Parasocial relationships

Question 1

What is a parasocial relationship?

Answer 1

• A one sided, unreciprocated relationship where one of the partners is unaware that it exists (EG: Fan and celeb)

Question 2

What are the three levels of a parasocial relationship?

Answer 2

• Entertainment social > least intense, celebs are used as a source of entertainment and a fuel or social interaction
• Intense-personal > may have frequent obsessive thoughts/intense feelings, may even consider them a soulmate
• Bordeline pathological > uncontrollable fantasies and extreme behaviours, including spending a large sum of money on a celebrity related object, or performing some illegal act on the celebrity’s say-so

Question 3

Why do parasocial relationships become more intense according to the absorption-addiction model?

Answer 3

• A person may have low self-esteem and lack fulfillment in their everyday relationship so they may be triggered into a more intense involvement by some personal crisis/stressful life event\

Question 4

What is the absorption-addiction model?

Answer 4

• Absorbtion > seeking fulfillment in celebrity worship motivates an individual to focus their attention as far as possible on the celebrity
• Addiction > they need to increase ‘dose’ in order to gain satisfaction, may lead to more extreme behaviours and delusional thinking

Question 5

What is the internal working model?

Answer 5

• A mental representation of a relationship with our primary caregiver that becomes a template for future relationships

Question 6

How does an insecure attachment lead to unhealthy emotional development?

Answer 6

• Those who are insecure-resistant seek unfulfilled needs met but in a relationship not accompanied by threat of rejection, breakup and disappointment that real life relationships bring
• Those who are insecure-avoidant avoid the pain and rejection of relationships altogether, whether they are social or parasocial

Question 7

Parasocial relationships: Research support

Answer 7

• McCutcheon et al. (2016) used the CAS to measure level of parasocial relationships.
• They also assessed participants’ problems in their intimate relationships. Participants who scored as borderline-pathological or intense-personal tended to experience a high degree of anxiety in their intimate relationships. People at the entertainment-social level generally did not (although even this level was associated with other relationship problems).
• This suggests that ‘celebrity-worshippers’ can usefully be classified into three categories and that these are predictive of actual behaviour.

Question 8

Parasocial relationships: Research support

Answer 8

• One strength of the model is research showing a link between celebrity worship and body image.
• The addiction-absorption model suggests that a deficiency in a person’s life (such as poor body image) would predispose them to forming parasocial relationships. In one study, John Maltby et al. (2005) assessed boys and girls aged 14 to 16 years. The researchers were particularly interested in girls who reported an intense-personal parasocial relationship with an adult female celebrity whose body shape they admired. They found that the girls tended to have a poor body image.
• They speculated that this may contribute to the development of an eating disorder.
• This supports the model’s prediction of an association between poor psychological functioning and the level (type and intensity) of parasocial relationship.

Question 9

Parasocial relationships: Universality

Answer 9

• Can explain why people all over the world have a desire to form parasocial relationships.
• Juliet Dinkha et al. (2015) compared two contrasting cultures - a collectivist one (applies to Kuwait) and an individualist one (applies to the US). The researchers found that people with an insecure attachment type were the most likely to form intense parasocial relationships with TV personalities and characters (e.g. Rachel from Friends).
• This was true in both types of culture. In other words the ‘driver’ for forming a parasocial relationship is independent of cultural influences.
• This supports the view that attachment type may be a universal explanation for the need to form parasocial relationships.

Question 10

Parasocial relationships: Social desirability bias

Answer 10

• Research into PRs uses self-reporting methods which means that it may suffer from social desirability bias
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