal involvement in a parasocial relationship with a celebrity.
Borderline-Pathological:
-strongest level, features uncontrollable fantasies + extreme behaviours.
What is the absorption-addiction model?
-McCutcheon explains the tendency to form parasocial relationships in terms of deficiencies people have in their own life.
-e.g. may have weak sense of self-identity + lack of fulfilment.
-These relationships allow them to ‘escape from reality’.
-Someone who initially has an entertainment-social orientation to a certain celebrity may be triggered into a more intense involvement by a personal crisis or stressful event.
-Absoption = seeking fulfilment motivates the individual to focus their attention on the celebrity to become in their existence + identify with them.
-Addiction = the individual needs to sustain their commitment by feeling a stronger + closer involvement, which may lead to more extreme behaviours + delusional thinking.
What are 2 strengths of the absorption-addiction model?
Research support from Maltby:
-Maltby et al investigated link between celebrity worship + body image in males + females aged 14-16.
-Females reported intense-personal parasocial relationship with female celebrity whose body shape they admired - found these female adolescents tended to have poor body image + speculates this link may be a precursor of development of eating disorders.
Support model as confirm prediction of correlation between level and poor psychological functioning.
Model links to mental health:
-Maltby et al (2003) used Eyesenick Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) to assess relationship between parasocial level and personality.
-Found entertainment-social linked with extroversion, intense personal with neuroticism (links to anxiety + depression).
-Provides clear explanation of why higher levels of parasocial relationships are associated with poorer mental health.
-Maltby et al suggested future research might explore implications of a reported connection between borderline-pathological level and psychoticism as measured by EPQ.
What is the attachment-theory?
-Various psychologists have suggested there is a tendency to form parasocial in adolescence + adulthood because of attachment difficulties in early childhood.
-Bowlby’s attachment theory suggested early difficulties may lead to emotional troubles later in life.
-Mary Ainsworth identified attachment types associated with unhealthy emotional development - insecure resistant + insecure avoidant.
-Insecure resistant more likely to form these as adults as have unfulfilled needs, in real life relationships there is fear of rejection, break up and disappointment.
-Insecure avoidant prefer to avoid pain + rejection altogether.
What is a strength of the attachment theory?
Loss of parasocial relationships is linked to attachment style:
-Israeli study (Cohen 2004) lends support to claim viewers would show same negative response to loss of parasocial as they would to a real one.
-Sample 381 adults completed questionnaires including about relationship with TV characters, how they would react if took off air and attachment styles.
-Those expecting to lose favourite characters anticipated negative reactions similar to those experienced after loss of close personal relationships.
Reactions related both to intensity of parasocial relationship with favourite character and to attachment style - anxious-ambivalent anticipated most negative responses.
What is a limitation of the attachment theory?
Challenges from Research Studies:
-McCutcheon et al - hypothesis that adults who reported insecure childhood attachment with parents would form stronger attachments to celebrities.
-Sample 299 students completed several measurements including Celebrity Attitudes Scale + relationship questionnaire to measure attachment style.
-Found no relation between attachment style and attachment to celebrities, however insecurely attached were more likely to condone stalking type behaviours.
Findings fail to support a central prediction of attachment theory, raising serious doubts of validity.
