Parasocial relationships Flashcards
Definition
Where people have a one-way relationship with someone who doesn’t know they exists. for example, with celebrities.
Levels of parasocial relationships
These relate to increasingly more extreme forms of celebrity worship
Level 1: Entertainment-social
Celebrities are viewed as sources of entertainment and gossip
Level 2: Intense-personal
Feeling a strong personal involvement with the celebrity, thinking about them all the time and seeing them as a soul-mate.
Level 3: Borderline pathological
This is the strongest level of celebrity worship, featuring uncontrollable fantasies and extreme behaviours such as stalking and spending all your money on them.
The absorption-addiction model
- People form parasocial relationships as a consequence of personal deficiencies such as poor psychological adjustment and a lack of fulfilment.
- Such relationships allows an escape from reality as they become more absorbed in someone else’s life.
- They become addicted and this is fed by becoming increasingly more psychologically and physically close to them.
The attachment theory explanation
- Some people form parasocial relationships in adolescence because of attachment difficulties in early childhood.
- insecure resistant are most likely to form these as they need to have unfulfilled needs met, that is not accompanied by the threat of rejection, break up and disappointment.
Evaluation strength: absorption addiction model Maltby et al (2005)
found that adolescent females who has strong parasocial relationship with a female celebrity whose body shape they admired, tended to have a poor body image themselves. (link between poor psychological function and celebrity worship)
Evaluation strength: Maltby et al (2003)
found a link between levels of parasocial relationships and personality type as people in the borderline pathological category has psychotic tendencies.
Evaluation weakness: attachment theory
research found that people with insecure attachments were no more likely to form parasocial relationships with celebrities than secure attachment types.
Evaluation weakness: methodological issues
most studies use self report techniques such as online questionnaires which are subject to social desirability bias.
Evaluation weakness: correlational data
just because there is a link between psychological dysfunction and celebrity worship, doesn’t mean that one causes the other as there may be other factors involved.
