Parasocial Relationships

Question 1

What is a parasocial relationship?

Answer 1

Parasocial relationships are an one sided attraction to a celebrity where the “fan” knows all about the celebrity but the celebrity does not know that the fan exists

Question 2

What ages can parasocial relationships occur at?

Answer 2

Parasocial relationships can occur at any age, but are more common during adolescence

Question 2

Who are men more likely to develop parasocial relationships?
Who are women more likely to develop parasocial relationships?

Answer 2

Men are more likely develop more parasocial relationships with sport personalities and females are more likely to develop parasocial relationships with entertainment celebrities

Question 3

What social class is more likely to develop parasocial relationships?

Answer 3

People with lower levels of education are more likely to develop parasocial relationships with celebrities

Question 4

What is used to measure parasocial relationships and who developed this measure

Answer 4

McCutcheon et al developed the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS) to measure parasocial relationships

Question 5

Who used the measure to identify 3 levels of parasocial relationships?
What were the three levels of parasocial relationships identified?

Answer 5

Maltby et al used the Celebrity Attitude Scale to identify three levels of parasocial relationships:
1* The Entertainment - social level
2* The Intense - personal level
3* The Borderline - psychological level

Question 6

What is the entertainment social level and what does this level involve?

Answer 6

The Entertainment - Social level is the least intense level of celebrity worship and involves viewing celebrities as a source of entertainment, being a point of discussion amongst friends and family

Question 7

What is the intense - personal level and what does this level involve?

Answer 7

The intense - personal level is the intermediate level of celebrity worship, which involves a greater personal involvement characterised by obsessive thoughts and intense feelings. For example spending lots of money to follow a celebrity on tour

Question 7

What is the borderline - pathological level

Answer 7

The borderline - pathological level is the most intense level of celebrity worship. This involves uncontrollable thoughts and extreme behaviours and the person may even attempt to meet the celebrity because they believe that the celebrity will feel the same way if they met in real life

Question 8

What are the two explanations for parasocial relationships?

Answer 8

The absorption addiction model and the attachment theory

Question 9

What does the Absorption Addiction model state?
What are the two components of this model?
Describe and explain each of these components:

Answer 9

The Absorption Addiction model states someone with a personal deficiency in life, such as low self esteem, who also lack fulfilment in everyday relationships, is likely to use celebrities as an escape from reality when faced with personal crisis/successful life event.

The model has two components:
1* Absorption = worshipping celebrities provides the individual with fulfilment and this leads to the individual to focus even more attention to the celebrity and become obsessed

2* Addiction = the individual has the need to “increase their dose” to gain the same level of satisfaction which then leads to extreme behaviours and delusional thinking such as stalking a celebrity

Question 10

Who were the two psychologists from the attachment theory who theorised how attachment plays a role in parasocial relationships?

Answer 10

Bowlby and Ainsworth are the psychologists from the attachment theory who theorise how attachment plays into parasocial relationships

Question 11

What did Bowlby theorise about parasocial relationships, based on his views on attachment?

Answer 11

Bowlby stated attachment issues in early childhood lead to emotional problems as adults and difficulties forming relationships. Such difficulties may lead to preferences to parasocial relationships to replace those within one’s own social circle as parasocial relationships do not require the same social skills

Question 12

What is a strength of explanations for parasocial relationships? (poor body image + parasocial relationships)

Answer 12

Maltby et al found that there was an association between poor body image and parasocial relationships. For example, girls aged 14 to 16, who held poor body image were more likely to report intense - personal parasocial relationships with a female celebrity whose body shape they admired. This supports the predictions of the absorption addiction model

Question 12

What did Ainsworth theorise about parasocial relationships, based on her views on attachment?

Answer 12

Ainsworth stated people with insecure - resistant attachment types are more likely to form parasocial relationships. This is because they have an emotional need for fulfilment and parasocial relationships do not carry the risk of rejection/break ups unlike real life relationships

People like this would become extremely distressed at the thought of separation from those they are attached to. They crave closeness of a relationship but the risk of rejection in real relationship is too high. This is why they are more likely to form parasocial relationships s the risk of being abandoned is eliminated

Question 13

What is a strength of explanations for parasocial relationships? (insecure attachments + individualist/collectivist cultures)

Answer 13

Dinkha et al compared Kuwait (collectivist cultures) to the US (individualist cultures) and found that people with an insecure attachment type were likely to form a parasocial relationship with celebrities or characters from TV shows. This was true of both cultures and acts as support for the attachment theory and shows it has universal application and ecological validity

Question 14

What is a limitation of explanations for parasocial relationships? (no attachment type more likely to form a parasocial relationship)

Answer 14

There is evidence against the attachment theory from McCutheon et al. They measured attachment types and celebrity related attitudes in 299 American ppts and found ppts with insecure attachments were no more likely to form parasocial relationships than ppts with secure attachments

Question 16

What is a limitation of explanations for parasocial relationships? (social - desirability bias + correlational studies)

Answer 16

Much of the research relies on self - report data which may be subject to social - desirability bias as some people will not be honest affecting the reliability and validity of the findings. Also, most of the studies use correlational analysis. Despite strong correlations between celebrty worship and body image causal links cannot be made