Parasocial relationships Flashcards
introduction
• Parasocial relationship
Para = resembling
Parasocial relationship = similar to normal relationship but lacking in one element
Reciprocity
Usually occurs with a celebrity
Parasocial relationships are those attachments in which the ‘fan’ knows all about the celebrity, but the celebrity doesn’t even know the fan exists.
It’s not just celebrities - could also be teams, fictional characters, brands and organisations.
Could even be someone in the community.
levels of parasocial scale
• McCutcheon et al. (2002)
• Celebrity Attitude Scale - used by Maltby et al. (2006)
• Three levels of parasocial relationship describing ever more extreme levels of obsession.
Entertainment-Social
-Least intense level of worship; celebs are sources of entertainment and social interaction.
Intense - Personal
• Greater personal involvement; obsessive thoughts and intense feelings
Borderline - Pathological
-Strongest level of worship; uncontrollable fantasies and extreme behaviours; spending money; completing illegal acts on the behalf of the celeb.
the absorption addiction model
• McCutcheon (2002)
• Deficiencies in their own lives
• E.g. A low sense of self-identity → lack fulfilment
• Otherwise poorly adjusted → parasocial relationships allow escape / a way of finding fulfilment.
• Linked to the levels of relationship.
Somebody who starts as a entertainment-social level could be triggered into a more intense level by some crisis.
• Absorption
• Seeking fulfilment in celebrity worship motivates the individual to focus their attention as far as possible on the individual.
• Addiction
Individual needs to sustain their commitment by feeling a stronger and closer involvement → more extreme behaviours and delusional thinking.
the attachment theory explanation
• Parasocial relationships form in childhood/adolescence.
Attachment difficulties in childhood
• Bowlby’s theory - such early difficulties lead to later troubles
• Insecure-resistant and insecure-avoidant
• Insecure-Resistant
Will form parasocial relationship due to unfulfilled needs having to be met
• Without the accompanied rejection, break-up and disappointment
口
Insecure-Avoidant
• Prefer to avoid the pain and rejection of relationship altogether.
strength-research support for absorption addiction model
There is support for the predictions of the absorption addiction model.
Maltby (2003) linked types of personality 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.
Further to this, Maltby et al. (2005) measured the relationship between celebrity worship and body image in teenagers and found that young girls who were at the intense- personal level tended to have a poor body image, especially if they particularly admired a celebrity’s physical appearance.
Both studies support the model because they confirm the prediction of a correlation between the level of celebrity worship and poor psychological functioning.
limitation-lack of support for attachment explanations
There is a lack of support for attachment theory explanations.
McCutcheon et al. (2006) examined the correlation between attachment type and celebrity worship levels using 229 participants.
No link between insecure-resistant attachment and more intense levels of parasocial relationships was found.
This contradicts the claim made by attachment theory explanations and suggests that there is no link between attachment type and parasocial relationships.
methodological limitations
Methodologically, there are also weaknesses 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.
Furthermore, most research into celebrity worship/parasocial relationships is correlational. This means that cause and effect cannot be clearly established, lowering the scientific explanatory power. For example, while a significant correlation was found between poor body image and intensive celebrity worship in teenage girls (Malby et al., 2005), this does not mean, that intense celebrity worship causes poor body image. It may as well be that girls who already have a poor body image tend to engage in a more intensive level of parasocial relationships to enhance their self-esteem.
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.
strength-issues and debates
Despite some weaknesses, research into celebrity worship seems to be describing a universal phenomenon.
For example, Schmid and Klimmt (2011) studied levels of parasocial relationships with characters from the Harry Potter books in different cultures, and found similar levels of worship in Germany (individualist culture) and Mexico (collectivist culture).
This suggests that the absorption-addiction model is universally applicable across a variety of cultures and does not seem to suffer from culture bias.
The finding tells us that the need to form parasocial relationships may be a universal (or at least very widespread) feature of human behaviour. It may even be innate, or at least tap into an innate relationship-formation mechanism, and have a genetic or evolutionary basis.
